MarsG76

Hello All,

This is a photo accurate representation of how I've seen the conjunction through a Skywatch 14" f4.6 Dobsonian, using the 17mm Ethos eyepiece combined with the 2X Powermate during the observation of the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and how well both of the planets fit into the eyepiece field of view.

My location on the east coast of Australia was totally overcast for the last week and this evening I had a small window of opportunity to actually have a glimpse of the rare event, which no doubt, I will not have a another chance of experiencing in my life time.
This happened about 17 hours after the actual closest point between the planets, and most likely the difference would be so small that it wouldn't be noticeable without direct comparison. 

This image was composited by first taking a series of shots through the eyepiece using an iPhone, I chose the best frame of the series than superimposed the overexposed planets with images of the planets captured separately with enough transparency as to accurately show how the planet details looked in the eyepiece.

Observation time was 22 December 2020 @ 09:51 UTC.

Clear Skies,

MG

Hello Astronomers,

I'm sharing with you my image of the Witch Head Nebula, aka IC2118 & NGC1909 in the constellation Orion, near the star Rigel.

This object is very large in the sky, being 3°×1°, so I had to use my smallest telescope to deliver the wide angle and low power needed to image all of the "Witches" profile.

This is a very difficult object to image using a DSLR, and a dark sky is needed to capture it in it's full glory. I thought that I'd give it a go with my DSLR, and see what I end up with... I'm happy that the end result in my image shows the shape of the "Witch Head" but I think that the overall image will not be winning any awards.

This image has been exposed through a 80mm refractor @ 500mm FL, using my cooled and full spectrum modded DSLR for a total exposure time of 12 hours and 34 minutes, in a semi-rural, Bortle 5 (maybe 4) sky.

CS

MG

Great image with awesome depth... and very nicely framed.

I love the colors and the glowing "gassy" look of the nebulosity.

Congratulations on the new astroimager... looking forward to seeing your photos exposed through it.

9 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

fantastic, I love all the star forming regions in the bottom right section.

thank you.. This is quite a busy region..... it is a satellite galaxy I guess... so I guess to remain in existence, stars have to form within....

On 30/01/2021 at 18:28, peter shah said:

Wow what a beauty!.....there are so many in the southern hemisphere I'd love to image....Ill have to make the trip one day.

I say the same thing about northern objects...

On 30/01/2021 at 19:41, Saganite said:

It is worth the trip just to see Orion upside down...

Orion is not totally upsidedown.. actually diagonally down...

13 hours ago, Saganite said:

A stunning image !

The last time down under we stayed in Daylesford for a week.  Some superb binocular sessions whilst there....

Both hemispheres have their unique celestial features and attractions... there are quite a few northern sky objects I wish I could see and image too.... 

Hello all,

Sharing with you my first DSO mosaic image. This the Large Magellanic Cloud visible from the southern hemisphere, a companion/satellite galaxy of our Milkyway 160,000LY away.

Due to the angular size of the LMC, this image consists of 4 frames, each exposed in natural color at 500mm focal length through an 80mm refractor. The 4 frame are combined into one image to fit the whole satellite galaxy into the frame. The camera used was my astromodded and active cooled canon 40D.

Exposure time was 2 hours and 42 minutes per frame for a total of 11.5 hours for the whole image. Each mosaic frame consisting of 20x60s, 20x120s, 14x180s and 12x300s subs.

CS,

MG.

Very good start.... the great thing about the sun is that it's features always change....

Beautiful image.

On 15/12/2020 at 06:10, westmarch said:

At least budgies know enough not to try try to argue about fundamental physics.

John

I'm assuming that you guys are calling people "budgies" because you have a degree (or some kind of formal education) when it comes to "Law of Physics", right?? Facebook doesn't count... 

Man, that detail... I can almost touch the regolith...

2 hours ago, Cup of Tea said:

Simple. Just need something about 10 times the size of Hubble.

I'm sure that 20 years ago someone would say something similar about imaging the sort of details we're capturing on, for example, Jupiter... perhaps say you need to be in orbit and yet a way was found to penetrate the limitations imposed by the atmosphere.

On 08/12/2020 at 22:40, Jm1973 said:

I can see several 40D bodies that have sold for around £60 to £70 on ebay. Some even cheaper.

Did you follow a guide or anything when you built this? Or did you just wing it?

I researched as much as I could before attempting to mod than cool the camera... 

its not difficult, only time consuming and delicate... so you can't rush it.. take your time and be extra careful when ever prying anything apart..

By the way, my complete camera with the temperature controller and cooler weighs 1827g.

On 07/12/2020 at 08:44, Jm1973 said:

How much does it weigh with all the additional cooling stuff?

Do you mind if I ask how much it all cost as well please?

I'm trying to work out whether this would be cheaper than buying something like an ASI294MC-Pro.

From memory the weight of everything was about a bit over a kilo.... but when I get a chance, I'll weigh it and amend this message. I do not have any issues with balancing.

I searched on eBay for old 40D bodies and found them between $100-$140... the peltier cooler kits were $15 ea, the copper plate was $20 and the controller was about $9. A can of expanding foam and a 12V 50A PSU to power the cooling was also needed. After about $250 and quite a few hours of work I ended up with this "Cool 40D".

Definitely cheaper than the 294MC, and I'd love to compare the cooled DSLR to a dedicated astro cam using the same equipment to see just how much difference there is in reality... like I said, my 40D delivered virtually noise free (upto 1800s) subs.

+1 for flexture.... but the cause might also be the guide star which you're guiding on vs polar alignment accuracy. How far is the guide star from the object being imaged? if it's far enough, coupled with a polar alignment that is out enough, you might get that effect... it might look like it's drifting in RA but over a longer time it will show up as arcs... 

45 minutes ago, Scorpius said:

Wow!!! Very impressive! I'd be nervous just trying to remove the filter and get everything back together without ruining the camera LOL I understand the heatsink but all those tweaks to stop the condensation would be beyond me...

There is always a massive risk involved... since I started trying to cool my DSLR, this is the 4th camera, so a "few eggs were broken to make this omelet". This was a project which had a learning curve involved and something that I took my time in doing.... 

The added bonus of my DSLR is that the 40D is great for astrophotography, having big physical pixels on the sensor being only 10  megapixels... sensitive with features like USB control and live view AND these DSLRs are quite cheap to buy second hand if something goes wrong (and it did).... 

Currently I'm more than happy how this camera operates and results it delivers... I was going to buy a dedicated CCD/CMOS cooled astro camera but once I got my 40D as it is, I put the purchase of the astrocam on hold as I do not believe that it would improve so much as to justify a $2,000-$6,000 spend... (considered the ZWO1600 than ZWO6200)... ultimately I do want to go the hyperstar route in the future, so than I'll need a smaller package camera as not to obstruct the front of my SCT, and I'll go and sell a kidney for the hobby than....

Awesome images.... love'em....

Just now, Scorpius said:

So did you mod it yourself or pay someone to do it for you? I noticed your sig says Full Spectrum Modded and Cooled Canon 40D.  Curious how you go about cooling a DSLR?

I modded it myself...

I cooled the sensor by cutting to shape and adding a copper plate to the back of the sensor that comes out of the side of the camera. The plate sticking out of the DSLR body has two peltier coolers (with heatsyncs) attached to freeze the copper plate, effectively "sucking" out the heat from the sensor... 

My last version cooled the sensor by 18°C below ambience, so I was falling below freezing on nights that were 15°C and initially I did have a problem with dew destroying my main PCB. On subsequent versions I protected the main PCB with hot glue, used some absorption strips inside the DSLR body to fill out the gaps to soak up any moisture from cooling and used expanding foam to fill in around active cooling openings to stop moisture from entering the camera.
 

I added a thin temperature sensor in between the copper plate and the sensor as well as another sensor embedded inside the expanding foam right next to the peltier on the active cooling side to get a accurate reading of the sensor and cooler temperatures. The cooler side dropped to -15°C during the 15°C night. 

At one point the front of the DSLR sensor frosted over so now I wrap a heat strip around the T-Ring/front of the DSLR which stops that... since these condensation protection additions, I did not have a single issue with the DSLR on many nights during the year where the sensor was at 1-2°C (controlled with a temperature controller), usually around 5°C below the dew point... but my subs are virtually noise free and have a much cleaner and crisper look to them.... even the 1800 second subs have almost no noise.

If you're going to use the 60D for only AP, than you will not regret it.... full spectrum modding ym 40D was the best thing I could do for my astro imaging.... I always use a filter of some sort with it.. always use the IR/UV Cut for any natural color exposures otherwise it's HAlpha, OIII, SII or UVenus filter... so I dont have the IR leak/IR bloated star issue within my SCT or refractor.

5 hours ago, jm_rim said:

I finally had a successful night 😁 wuhuu

• I managed to get short exposures in Shapcap and could polar align to excellent in 5-10min.
• I “solved” my Backyard Nikon issue - don’t know how, but it is not just reporting busy after an exposure.
• I tighten the RA motor extra hard - witched solved one of the tracking issues.

I did some test to see how much I could push my setup. On the EQ-5 with a RA motor, a SW explore 150pds with CC, and a Nikon D700, I managed to get good 300sec exposures one 500sec turned out ok...

But I had it running all night, with no problems, and would just like to say thanks for all the help and good advice...

Excellent... sometimes a step back for a moment to clear your head and frustrations is all it takes...

Good Evening,

As I'm going through my unprocessed subs, heres is my latest processing work, the Bok Globules in the "Running Chicken" nebula near Lambda Centauri.

This was imaged for a total of 8 hours and 52 minutes with my Canon 40D through my C8 CGEM at f10, with subs lengths of 30, 60, 180, 300 and 600 seconds at ISO1600.

This is the last image I exposed before re-designing my cooling on the 40D and being able to reach freezing on the sensor.

Clear Skies,

MG

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

First off, your images are amazing, such detail.

Thank you... I had more soft and blurry images during this season than half decent images.... for some reason the clarity of my sky was average at best for most nights.... but after persevering I did end up with a collection of a few nice images.

I think I might have a full rotation of mars at different nights so I might be able to generate a full Mars map and create a full rotation animation.

I tried to image a time lapse (1 frame from 10% best of 50 seconds video stack captured every three minutes) of Mars rotation (and will post my results once assembled) but it always stars OK quality than get progressively worse over the night.. to the point where the last few hours are just a orange blob.