MarsG76
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Everything posted by MarsG76
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From the album: Deep Sky Astrophotography
NGC 6357 is a nebula about 5500 light years away in the constellation Scorpius near the better known NGC 6334, AKA the "Cat's Paw" or "Bear Paw" nebula. This nebula was also given the name War and Peace Nebula because of its appearance in infrared images, the bright western part resembles a dove and the eastern part looks like a skull. This photo was taken through a 8" SCT at f6.3 (1280mm focal length) and exposed using a full spectrum modded and cooled Canon 40D DSLR.© Mariusz Goralski
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From the album: Deep Sky Astrophotography
This is a close up of IC 2944, also known as the Running Chicken Nebula or the λ Centauri Nebula, with the Bok Globules visible in the upper third of the frame. IC2944 is an open cluster with an associated emission nebula found in the constellation Centaurus, near the star λ Centauri. This image was exposed using a Cooled and full spectrum astro modded DSLR through a 8" SCT at it's native 2032mm (f10) focal length. The total exposure time was 8 hours and 25 minutes, through a UV/IR filter to capture natural colour data.© Mariusz Goralski
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Full Spectrum, Ha, IR filter DSLR modification.
MarsG76 replied to Scream's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
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....
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Full Spectrum, Ha, IR filter DSLR modification.
MarsG76 replied to Scream's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
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.
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Full Spectrum, Ha, IR filter DSLR modification.
MarsG76 replied to Scream's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
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. -
I think I'm done - to many frustrations
MarsG76 replied to jm_rim's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
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
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- ic2944
- lambda centauri
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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.
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Gullible is bliss....unless it actually happens and the flash is so brights that the light comes out of the back of your head.... 😉
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AAAAAWWWW dont try and kill my hopes 😉 I'm not talking about re activating or adding heat.. I'm saying that science has no clue about what really inside a planet, they're only educated guesses which a constantly updated... even on earth, the deepest man has drilled into the crust is about 13km... below that it's all seismic echo interpretations... and when they basically say that between the crust and core "it's mostly the same stuff" than i'm skeptical.... and hopeful to see Olympus mons explode in my eyepiece during my life time.... call me gullible, meh.. than I'm gullible...
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The "long shot explanation", "unexplained" and strange shapes and bahaviour all give me the hope for something great and rare about to explode.
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Vapor plume??? that is a extremely long for a vapor plume... Can you imagine Olympus Mons erupting... while capturing a time lapse animation.
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Awesome detail
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Thanks.... Yes, the C8...
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Hi All, Sharing some more Mars images, quite possibly the last images of Mars that I'll be spending time on capturing this season, but the last image, 14th November has something strange on it.. two streaks which look like smoke plume, volcanic like, smoke plumes being blown in a direction away from the eruption.... Is it possible that Mars is still active?
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You have to take your time, take baby steps and eventually, sooner rather than later, you will definitely be capturing images that you're amazed by today... but don't give up and know that this is a steep learning curve to climb and it will not be a quick progress... come to think about it, we all keep learning and improving without end, until we die or stop imaging.
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I dare say that it is Mount Olympus.....- 3 comments
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- planet
- mariusz goralski
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Live View works in all modes....
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Depending on how much you want to spend, the Televue Nagler 5mm would most likley be the best choice as my Televue optics are excellent, but if you want a cheaper option than the Celestron X-Cel 5mm has given me some of the best and sharpest views of Jupiter and Saturn during those nights of exceptional seeing in my 8" SCT... but the seeing had to be perfect otherwise it was not a performer... mind you I am talking a magnification of 406X. My next recommendation is a LV... the 7mm LV I own is also excellent.
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I think I'm done - to many frustrations
MarsG76 replied to jm_rim's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
I can relate to your frustrations, I remember when I had a failed session after failed session and wanted to throw in the towel... but what I done was step back and took some time away... But this challenge was always on my mind and I kept returning to the subject by reading as much info as I could and coming up with a plan of attack... I was unable to give in... I hate being beaten... I setup my gear after a few month away and this time there were times when I left it setup in my backyard for many days at a time, just throwing a tarp over it when I was at work having it assembled and ready to continue solving my problems during the next night. This took the setup time out of the equation (which is a lot of time out of a whole session), and in time I had small successes... and kept improving on them. Today I have more successful imaging sessions than failures... touch wood... and I did build a permanently setup hut for my gear since than. I too have small children and understand the time restriction placed on us while they're small, but the secret is to avoid setting up every time you want to image, you're wasting time and potentially running around in circles not solving anything except repeating the same thing over and over again. Didn't Einstein say that a definition of insanity is repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome? So I say that your frustration is due to this hobby having the capability to consume and drive us insane... -
Like stated above, image with both and compare them... personally and in my experience, I wouldn't choose a higher res DSLR but the one with bigger pixels on the sensor... in this case would be the 30D... bigger surface area to capture more photons... stacking will negate noise... I compared a 40D to a 7D, i.e. 10 mpix vs 18mp and the 40D out performed the 7D for sensitivity and noise was about the same...
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Thats only the focus assist filter, easy to put back in place, and the DSLR operation should not change without it installed.
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I agree, don't underestimate the (full spectrum modded) 40D just because it's a DSLR and because it's "old" tech... this DSLR has delivered some great images at various focal lengths, and is no where near as noisy as what has been stated, and when I cooled it, the noise almost all disappeared, in even 20 & 30 minutes subs. The 40D is a APS-C sized sensor equipped camera which is only 10 megapix, meaning that the physical pixels on the chip are bigger than in newer cameras which are double or even quadruple the resolution, and a bigger surface area is bound to get hit by more photos. I actually compared my unmodded 40D to my unmodded 7D DSLRs capturing a galaxy a couple of years ago, comparing with the same ISO and same exposure time and the 40D subs were noticeably brighter, with more of the fainter galaxy features in the subs.... and the 7D is only 8 megapixels more in resolution, with not smaller sensor pixels surface area than on the 40D.
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THANK YOU.. IT WORKS.... this has saved me a lot of time doing this tedious job manually....
