jimbo747

On 24/02/2019 at 21:15, Space Oddities said:

Finally some clear skies here in Bavaria! I wanted to test my new Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi and see what it can do with deep-sky imaging. I'm quite pleased with the result, considering it's a quick & dirty test!  

 

Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi, Fujifilm X-T1, Pentax Super Takumar 200mm f/4 (stopped down @ 37mm), IDAS LPS D1.

About 50x30s subs @ISO 1600 et ISO 800, no dark, no flat. Stacked in DSS, processing in Photoshop. I cropped about 50% of the image to get rid of the heavy vignetting. 

Here's a pic of my tiny setup! The courtyard of my building isn't so bad, actually, and there's almost no light coming from the street. Apart from when someone goes to the trash, in which case it's the apocalypse. I think a couple neighbours wondered why there's a dude hiding in the bushes with a camera at night...

 

I've just bought that exact lens for £40 off ebay, yet to try it out but that image is fantastic! I'll be using mine with a cheapo SLT mount and inferior 1300d (which I'll be modding) but 30s at that focal length should be do-able. I've seen a few posts where shooting at f/4 isn't that great and you don't like the resulting stars (I love diffraction spikes personally  ). Was there much CA to deal with in processing?

6 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

Cheated a bit on this . I used a healing tool for the core in free photo shop app on android.  It was blinding.  28 30 second exposures , 20 darks and flats.  Wo72mm megrez,  asi294mc, nexstar evolution  mount  . Stacked and stretched in sharpcap,  tweaked in gimp and photoshop  express. 

Superb. Wouldn't look out of place on the 'proper' imaging forum. Give it a few years and I really think cameras will be sensitive enough to mean an EQ mount isn't required.

On 11/02/2019 at 22:42, Grogfish said:

Last year I started experimenting with using a 200mm M42 lens piggybacked (well actually side-backed) on to my Nexstar 4SE to give a larger field of view through the GPCAM IMX224. I'm still early on the curve, but finally feel confident enough to share, especially as last night was suddenly a clear sky, and very welcome it was too.

So please see M31 (59x16s subs, 14x8s darks) and NGC2244 Rosette Nebula (166x15s subs, 14x8s darks) taken last night. Oh yes, and just to confirm the Nexstar was running Alt-Az! All processed using DSS followed by GIMP for some stretching. Frankly I think my GIMP work could use some more practice!

It's only when you give it a go that you realise just how much hard work goes in to even getting a half-decent image... The pictures you all take are amazing!

 

Well, clear skies to all.

How did you connect the camera to the lens, and then the whole assembly to the scope? (Sorry to go OT, I used to attach my DSLR using rings to my 127slt but it's too heavy for the mount.

Apologies to anyone in Derbyshire. Since my starsense arrived 2 weeks ago there hasn't been a single clear night, it's still on the box in fact.

I'm off out Friday, so of course it's forecast to be crystal 

Can't get behind the scope to align by sight, need to use a combination of the dSLR to find a bright star, finder scope with webcam to get closer and then with APT and sharpcap try and get a star bang in the middle of the 224mc tp get goto spot on- not easy to do with a 2.5 Barlow on a slow scope when the 224mc, ps3 eye cam and 1100d don't exactly line up.

Decided to do what i normally do when i have a problem, chuck money at it.

Got a starsense and Bluetooth serial adapter arriving Monday, just in time for a fortnight of cloud. (They both on Amazon which swung it for me and massively cheaper than elsewhere, there's one starsense left in stock now @£269). Probably have to get skysafari now.

Seething. Raging even. 

Last night I decided to properly sort my scope out, focused the mak with barlow and 224mc ready for some jupiter shots, attached the IR and UV cut to my 1100d, perfect focus at 10-12 degrees, spot on alightment, set scope to park, connected via my remote intel nuc in my mini observatory ready for tonight.

Moon looks good, jupiter now above houses, will see orion, lovely calm night, best one this year. Turn on mount, get laptop and a glass of wine and boot up teamviewer... no connection. Try another laptop and same...

Just read as of 10 minutes ago teamviewer down for 8 hours of maintenance!!! Just my nonefamilyfriendlyword-ing luck!!!

Remote desktop not setup. None of the software setup on my laptop and I'd have to do another alignment which is a pain to do without line of sight (took an hour last night). I just wanted to use the 224mc and modified dslr for the first time, and the Gods are laughing at me. 

If something happens tomorrow night, theres a free keter max storage box, raspberry pi with linear actuator, SLT mount, 127 mak, 1100d, asi 224mc, intel NUC and a load of filters, web cameras and storage cases available for collection from derbyshire FOC.

On 29/03/2017 at 17:03, DorsetBlue said:

I believe you can but I haven't tried it yet (only just got my Starsense for SW kit).

Well if you happen to find out, please let me know (mines a SLT mount but imagine should work the same). Don't know whether to get the wireless adapter instead, or both... Stellarium no longer playing with my mount so it's sat outside unused for 6 months.

Cheers

James

With starsense can you control the scope remotely still like with pc stellarium or mobile app? 

On 2/21/2017 at 10:01, Filroden said:

Well, I've gone and done a "Nige".

You can blame @FLO and their "January" discounts, but I pressed buy on a new Celestron AVX mount during the night. Seeing how much of my field of view I was losing to rotation was the final straw. I paused at buying an OAG as I still think I will be taking short (60-120s) exposures as that seems to suit the camera better. I will see how that develops and might consider guiding later (I have a camera I can already use). It also means I need to press pause on having a custom spacer made as I would need a shorter one if I got the OAG.

Unless the weather is kind tonight (unlikely) I'll probably not be taking more images on the alt/az mount but I'll still be following this thread with interest. I learn far too much from reading it still!

If all goes well I can see me selling the Evolution mount. It's a great mount and certainly helped me into imaging but I (hopefully) won't need two similar capacity mounts. And the thought of being able to image near the Zenith...

Don't blame you, you've pushed the envelope with alt az imaging as much as anyone, your processing is pretty damn good so you're limited by the quality of the data now. Improving the mount is the next logical step.

I will pull my finger out one day and finally setup and use the equipment I've spent hundreds on and join in (still not taken a single image with it, its just sat there outside!), would love to get something half as good as what you've achieved.

On 10/10/2016 at 20:40, parallaxerr said:

This site doesn't work properly on my mobile. Every time I reply it tries to include a quote from parallaxer!

Anyway Filro, version 2 is spectacular. Short of full on observatories with camera rotators I doubt anyone has made better images on an alt az mount.

I need to pull my finger out, remotely opened my observatory to use at night for the first time yesterday, went to get kids to bed. Came downstairs and had no stars on my finder guider or 224mc on laptop. webcam showed clear sky. I know mak was in rough focus and finder never loses focus, just wanted to align then I'll remotely alter focus on mak after. Reinstalled sharp cap, rebooted remote PC, installed drivers, still nowt. Sharp cap showing frames being sent. Went outside to give it a right kicking. I only went and left the friggin solar filters on from last week... proper head in hands moment. Didn't bother setting up so went to bed in a sulk, need to put my DSLR on anyway. Have bought some hosepipe rings as can't find telescope rings for a 127mak, will bodge it this weekend and then join the fun!

8 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Awesome, great detail and colours, stars are pretty much perfect. I love it.

Well done.

Nige.

Agree. I think that image proves beyond all doubt you no longer need an eq mount. The Ollie's of this world are now dinosaurs. Small caveat being you need a hell of a camera!

On 10/10/2016 at 20:40, parallaxerr said:

 

Yup. Was really clear at about 7.00-8.00. BBC showed clear skys all night. Opened observatory lid a few hours ago, and just went to check focus on moon/align and its cloudy... Thankfully in an observatory, I'd be in a huge sulk right now if I had to go and fetch my scope in after all the palava I used to have setting it up. Might take this as a chance to try the hibernation feature.

Saturday night might be the next chance. Will probably put my solar filters on seeing evening times are a write off at the moment!

Edit - Hibernation works! Why didn't I know about this before!?! For some reason I just assumed only fancy pants EQ mounts had it!

57 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

A mask will make focusing that much simpler. Good luck imaging. The equipment looks good :-)

Cheers,
Steve

Think I need one. Focusing at a focal length of 15 in the cold with laptop in one hand, knob in the other isn't easy.

Only on SGL could you get away with that sentence...

1 hour ago, Yamez said:

Fantastic image, may i ask how you managed 5 minutes in an alt-az?

1s exposures.

I've got my mak and guide scope setup. Annoyingly I still can't get nexremote to launch with a virtual port - just crashes so can't use stellarium.

Focused it earlier this evening, logged in to team viewer just now and may need to adjust focus on the mak before using it in anger. I've got the 224mc connected to the mak, may add my focal reducer to it while I'm at it. Moon disappearing soon, forecast clear, can't wait. No doubt something will go wrong...

Edit - jesus I'm a slow typer, about 10 posts appeared!

14 minutes ago, sheeprug said:

Sadly, no. I'm assuming I'll have to do manual tracking, and s/w alignment.

SR

at 1600mm FL I personally wouldn't bother with a DSLR - thats even assuming you can achieve focus without modifying the scope or changing focuser, you're limited to very short exposures, a few seconds at best before trailing ruins the image (the dslr has tiny pixels) and you'll need thousands of images and if its anything like my canon 1100 it'll be noisy. By all means get one and do some wide field shots but I don't think sticking it on a manually tracked dob will get you the images you're hoping for. There are some images around with someone using a huge dob and 1 second exposures using a low noise camera like a asi 224mc which look amazing, and it'll be perfect for planetary, lunar and solar imaging too.

39 minutes ago, sheeprug said:

Hi Everybody.  This is a really really interesting thread, so thanks for all the images and conversation, and as a result I want to play too.

Now regarding kit, I have an 14" OO dob, but as it stands no suitable camera. However, there will be budget for one by Xmas so research is already under way. Normally my inclination would be to go to Canon since (a) I've always used Canon cameras and (b) I gather they have better support/features for astro.  However, in another thread on the 'cameras' part of this site it has been pointed out that the sensors used in Nikon cameras have a better noise performance.  

Now I appreciate that the Nikon vs Canon debate is well documented on this site, but I'm wondering if in the alt/az scenario, where exposures are shorter then than for eq, does the low noise performance become assume a greater importance?

Secondly, regarding the scope, i'm assuming a 14" aperture is good, but a FL of 1600mm may be a little long.  Is that too long in practice? 

SR.       

Does the mount track? 

On 10/10/2016 at 20:40, parallaxerr said:

 

If I was in to conspiracy theories I'd say the reason why SGL doesn't want to promote alt az imaging is that the equipment used is generally cheap, and this site is sponsored by FLO. If users found that they could achieve quality images using a £80 SLT mount and a £90 DSLR then less people would be prepared to splash thousands on mounts, guide cameras, filter wheels etc.

But I'm not, so I won't say that

One quick question, I've seen some spectacular images done with 1 second subs on a huge fast scope with the 224mc.

How long an exposure would I need on my f/13 5" maksutov to be equivalent to say a 14" f/5 scope at 1 second exposure (ie same amount of photons captured on the target area)? Is there a formula?

58 minutes ago, Filroden said:

I've often wondered if we needed more threads to cover what we discuss here but a few things always stop me from suggesting it:

Not many people are actively involved with posting about alt/az imaging. You'd have to think there are a lot more people on the forum to generate enough posts to make a sub-forum work.

We are probably our own worse nightmares because we mix a few different themes into a single post making it very long - maybe if we broke out this thread into a few posts focused on specific elements and these could be better located in existing sub-fora?

E.g.:

A getting started with alt/az imagery thread for the beginners sub-forum to share how we've used more basic equipment and some of the tips we've learnt that allow us to extend imaging times from when we started (<10s) to now (with Nige achieving 120s)

A processing alt/az imagery and how to use the tools we have to their best

A general alt/az discussion

A members gallery specifically for the best of Alt/Az imagery which could be linked from each of the posts

A separate section would be superb, even its just for the gallery and techniques.

I've now finished building my budget remote controlled alt az observatory, got my full spec modded DSLR ready - intending on piggy backing on a mak with asi 224mc (and maybe a FR), just waiting for clear skies which looking at BBC maybe a few weeks. Not had chance to try 'first light', unless you count cloud, but I'm hoping to contribute a fair bit. My processing skills are limited so I'll be sharing my raw stack too. 

I also make sure to take up any slack when aligning, I center on a star, press enter, then adjust the controls to make sure the gears just start ticking before pressing 'align' - if in the east the mount tracks right so I use a bit of left last. Doing that means I get objects like Jupiter bang on center even with a 2x barlow on my 127 mak.

I also only ever use 3 star alignment, partly because the 3rd star is used to calculate angles of the previous 2, and also because I have no idea what stars I'm looking at unless I have my phone and skymap in front of me.

6 hours ago, Nigel G said:

I think I made a better job of it this time, seem to have sorted the core out a bit and its fairly sharp too, got to be my best stacked image yet,

The triple spikes on the big stars came from DSS as there was an hour between some of the subs due to cloud, I've not seen that before, its rotation not focus I think.

Never did I expect results like these when I started about 10 months ago, For only 30 minutes of sub's and a full moon, I'm chuffed with this if I do say so myself.

Cheers

Nige.

 

Thats a cracking image, love the colour!

My mini observatory is pretty much setup now (although not yet attached the linear actuators and raspberry pi), was hoping to do a few test shots tonight but little one woke up. 

Not sure what combo to go for, can use the full spec modded 1100d and with 50mm or a zoom lens, attach to the mak or the 70mm travelscope, or try out my new asi 224mc with either a ef lens adapter or attached to the travelscope or mak with a reducer... Quite interested to see what the 224mc can achieve at native focal length of the mak and 5s-10s images over 4 or 5 hours.

12 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

Progress

OK so I selected standard stacking instead of mosaic which knocked 100MB off the FITs file, which then opened instantly in ST. Also set RGB background calibration and got colour! However, I then read an ST instruction which says to set for no colour calibration so trying without that setting now.

Anyhoo, a bit rough and noisy but there's colour

Now that was worth waiting for! Superb! You should post that in the imaging forum and ask people to guess the mount used.

Excellent set of images there Admiral! You wouldn't be disappointed if they came from a heq5 or something!

Superb last set of images! I'm moved in now so will get my scope setup soon.

Apologies for the incoming bad weather over next few weeks, ordered an asi 224mc last night.