MartinFransson

That´s a beautiful pano! I´m hoping to get back into astro photography myself and this is inspiring!

I agree with what is said above. I would (and I did) start with a camera lens. The shorter the focal length, the less demand for accurate tracking. When you get the hang of that, you take the next step up in focal length and/or tracking. 
One of the best lenses for astro photography is the Samyang 135mm f/2.0. Yes, it is wide and you will not catch small galaxies but it is great for larger areas with nebuale. Longer camera lenses (not zooms) will probably cost you as much (or more) as a budget telescope and will have a less suitable focusing mechanism. If you don´t already have a telephoto lens, I wouldn´t buy one just for astro photography.

Damn... for something to be that easy and still that hard 😂
Thanks, both of you!

2 minutes ago, Elp said:

If the reducer backfocus spec is 55mm, yes, the Tring should be around 11mm thick and your camera bayonet to sensor is 44mm, so correct 55mm backfocus.

When looking here it seems like the backfocus varies with the FL. So 61 mm in my case?
https://davidastro.com/en-eu/products/ts-optics-0-79x-photoline-reducer-corrector-2

Wow, this is embarrassing... I can no longer remember how to connect my darn gear.

I have the TS Photoline 80mm f/6 refractor, a TSFLAT2 corrector and a TSFLAT2A adapter. I also have a Canon EOS T-ring adapter plus a whole lot of distance rings and stuff. Not sure all of it is supposed to be used since I also have a ZWO 1600 MM-Cool (not going to use that at first).

I also have a TS Optics 0.79x reducer/corrector.

HOW do I attach my Canon 550D DSLR to the telescope with the corrector or with the reducer? For the life of me, I can´t remember or make it make sense when googling. Can anyone help me? It can´t be that difficult, right?
Can I just attach the 0.79x reducer to the T-2 ring and go?

14 hours ago, 900SL said:

Loved the video. what a night!

 

It sure was! Did you also get to enjoy the show?

I just realised I posted this in Deep Sky... oh well 🙂

This was all shot on the night of February the 27th this year. A fantastic night that I got to enjoy before I got ill (feeling better now).
The night was pure magic! Aurora clearly visible to the naked eye, displaying some pulsating and flickering that I´ve never seen before. Perfect conditions - no wind, everyting calm, the only company I had was an owl and a fox making sounds in the forest behind me.

Here is a film I made from this night - I hope you will enjoy it!

https://youtu.be/k3PaA5wFHxg

On 13/02/2023 at 03:14, Ozark Bill said:

I’m really glad you posted this. I’m thinking about getting the Astrotrack and was thinking of trying my Canon 500 f4. Will probably use the counterweight kit with that one though.

Great M31!

The Astrotrac is hard to beat for pure portability and still gives great results with gear that is on the heavier side. You just need a tripod that won´t flex. I use a carbon fibre Sirui R-3213X and it works great for me.

Wow, that looks awesome!

That is awesome, you got it working again! I have powered mine from the outlet in my car so it must have been something wrong with the capacitor to make it fail? 

Also, I must say that I´m dissapointed to hear that Astrotrac no longer service or offer any help with these since they were a high end product (compared to other portable trackers) and cost quite a bit.

I haven´t had the time or energy to get my mount running this season so I thought I would give my Astrotrac a bit of a challenge Heavy Sigma 500/4.5 lens and Canon R6, without counter weights or anything. Worked out quite well.  I´m happy with the results considering it´s only 32 minutes of exposure @f/5.6

https://youtu.be/AlgMyoBbCZE

Had a short break in the cloud cover, enough for me to at least get a few seconds of video and some images :)
https://youtu.be/b8tOIvMw3-0

1 hour ago, Sleepy Kiki said:

Thats an amazing video Martin, incredible that you captured it in realtime

Thank you! Yes, the chance to film it in realtime was surely an added bonus!

5 hours ago, SkyJamie said:

Awesome pics and video Martin, really enjoyed that, nice one

Thank you for taking your time to watch it!

I managed to get another night of beautiful Aurora a few days ago. The northern lights were visible all the way down to southern Sweden. I spent about 6 hours and while it started out slowly, the sky completely lighted up after midnight.

Over 7000 images put together as timelapse, plus real time film of the night. I hope you will take a look

https://youtu.be/B6Nfqv03RuI

18 minutes ago, FenlandPaul said:

Congratulations, Martin! And great video - stunning location too.

I’m off to Senja in Norway in the Autumn and hope to be able to capture a lot of aurora then - can’t wait!

I´m sure that will be an experience you´ll never forget! I dream of going there myself

34 minutes ago, Pete Presland said:

Fantastic photos and video! Love hearing the waves lapping against the shore during your captures, thanks for sharing your special memories 🙂 

Thanks, Pete! I have found the working a bit with the audio enhances the experience of the video. Unfortunately the wind was very strong this time and I didn´t have time to set up proper wind covers for microphone

Last friday I suddenly became aware that the conditions for aurora (northern lights) were very promising. It was about 10 pm and I was planning on watching a film with my wife but suddenly the plans were changed!

I rushed out to see if I could catch some of the beauty of the skies. The result: 3265 images for timelapse as well as some filmed material and some of the best aurora photos I have taken.

I have put it all together in this video, I really hope you will enjoy it with me. It is one of those nights I will remember for the rest of my life!

https://youtu.be/C56h6frGzU0

I just made a tutorial on how I performed the Rowan Belt mod on my HEQ5.

Maybe it could be of some use for someone who is planning it. I chose text instead of voice over, since it makes it easier to pause and still see the instructions.

https://youtu.be/CNKcxVfzM58

Looks like you have a good start anyway! I would have to agree with steppenwolf about the filter. I had a CLS-CCD clip in for my DSLR and I thought it only made things a lot worse.

The other thing you might try is to use more but shorter exposures since your uncooled camera builds up quite a lot of heat noise. I don´t mean like really short but maybe 2-minute subs instead of 5-minute ones. Especially for such a bright target. My experience is that when you hit about 80 subs it really starts to bring the noise down with DSLR images.

13 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Very nice image, can't really see any evidence of tilt, well processed and really good colours.

Thank you! It is very evident in the full size and uncropped image I´m afraid...

While struggling to sort out spacing and tilt issues I might as well gather some data while testing

This was captured during this week since we had several clear nights.

On 03/09/2020 at 23:30, x6gas said:

I always think it's good to have a reference image like this to aspire to.  If you are confident that you have good data it really gives you something to aim at.  Martin has done a truly superb job here though.  It's a sumptuous image and so cleverly processed - I think he has selectively sharpened structures across the entire frame which gives a wonderful illusion of depth of field which, given everything is essentially at infinity, isn't really there but wow it makes for an incredible image.  I have to say that this is right up there with the best deep sky images I've seen on SGL this year... and the bar is very high these days.

This and he is "fighting some problems with spacing and/or tilt". 😲

I am fighting those issues for sure, but the power of cropping and resizing is not to be underestimated! 🤣

Your are right about the selective sharpening. I use an extra layer in Photoshop, filtered with high pass filter and blend mode of the layer set to soft light. Then I add a layer mask and only apply it gently to the dark structures.

Oh wow... can´t see that one from where I live. Thanks for showing it to me in such a beautiful way!