FenlandPaul

I have both the 1000D (stock) and 450D (Astro-modded). Both great little performers but for my money the 450D has been the better one. Noise is well contained at ISO800, especially if you do darks. Im fairly new to all of this so I’m sure the considerable experience on here will help you!

To be honest, I'm fairly nervous posting in this section because the quality of images is fantastic! I don't really have a proper deep sky rig, and my usual interest is in widefield and nightscapes. But as I have a tracker and a small frac, last night I thought I'd have a go at M101. I was fairly pleased with how the galaxy came out, and the fact that many of the surrounding galaxies are also visible. But I'm not so keen on the bloated stars, which is something I've often struggled with. Anyway, here are the details: 345x 30s subs (172.5 minutes total) 61x darks and 62x flats Astro-modded Canon 450D Altair Astro Starwave 70ED (420mm f/l) Skywatcher StarAdventurer Stacked in DSS and cropped and processed in Photoshop. Would always welcome hints and tips on how I can get more out of a simple setup like this. Thanks! 😊

I bought mine through TecoBuy last year. I’ll admit I was nervous, but ultimately I received a great lens after a few weeks, with reasonable tracking while it was en route, and with no hidden charges / customs etc. So I’ve had a great experience. I believe they’re shipped from Hong Kong. Since Brexit, I’ve had two lenses delivered used from other countries, and been hit both times with taxes. 🤦‍♂️

Cracking image - love it. You've brought out the depth of "muckiness" in that region really well (something I tried to do a few weeks ago with exactly the same kit), but haven't got close to your level of detail).

Super image - looks like with skies like that and your latitude, as well as some great locations, you’ll have some fantastic images ahead of you!

Great lens for that sort of work - I enjoyed that, thank you!

Lovely - lots going on in that part of the sky! Glad I’m not the only one whose dithering comprises simply dodgy tracking!

This little fella tumbled very slowly through 13 minutes' worth of my subs on the Hyades a few nights ago. First time I've made an animation out of this sort of thing. I was surprised at how slowly it was moving (and a little annoyed, if I'm honest 😂).

Great framing and a super image! You can join the club on ruined subs due to houses / trees etc. I also recently took all my flats with the lens cap still on 🤦‍♂️

Great colours. 👍

Nice to get the Hyades in there as well! 👍

Thank you Mark.

With the next couple of weeks looking to be dogged with cloud, I decided to capture Mars and Pleiades while I still could. I had about window of about an hour before moonlight started to get intrusive, and even then I was fighting with gradients (hence quite a tight crop for 135mm). But I'm pleased with the result and the gorgeous colour contrast of these two. Canon 6D with Samyang 135mm at f/2.8, 77x 60s subs with darks and flats at ISO800 on a StarAdventurer Pro. Stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop. Feedback, hints and tips welcome as always!! ☺ 20210228 Mars and Pleiades edit 1.tif

No - I only paid what was quoted - no other charges. This was before Brexit, so not entirely sure on whether that would change things. In my experience the prices were very good indeed. Very recently, however, I bought a lens from a fellow forum member in Germany and was charged import VAT by the carrier. Nothing the seller could have foreseen, but just saying for transparency.

Hi Richie, I purchase mine in October from a company called Tecobuy, who I think ship from Hong Kong. It cost £328.99 It took about 3 weeks to arrive I believe. Mine has been a good example, and I don’t know how I would have fared if I had problems with it. Online you’ll see mixed reviews on product quality and customer service, but they’re undeniably the cheapest place to buy new. I did well with them, and am considering going back for a 24mm f/1.4 If you’re prepared to take what may be a bit of a risk, it’s great value for money. But proceed with a level of caution.

Eureka!! Mostly I use fully manual lenses (e.g. Samyang) so hadn’t realised that - now all makes sense, and turns out I was shooting at f/3.5 (bit embarasssing!!). Thank you. That opens up (no pun intended) a lot of possibilities!

Thank you - great tip. So it’s the subs that are blown out rather than the processing then. *looks at tonight’s forecast 🧐* So I may be wrong on this new (used) 200mm lens, but I can see no way to stop down the aperture with an inbuilt diaphragm - please tell me I’m being incredibly stupid and missing something!!

Thank you. It's a fixed aperture lens (which I hadn't actually appreciated before acquiring it!), so it was at f/2.8. I'm actually ok with a level of diffraction spike (long-time Newtonian user!) but these are maybe a bit "busy" - I haven't really decided yet what I think of them.

And here's the final flattened TIFF file (for those who like to explore at high res). 20210210 Orion Nebula (Final - flattened).tif

I recently acquired a Canon EF 200mm f/2.8 lens from a fellow SGLer and, incredibly, the night after it arrived was stunningly clear and it was a new moon. So it was great to give it a go on the Orion Nebula with my modded Canon EOS 450D mounted on a Star Adventurer. I took 178x 30s subs at ISO800 and stacked the best 90% in DSS with darks and flats. Processed in Photoshop. Clearly the central region is blown out, something that I struggled to control in processing and it might benefit from blending with some shorter subs (bit beyond me at the moment, that!). I wish I'd framed it a bit better to get the Flame, but I was keen to centre the main nebula to counter any dodgy polar alignment. Maybe next time. Anyway, keen for any hints, tips etc please!

Great stuff Geof and you’re welcome. You’re correct that if you’re using a tracker then the foreground would blur anyway (sorry, I’d missed that) but it’s amazing what you scan do with shorter exposures at high ISO and some stacking to reduce noise. It’s not tracked-exposure depth and quality, but it’s still remarkable and with the added benefit that you don’t have to lug your SA to that lovely landscape site!! All the best with it!

As it happens, there was a good tutorial video posted about it a few days ago. Or I highly recommend this guy, who also explains it well (plus his pictures are absolutely stunning!).

I’ve been super-impressed with this lens. Here’s a couple of images with a modified Canon 450D (Orion) and Canon 6D (Pleiades) over the last few weeks. I’m not very experienced in deep sky (although long-time observer) but I found the Samyang a delight and very forgiving to use.

It’s a free stacking software so it helps with signal-to-noise. But its greatest feature is that you can simply mask the sky (you colour it in with you mouse) and can “freeze” the ground so that you don’t end up with blurred foreground. It has the capacity to load dark and flat frames in it as well. I find it very simple and intuitive. I use it in almost all of my starscape images, like the one below.

That combo shows a lot of potential based on those single frames! As soon as you get stacking, with maybe some foreground interest, in something like Sequator you’ll be away! Wide field DSLR suits my tastes very well, and has the advantage of being more forgiving on processing precision (in my opinion) - I suspect I’d be a bit hamfisted with good quality cooled camera data!