Pankaj

Very nice. How are your skies in terms of bortle rating? Try working on photoshop. I work on Lightroom...mainly doing hit & trial and learning from own experience. This is my attempt. Capture details are mentioned on the photo.

I FACE THIS PROBLEM TOO and posted similar query. people said its walking noise.

Hi. I have always experienced that the background of the image depends on the sky darkness, exposure time and ISO settings. If I am photographing from a dark location, anything above 800 ISO starts meddling with the background of of photos. This I guess normally happens with a dslr. I am also just an amateur and sharing my experience. Maybe more experienced people on this website can tell whether or not I am correct. 

This image is simply ''out of this world''!! Great shot.

beautiful shot !

To add +++

I suggest you start with a DSLR. Learn and hone your skills on PA which is absolutely necessary for AP. Then upgrade to cooled cameras.

1 hour ago, Worthy1973 said:

I am led to believe that it is hard to focus a DSLR with a Newtonian.

Do you think it might be worth investing in a EQ3 pro mount and using my DSLR?

I am literally just starting out, so not looking to make too many costly mistakes (like purchasing the Alt/

 

There is no issue in getting the right focus if you are doing prime focus AP. I use a DSLR with SW 130PDS. It works perfectly well.

Regarding mount - if you are interested in AP then polar aligning is a must. So you must invest in a mount which is equipped with a good polar scope in its body. This mount will further prove the right investment because of its load bearing capacity. Tomorrow you start guiding. That means additional load on mount. If you take an EQ3 right now then you may have to think upgrading at that moment. When I started with AP, I saved some additional money and bought a NEQ6 Pro. And I pat my back for that decision. 

LOVELY IMAGE. CAN YOU SHARE CAPTURE DETAILS AND EQUIPMENT USED.

3 hours ago, Neil H said:

Thank you I just read that , I am finding it hard going at the moment due to not be able to see Polaris to align properly . Then not getting focus so I can set up finder scope I the day time , I won't give up 

Hi. Its a hobby worth this pain. Don't give up buddy. Once you learn how to operate things, it'll be rewarding. I had to go through the same when i got my neq6 pro. Kneeling on my knees trying to find the polaris in polar scope, then doing the PA. Gosh, it use to take me hours. Today I do this within minutes and that too quite precisely.

Super shot. Thousand times better than what I got with my dslr on 13pds, last year.

Super ! Can you please share capture details and the equipment used.

YES for your first 2 queries and a NO for the third one. PA is first step towards using tracking GOTO mounts. And its a very simple process too. There are many tutorials on how to PA.  

On 08/02/2020 at 22:08, Stub Mandrel said:

Received wisdom is that it is caused by lack of dither.

Personally I can't see how fixed noise can become streaks when I'm guiding and the image drift over a session is far less than the length of a streak...

My pet theory is that it is associated with very thin cloud and it follows the wind direction.

I share that thought too...

8 hours ago, wimvb said:

It doesn't have to be random. Before I started using guiding, I dithered manually. Worked absolutely fine. 

@Pankaj: here's my recipe.

set the slewrate to 1x sidereal. After image 1, press the dec+ button for about as many seconds as your pixelscale (minimum of 1 second). This will give you a dither distance of 15 pixels. Let's call this one dither step. 

Take image 2. Then press ra+ for one dither step. 

Take image 3. After that press dec- for one dither step

Repeat the same after image 4 (dec-) 

Take image 5. Press ra- for one dither step.

Repeat efter image 6 (ra-) 

After images 7, 8, 9 each, dither in dec+

After images 10, 11, 12 each, dither ra+

After images 13, 14, 15, 16 each, dither one step in dec-

After 17, 28, 19, 20 each, one step in ra-

Etc. 

This will give you an outward spiraling dither pattern. Been there, done that, used a cheat sheet, and was never bothered by walking noise again. This will even work if you have a (moderate) backlash in dec. 

If you get tired of doing this manually, and you're not afraid of some diy, here's the automated version

 

That's an awesome solution indeed. I will try the manual version in the next imaging session surely. Are you doing any selling for this ditherbox you created ?

Hi Sunshine. I use a 130PDS on NEQ6 PRO for unguided AP. Its a very good scope for AP but for visual observations I use a 10" Dob. Cant say about Vixen GP, as I have never used it. There is a thread on ''Imaging with 130 PDS'' on this site. I recommend you read that too.

3 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

I think you can do that but it won't be random. Backyard EOS software gives you the option to dither while not guiding with a DSLR, not sure about APT.

Thanks a ton for the suggestion. I did use Backyard EOS couple of time earlier but never know dithering is an option there. But tell me, how would the mount move if imaging canon camera is connected to laptop and using backyard eos? I mean, its just the camera which is connected to backyard eos, not the mount. So how would dithering happen ? Excuse me if my question seems ridiculous...I am new to imaging...

3 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

it's called walking noise. You need to dither to get rid of it. It happens when you have a slight drift in one direction and becomes apparent in the stacked image.

Can I do dithering manually, since I do not guide. That means, can I simply slew the mount using the synscan ''just little bit'' between each sub ?

I fail to understand why do I get kind of ''drag'' lines in every image above. Any suggestion on the same ? 

Thanks for the suggestion Phillips. Just posted as per your suggestion.

Hi Everyone. Posting some images taken by me through the 130 PDS. Taken from Brtle 3 skies of a small hamlet in the Himalayas called Kausani. All photos were shot without any guiding help hence with limited exposure time. The capture details are mentioned on the photos itself. I am not very hands on with post processing so I simple stack the subs in DSS and later do some post processing in Lightroom only before stamping the details in Picasa.

Hi Everyone. Recently went to a remote hill station in the Himalayas. This small hamlet is known as Kausani and has beautiful Bortle 3 skies at an altitude of about 7000 feet above sea level. Tried taking some pictures, with whatever limited experience I have in AP. I do not know much about post processing and simply stack the images in DSS and process in Lightroom. Also, these photos were shot using limited exposure time as I am not very hands on with guiding on PHD2. 

Hi all. I hv just finished imaging m 45 at 50 sec, iso 800 along with its darks at 50sec and iso 800 and bias frames at 1/4000, iso 800. After this I started session for m42 immediately. The capture settings of light frames is similar to previous session I.e. 50 sec, iso 800. Do I need to take the darks and biased frames again or can I use the ones I took for m45, since the temperature remains the same. Urgent advice needed

Lovely image. Can you please share the details...equipment, exposure etc... 

I would say the same. Mount is everything in AP. Invest in it carefully. In my opinion, nothing less than an Neq6 if you have tight budgets. Its has sufficient weight capacity so you will be able to use a range of scope on it.