alacant

Hi No. OTC, you don't need anything fancy for AP. Some of the old manual lenses produce superb results. A quick eBay throws this and this amongst hundreds of others. You'd also need an adaptor. HTH

Hi everyone Europe? Don't give up in the heat! This is our effort from last night with a contrast (?) filter a visitor brought along. Despite the heat and ground shimmer, we managed to get some detail in the gas; StarTools' -rather excellent- deconvolution module to the rescue. No attempt at colour balance as I don't think the filter allows it. Thanks for looking. eos 450d: 120m @ ISO400

Hi It normally works fine. Right afterwards we did this. In less time. It's just the blue we can't get. Dunno. Will have a go at ISO800 tonight. Too hot to sleep anyway! Thanks.

Hi. 400. Although it doesn't seem to make much difference apart from adding noise at higher values. Maybe it should be higher anyway? Cheers

Details in the OP. Thanks.

Hi and thanks for the reply. 3min, no filter.

Hi everyone Wanted: blue reflection. Got: rubbish. This is nearly 2 hours! What do we need to do? All advice most gratefully recieved. TIA and thanks for looking 450d on pn208

Hi and thanks for the comments. Yeah, the blue is wrong. It's frustrating since performing the same process elsewhere in the sky makes for a more realistic blue. This was low in the south. Maybe that has something to do with it? Not sure about the stars. It benefitted from a deconvolution. Again, it probably was a bad idea. It was a DSLR at 812mm, f3.9. Cheers

Hi everyone Not an easy one this. With the big 10" reflector doing duty elsewhere, we had to make do with something smaller. Followed it up to the meridian for around an hour before the haze took 30 minutes after the flip. Not enough time. Need a bit of a breeze. Again, the biggest discussion point must be the colour. To me, it's too orange but then look away from the cluster and there are blue stars too. Thanks for looking and do tell us what you think Cheers and clear skies. 450d on pn208

Dunno. The OP didn't have any success. Maybe they would if there were more of them? Worth a try? Cheers

Hi. I think you'll need longer. This is with our 700d on 130pds but using 300s exposures. Cheers and good luck.

Hi A good way to learn different approaches is watch someone's TeamViewer session. Not so good when they then expect you to switch cameras at 03:30!

Hi How about one of these for the planets? Then use it in a guide scope for your deepsky frames. Either get your d90 fixed or a cheap eBay canon? Cheers and HTH

Hi. Details in the OP. The camera is on a fast reflector. It doesn't need guiding -30s frames- but must be tracking. We guided anyway as phd2 gives us access to its rather nice spiral dither. HTH

Hi. A Canon 450d. It's astro modified but for stars, I don't think it need be. HTH

Hi everyone More ideas of what to image at full moon. Stars! You can do loads in a single session. Almost satisfied with the colour. Please tell me how wrong I am with this one. canon 450d + es f3.9: 30m @ ISO400

Hi. Same on my 130pds. Easiest way is to saw off 10mm of the inner focuser barrel where it enters the light path. HTH.

Hi everyone. With last night's moon and an intermittent haze to contend with, this seemed one of the few targets we thought may work. Thanks for looking and I suppose the moral of the session is don't give up just because there's a moon;) 450d on Bresser 150 ~80 minutes @ ISO400

Hi. Yes that's fine, the disadvantage is that you either need to be there or set another plan to execute. It was one of the reasons we went INDI last year. At the time, anything reasonably priced in windows didn't have auto-flip.

Hi. Platesolve will get you to the target. Autoguide will keep it there. HTH

In APT it's called PointCraft. You take an image and the program will tell the mount exactly where it's pointing, update stellarium and generally relieve the trial and error tedium. Use it once and you'll never go back to anything else;) HTH and gets you automated. Cheers and clear skies.

Hi I'm assuming you have eqmod in which case you simply lose the hand controller. APT does automatic meridian flip but I don't know whether it will do an anticipated flip and then do either a cw-up track on the other side or wait for the object to catch up'. If your camera is to crash into the mount, the best way to be sure no harm is done is to stop the plan, wait for the object to pass say 15 minutes past the meridian, then platesolve and restart the plan on the other side. You can follow the progress across the meridian in stellarium. Then consider a mount extension to eliminate the possibility of the crash and in so doing get back to automated peace-of-mind- flip whilst you sleep:) Cheers and HTH.

Are they in high enough orbit to be visible at times when we're likely imaging?