MarsG76

Very nice, the collection is almost complete.

Awesome detail.

6 hours ago, JacobiteJake said:

Thanks, I was hoping that it could be purchased without the GOTO mount as there are a few not so favorable reviews that say you should give the mount a wide berth due to a few issues with vibration and bugs.

That would be the Celestron C8 OTA... essentially it's the same scope except that it's black as opposed to orange.... I didn't find the 8SE mount that wobbly, it's quite good for a single arm mount and a 8" SCT... I used worse... but it's noticeably not as stable as my CGEM...

26 minutes ago, JacobiteJake said:

Thanks MarsG76, ok, I'll keep a look out for one just in case I spot a bargain, what mount/tripod would you recommend for it?

The 8SE comes with a Alt-Az GOTO mount.... and a decent quality eyepiece...

24 minutes ago, JacobiteJake said:

Thanks MarsG76

It does look a great scope but I'm afraid the better arf wouldn't be at all happy with me spending that much, maybe if she wins the lottery one day, and she'd need to as I don't play  the odds are way too high  

Kindest regards

David

Of course...

I know that its more expensive but I find that it's worth it and it is a one of expense for... well possibly ever.... perhaps a 2nd hand one would be much cheaper.

From my experience, I had a 60mm Tasco as a kid/teenager before getting a "serious" telescope in my adulthood... I had the same type of scope now for 11 years and have never regretted getting it... the scope I recommend for observing is the celestron 8SE, perfect scope for observing. This scope has a big 8" mirror and has given me some great views of DSO, the moon and planets and it all comes in a very compact package. The GOTO is very accurate and as a bonus it is easily later upgradable for some imaging with the change of the mount as I have done.

Superb image, love the detail....

well done.

Awesome detail.....

Way to go NASA... you've joined the separate and create more hate in the world mob... 

Just now, Maho said:

Thank you. Because of limited sky available in the garden, thought I'd test camera settings. Good to know that camera settings arent the main issue.

Through an eye piece, the stars look sharp.

They will look sharp because your eye is not picking up the drift like your camera... if you cant see polaris that you need to drift align after the rough polar alignment, to have a chance of getting your scope ready for longer sub exposures.

5 minutes ago, Maho said:

Because of the small garden with the high walls I was in, I couldn't see polaris. What I did was use a spirit level to balance and a compass to point the mount to north.

In that case your trailing problem is definitely due to poor polar alignment... you need to have a very accurate polar alignment to get drift free long exposures, (not to mention guiding, especially at high focal lengths and depending on exactly how long you want to expose your subs)... just using a compass will not even be close to what you need, and with your stars trailing at 4 seconds, tell me that your polar alignment is way off... this is what you need to get right first to progress in your astro imaging.

2 minutes ago, Maho said:

No guiding on this. I manually used the hand controller to point to Vega.

Regarding my star alignment, I tried a two star alignment and the target was off by some distance and used the hand controller function to slew to the target star and pressed enter. I was using the supplied 6x30 finderscope that came with the mount.

(I think I may have answered my own question)

 

What about your polar alignment accuracy?

You need to give us more information about your setup.. how are you guiding?? ... although first thing I would do in your situation is check and triple check your polar alignment... and get it as close to perfect as possible.. 

Hello Astronomers,

Sharing with you the last DSO which I exposed before planning to move onto some planetary imaging as Mars approaches opposition.

These nebulae are located in the constellation Corona Australis, between γ and ε Coronae Australis and features NGC6726, NGC6729 and NGC6723, not a popular group of objects or area of the sky, but I thought that the combination of reflection nebula crossed by a dark nebulae make an interesting image.

This image was exposed through my Celestron 8" SCT (at F10), on the CGEM with my full spectrum modded and cooled Canon 40D DSLR for a total exposure time of 5 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

CS,

MG

What a great looking image.... now I'm wondering if I could see if from Sydney?

Great capture.. technically these are unprocessed which is even more of a testament of the great quality of the data.

Love it, a emerald jewel in the sky....

Very OK for a first imaging attempt... 

Nice Andromeda... wish I could see it from down here.....

On 05/09/2020 at 20:24, Datalord said:

It looks to me like you have some problems with focus. How did you focus for the various filters?

I don't think that I have any problems with focus, but more of a atmospheric seeing issue... I use a bathinov mask to focus with every filter.

6 hours ago, Kinch said:

Thanks for that - as you see above, I am hoping to improve on it. I hope what I see as improvement won't make others like it less. Already I see that the background needs a repair (to remove gradient) and I have some more data to work in. I just hope I can bring it all together 🤞

As we all image and process, we improve with time. The hazy effect looks atmospheric and I like it, but it down to everyones personal taste. 

I remember when I imaged the Orion nebula during less than ideal seeing conditions and I ended up with a similar effect, which I liked, but the reactions from other was mixed, some liked it and some didn't... in the eye of the beholder I guess... than again if every photo looked the same, than it would be quite boring very fast.

excellent image, love the hazy nebulosity.

Great work...

Great images.... way better than the rubbish seeing and transparency I'm experiencing here is letting me capture.

I played with the data a bit more and I'm going to leave it at this point.. no matter what I do from here, the image starts to look over cooked and over processed, but that said, the stars looks slightly tighter and there is a bit more detail within the pillars, subtle as it is...