FenlandPaul

I’ve been playing with the DSLR a lot more recently and scouting out local landmarks (in the very flat Fens - not easy to come by!) to act as foregrounds to images.  I can get Over Church in Cambridgeshire in the foreground at azimuth from about 075 to 120, so it will hopefully be useful for some shots of objects rising.  Not quiet for the Pleiades, unfortunately!

Anyway, here are some images from a time lapse I’m putting together of last night’s Moon and Mars rise.  Shot with a Canon EOS 1000D and an ancient Vivitar 200mm at about f/4 (I think!) at ISO200 and 0.8s exposure.  Some light cropping  and dabbling in Lightroom.  Still new to this, but enjoying the chase!! 😃

11 hours ago, dexter77 said:

This mount has two versions, one with black aluminum tripod and other with heavy steel tripod. Version with steel tripod is really great, I have one.
SW AZ5 mount head is also really good, better than old version of AZ5 which was bad construction.

Steel version:

Now THAT’s a proper tripod! Wish I’d gone for that!!

On 04/08/2017 at 17:57, FenlandPaul said:

I think it will be adequate for smaller scopes, John (I tried my Starwave 70 on it today), but I agree there would be too much flex for a bigger scope.  The advantage is that it collapses down quite tightly, more so than the SW aluminium legs, although I have both so will be able to do a side by side.  I know it's a pathetic reason, but the sound the SW aluminium tripods make when you extend the legs really grates on me!!

One other (trivial) observation about the tripod and extension is that the colours look great with the head.  It was a very aesthetically pleasing mount, which of course will really matter when I'm out at night!

Paul

This thread had popped back into use and I wondered why I’d tagged it, noting the comment above.  I can add to this now. The standard tripod is, in my opinion, one of SkyWatcher’s worst products.  Flimsy, prone to parts breaking and the twist-locks for the legs are infuriatingly prone to just spinning rather than unlocking the legs.  

The AZ5 is a great little mount, but it is badly let down by its tripod.  

Super read and great pics. The night of NeoWise with the NLC was one of the most memorable astronomical evenings of my life. The sky was just kicking off all over the place!!

Love this! Time lapse is something I’m having a lot of fun with right now.

The “rule of 400” is a great starting point. Keep your exposure to no longer than 400 divided by the focal length you’re using to avoid star trails. You could even push it to 500 for higher declination targets.

And worth getting to the darkest site you can.

Enjoy!!

I think that’s such a good question.  Like many, I work quite long hours, have a youngish family and other responsibilities elsewhere.  Ultimately my life is more complete for all of those things including astronomy, so it’s all about balance.  The stars won’t be going anywhere.  I used to feel guilty for not going out when it was a clear, moonless night -I would be torn between going out and enjoying things, and not getting overtired for family and work. But I’ve come to realise that it’s ok - this is a hobby, for enjoyment, and I should just go out when I feel I’m able to.  Since deciding on that I’ve had much more relaxing and enjoyable observing sessions.

All that said, I was out several nights on the trot recently for NEOWISE during my busiest time of year for work, so I found the short term answer was just more coffee!! 😂

I keep getting prompted to upgrade from the SkySafari 4+ version I’m using.  Does anyone know what the 6-series has over the 4, which, by the way, I think is brilliant and a fine complement to using Interstellarum in the field.

This is my first ever time posting in the imaging section, so a little nervous, but I’ve recently been enjoying some time playing with my DSLR.  Neowise couldn’t have come at a better time for that!!  Here’s a handful of shots from Friday and Sunday nights, the former just capturing the NLC that brightened considerably over the following half hour, and the latter showing the comet’s reflection in a lake not far from home.  I’ve also attached an attempt at a panning timelapse using the StarAdventurer mount set at 90 degrees latitude and at 6x rotation speed.  Hope you enjoy!! Not a patch on the output from more seasoned folks here, but these pictures will, like my Hale Bopp shots from long ago, be treasured memories of some spectacular nights. 😃

It was stunning here in Cambridgeshire for about an hour, starting rally early at 10pm (I’d set up to photograph the moonrise).  Looked to the north and they were already very bright and quite high -  maybe up to about 40 degrees altitude.  Couldn’t believe how they shone through the twilight with ease.  But within an hour, they’d died down and the real cloud had come rolling in.

51 minutes ago, Kluson said:

Good luck, please let me know how you get on with the Star Adventurer

Of course!  Managed to get out last night with it for a couple of hours, with a DSLR and 135mm / 200mm lenses.  Observations so far:

• The instruction manual could do with a proper proof read and sense check!! 🙄
• It’s a nice solid unit - well built and with controls in sensible places, with a nice level of red illumination at night.  The only thing I was disappointed with was the design of the illuminator for the polar scope, which basically means you have to unscrew the cap completely to turn it off - necessitating messing around with fiddly batteries and trying not to drop / lose them (fine at this time of year but in the winter that’ll get annoying!).
• I’ve attached mine to the lightweight skywatcher tripod that came with my AZ5.  Initially I had it on the little extension pillar that comes as standard I think with that tripod.  The tripod is bordering on hopeless - very wobbly when handled - but once I’d removed the extension pillar it has was robust enough for a dslr and heavy lens.  I operate the dslr remotely so don’t need to handle it much. 
• The whole arrangement felt a lot less secure when I attached my 70ed, star diagonal and Nagler eyepiece to do so some solar work yesterday.  Touching the focusser would cause vibrations that lasted a while, but it was just about tolerable.  It felt the whole arrangement was more strained, but I’ve not used it in anger with the camera and scope in tandem yet, so might be fine. It easily kept the sun at x45 dead centre for 5 minutes or more using the solar tracking speed and a general “point north” rather than polar align.
• Under the stars with the dslr it was a dream.  Polar aligning (rough) was simple, the dslr felt sturdily held and it just did exactly what it said.  I managed 60 second subs with the 200mm lens and they stacked with no problems, but didn’t try any longer.  Interested how long I can do.
• Output from the evening was these two pictures of Lyra and Corona Borealis with the 135mm lens, with subs of 30 seconds each (I think for Lyra I stacked about 8 of them, from memory).  As a complete newcomer to imaging, I’m excited where this might go - these won’t win any competitions, but they’ve definitely encouraged me that I can do this with some practice and patience!!
• One thing I do need to do is order a ball head for the dslr.  In its native form, the Star Adventurer doesn’t allow you to alter the orientation of the frame - you just get whatever it spits out!  So a ball head will solve this.  Wouldn’t be a problem with my 70ed as the focusser can be rotated.

Definitely glad I bought it. 😃

15 hours ago, Kluson said:

So it's your fault. 🙂  I would be very interested to hear how you get on with your new purchase. I was thinking to get one of those 🙂  If you would be kind enough to let me know how you get on with it, I would be very grateful. What Camera are you going to mount on it?

Thank you. I have two Canon EOSs (an unmodified 1000D and a modified 450D without the IR filter), my little Altair Starwave 70ed frac and a small collection of old Vivitar lenses.  So that’s my starting line-up, but I’ll see how I get on!!

Not a thread I’ve contributed to before, but this arrived for me today: 

unfortunately accompanied by this:

Up until recently I’ve been a purely visual observer, but I’ve had some fun of late with a DSLR and some prime focus work on my two (Undriven) scopes, so this felt like a natural next step.

Fantastic progress!!! Looking forward to seeing the end result with kit installed. 

On 07/06/2020 at 18:31, mdstuart said:

 

All this is tough for a non practical person but I am getting there.

 

You seem to be getting on just fine, Mark.  But I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels a little under-skilled in the presence of some of the engineering genius on here!!

I had an ST150 for a while, Martin (one that’s done the rounds on SGL actually!).  I did have a bit of a soft spot for it.  On open clusters and the star fields of the Milky Way, it was quite hard to beat for all round relaxed viewing pleasure.  I seem to remember good colours on things that weren’t too bright - never had a lovelier view of Uranus’ colour.

Need a decent mount though.  I had it for a while on an AZ4 and it was very much on (or beyond) it’s limit.  

15 minutes ago, barkis said:

Well I've registered and Zoom is installed on my Smartphone. Looking forward to Steve's presentation. I was informed I should type in an eleven digit number after the installation, but does that mean to access the meeting. I'm a bit puzzled by that, I may have it wrong, Perhaps that was intended for a pretend meeting.

Ron.

Hi Ron, the 11 digit number is usually embedded in the link so when the details are published later it should take you straight to the meeting.

link to meeting here

👏👏 for setting this up.  Super idea.

Nice selection, Iain.  Whilst in Monoceros I love to take a look at Hubble’s Variable Nebula, NGC 2261.  Exciting to see if there’s any discernible change from the last observation, although as my drawing is so poor it’s fairly hard to tell!!

I always wonder how this didn’t make it into the Messier catalogue given just how bright and comet-like it is.

My wife kindly bought me volume 7 of this (and there’s an identically sized, as-yet-unwrapped pressie that I suspect is volume 6):

I’ve been enjoying collecting this series, but I’m a little worried about the pace of release at the moment!!  Lots of my favourite constellations seems to be in the back three-quarters of the alphabet...

Amazing! Two of my favourite things brought together in one thread! 👍 🔭 🍺 

Great to hear, Piero.  Sounds like the fans made a big difference; I’ve never used mine, but I wonder whether it might be worth plugging them in.

How did you find the Antares? 

I’m up north this weekend so unfortunately missed the clear (and finally dark!) skies!

16 minutes ago, John said:

"Astro corner" - I have a couple of those around the house

Lovely setup Piero - looks super in that "natural wood" finish

Just a couple?! I try to keep mine restricted to my study and shed, but work has to take priority in the study so it often spills over, which rarely goes down well.

@Pieroglad you had a good session; it was wonderfully clear through the night. I was hoping for a repeat tonight but looking unlikely. 

Congrats from a fellow VX12L owner / lover 😍😍😍.

On 30/06/2019 at 10:09, FenlandPaul said:

Ah, that’s the Versascope out of your shortlist then because it has a 0.965mm eyepiece so not really interchangeable unless you start investing in a different barrel size! 

 

Sorry everyone I realised my comment about 0.965” eyepieces in the Versascope is wrong. It takes 1.25” eyepieces.

You just can’t get the staff nowadays, can you? 🙄