matt_baker

I use an EQDirect cable straight from the handset to my PC 

Then I'd normally use EQMod to align and Carte Du Ciel to sync coords 

I'm wanting to use APT with a D5300 that I know supports it and want to plate solve to make alignment quick and easy

If I setup my mount through Stellarium and have APT alongside, does this mean I won't have to have EQMod for the alignment?

I can just slew to a random bright star and plate solve it to the center, then sync, focus and slew to my intended target and do another plate solve to get it centered

Is this correct?

On 12/04/2019 at 15:27, BigRD said:

This is impressive. Can you post acquisition data and processing please? 

I'm using a Nikon D5100 on my 130PDS/HEQ5 and would love to achieve the colours you've pulled out. I've just started experimenting with dithering and so far so good but stretching in PS is pulling out too much noise. I'm impatient for results as well which doesn't help

Cheers

I used 45x180s exposures along with 20 darks, flats, bias frames

DSS for stacking

I did use PixInsight for post-processing however since changing from PS, as it helps loads. So unfortunately I can't help you there but I know Trevor from AstroBackyard does really good photoshop processing tutorials.

If you would like to know how I went about processing in PixInsight, then just ask

As Dave said, Noel's actions will help greatly and it is worth the investment 100%

1 hour ago, JP50515 said:

Uranium it's good to so you're still here in this thread after all these years. Honestly mate I chuckle at one of your earliest comments regarding Skywatcher paying this thread commission for uptick in 130PDS sales...more like paying you commission! I think your images are the reason that a large number of us landed on this scope, and to this day I am beside myself to understand how you pull such amazing data off a cheap imaging newt mounted to an EQ6. 

I can agree with this for sure. 

One of the reasons I got a 130P-DS was seeing a few of Uranium's images and thought there's no way such a cheap scope could grab stuff like that.

I'm more of a lurker and don't post too much but here's my latest M81 M82 pic here. I can post acquisition if people want but it's late aha. 

I also need to use APT for dithering because I'm hating this raining noise

11 hours ago, carastro said:

The best way to check the collimation is to look at a defocussed star.  If the rings are all concentric and the width all round is even then the collimation is OK.

Something like this.  (N.B. The bite out of the star was before I had my focusser shortened, so ignore that).  

 

Are all 130's like this is you don't shave a bit off the focuser?

M42 Orion Nebula

Frames: 41×180″ & 20x30"

20 Darks/Flats/Bias

In my personal opinion, I do prefer the core being blown out as HDR MultiscaleTransform just wasn't dealing with it well and it preserves contrast.

Overall it took me about 20 hours from setting up and taking images, to doing iterations of this in PixInsight and finishing. 

Once I get a modded DSLR, I'll be sure to add some Ha data to this.

Any CC or comments are appreciated

Matt

On 01/02/2019 at 13:43, drjolo said:

Congratulations on your captures! Here is my five picks:

Heart and Soul and comet (with Samyang 135 and QHY163M):

Four next were made with Meade ACF 10" and QHY163M. 

Just out of curiosity, what was the exposure time for the Crab and Eagle nebula's. 

Also, they're fantastic!

On 17/01/2019 at 20:06, Whistlin Bob said:

Always a bit tricky imaging under a bright moon, but even more so when you’re in clumsy mode. Last night I managed to disconnect the power from my mount whilst aligning. Twice! Then I dropped an eyepiece by slewing the scope without having it fixed properly (fortunately it landed on the rubber eye cup). Finally I spent ages trying to work out why I couldn’t focus my guide-scope until the penny finally dropped that I was twiddling with the locking ring and not the focuser. So I’m taking this picture as a victory of the scope over its owner!

15x 10 min subs – Canon 600d – 130 pd-s- 7nm Ha filter.

 

If I'm honest, I think that taking 10 minute subs with a non-cooled camera is a bit overkill and will bring in a lot of thermal noise, due to the sensor increasing temperature over time.

I reckon more 5 minute subs will do better but that's just my opinion

If the camera was cooled, then yes of course take long exposures.

Double Cluster in Perseus.

130PDS, HEQ5 and Nikon D3200

48/60x90s subs + flats, dark and bias.

Was pretty windy last night so 12 subs got thrown out. Guiding was okay at best, about 0.80RMS total

It was a 63% moon, so I decided to picture this jewel box of a cluster instead of re-doing my Pleiades pic

Update 2:

Went in lightroom again to boost contrast and saturation and improve details

If you have lightroom, it's very good at removing leftover colour noise that's harder to get rid of in PS. I've done a quick edit on your first one here

If you look closely especially on M110, you can notice the difference

7 hours ago, sagramore said:

Amazing results!

Also, I just watched that tutorial/walkthrough and have immediately bought Noel Carboni's PS actions (can't believe I didn't have them before!) and once I have (hopefully) more data from tonight, I will be giving my data a full reprocessing using the help there.

Thanks again!

No problem, I look forward to seeing what you've come up with

Went into lightroom and managed to eliminate quite a bit of the colour noise and increased clarity + saturation

1 minute ago, sagramore said:

Thanks, I will take a look!

I did a test with this data actually - one stack with darks from my darks library, and one without darks. I actually found little to no difference, and possibly even lower noise (very slightly) in the stack without darks. I do dither quite hard after every second sub though, so that's probably why. I am starting to lean away from worrying much about darks at ISO800, although perhaps they're more important at higher ISOs?

I would imagine so as it would amplify the noise to a greater extent. Right now I can't use APT as my Nikon isn't supported but as soon as I get my hands on a Canon 450D modified, I'll be sure to dither every couple of subs and I currently haven't built up a dark library so I'm relying on doing them after the subs

3 minutes ago, sagramore said:

Yeah, I basically did similar. Everything was set up and working perfectly and the clouds finally went away. I left it to do it's thing thinking it would auto-meridian flip, I came back after 1hr to find it was just stuck at the maximum of the meridian and hadn't flipped, so I lost bout 1 hr of acquisition!

I sorted it out, did like you said - reframed as best I could without taking ages over it (I am still awful at framing, something to improve on) - and then after another few subs my secondary fogged up.....

I would say I don't know why we put ourselves through it, but I was still quite happy with what I got out of 60 mins of data.... I will share it actually, but hopefully so I can show the improvements later tonight!

 

For 60 minutes that seems like a great result. If it helps I used this tutorial to process mine

http://www.myastronomyjournal.com/DSLR-AIP/C002-M31-Walkthrough/

1 minute ago, sagramore said:

Very nice!! A really nice shot that one, I think you've done it justice.

I just saw your post from Wednesday and I was about to post my attempts from the same evening but I was plagued by clouds, a failed meridian flip, and then dew so I only managed 1 hr of exposures. I also think my processing is bad so I will hold off posting my poor attempt for now as it is way worse than yours  We have really similar equipment by the looks of it.

I am hoping to grab a couple more hours on it tonight if the weather holds out though, so watch this space!

I did actually waste about 30-40 minutes after realising the guiding was failing and trails were everywhere near the time of the meridian flip. Once I had sent a slew command on EQMod, I then had to take time re-centering as best as I could in the frame before continuing. I guess we can't have everything. I would've spent the extra time gathering a few more darks to lower the noise further

Took this last night and processed it this afternoon.

130PDS

HEQ5 Pro

Nikon D3200

120MC with 50mm Guide Scope

Badder mk.iii coma corrector

24x300s Lights with 7x120s and 5x60s for the core all at ISO 800

5 Darks for each

25 Bias and 25 Flats

PHD 2 and EQMod for controlling and guiding

Stacked in DSS

Processed in Photoshop CC 2015

This is the first time I've ever attempted Andromeda and I'm very pleased with the result

I might possibly grab a couple hours of more data in the future due to the noise which I tried my best to minimize in PS using Astronomy tools action set

I'm aiming for Andromeda galaxy on Thursday night and I was wondering if there's any tips on photographing this as I have never done before.

I've very recently got brand new second hand equipment, 130PDS + HEQ5 Pro

I've heard that Andromeda is a very HDR target and try not to overexpose the core and get the faint dust lanes.

I was thinking maybe doing 20 ish 5 minute exposures but should I do a few shorter ones to not blow out the core?

I was also wondering how I should go about stacking with different exposure times as I don't have PixInsight and can't do HDR Composition. Can this be achieved by having different groups in DSS?

Went out last night and added another hour of data for a total of 2 hours

Much less noisy with the extra data and I could bring out more without clipping too far and not having extensive noise reduction

Much more pleased with this result

Matt

41 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

That's super and you've got colour in there.

StarTools likes the autosaved FITs file for processing. Re noise I've found better results with my DSLR from doing flats and dark flats and leave out the darks.

I've managed to edit it slightly in lightroom by upping the contrast and highlights to bring out more of the galaxy

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy

130SLT with nexstar mount

D3200 (unmodified)

93x25s @ 800ISO

20 Darks/Bias/Flats

Processed in DSS and Startools

Had a lot of trouble getting down the noise and properly exposing the galaxy but thats probably due to the lack of exposure time

Once I get my new setup, I'll properly try getting this, minus the noise and coma

The Hi-res flikr link is here if anyone wants to have a go at getting a little more out of it

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129093386@N05/43778258422/in/dateposted-public/

Matt

Autosave00444.tiff

On 31/07/2018 at 10:21, The Admiral said:

As a result of a question on another thread, I've managed to plot (after a fashion) the field rotation rates across the sky. I thought that it was worth posting the map here as well, as it's pertinent to Alt-Az imaging. I've had to use demo software, hence the watermarking, but the overall picture can be seen.

This map shows the number of seconds for a 0.1° field rotation relative to the position in the sky. The physical scale is the wrong way around, i.e. the horizon should be 0° not 90°, but I can't change that with the demo software. The elevation rings are at every 10°. The zenith is at the centre. The N-S axis is horizontal, and the E-W axis vertical. The advantage of imaging in the East or West direction can be clearly seen. There are some mapping artefacts on the RHS which will need to be ignored.

Hope that is of some help.

Ian

If you don't mind me asking, what do the axes represent?

Celestron 130SLT, Mirror moved 2 inches up the OTA, Nikon D3200

Took this just last night. It was clear enough for me to stay out there for a couple of hours.

This time I took 85 lights @ 15 seconds, 800 ISO, 15 dark's and 20 offset frames totalling for about 20 minutes exposure

Stacked them in deepskystacker and processed in startools, although unfortunately I couldn't save the file due to me not having the full licence.

I've just ordered an intervalometer so I don't have to press my quick release shutter every time.

Just one question: When the camera takes the 15 second exposure, it will take another 15 seconds for me to be able to press the shutter again. Is this due to the camera processing and is there anyway to cut that time down?

Thanks all,

Matt

13 hours ago, happy-kat said:

That's great too Matt, will you be trying to add to your data when the clouds go?

Yes! But unfortunately my SD decided to corrupt the pictures and I wasn't able to retrieve them and had to format, so on that respect I can't. But I'll be sure to go somewhere where there isn't a giant light outside my house and try to get at least 20 minutes worth of data. Since I've done this mod, after having a go at orion, I'm planning to do pleiades and see if I can get the reflection nebula

M42 Orion Nebula

Celestron 130SLT

Mirror moved 2 inches up the OTA (To achieve prime focus without barlow)

Very light polluted town (Literally a giant sodium light right outside my house)

13 lights, 10 darks @1600 ISO, 15 secs.    3 minutes exposure in total

Stacked in DSS and edited in PixInsight

Only was able to it for a short time because the clouds piled in and I wanted to test out after I extended the mirror