Chefgage

Very nice image. Tried this myself ladt night. I never seem to be able to get the nice yellow colour though. My moon images (when there is a nice yellow) always just come out as the normal black and white typical moon colour.

Just going back to the begining. How are you focusing your camera. It sounds like you are focusing using the eypiece and then just replacing the eyepiece with the camera. The camera needs focusing after being fitted.

Quick one taken on the 28th March 2020. Taken with a Canon 200D, ISO 12800, exposure 1/2000 and focal length 135mm. Not the best as it was just a quick couple of minutes outside with the camera hand held (after a few beers).

Taken on the 22nd March 2020 10 x 60s lights, 10 darks ISO 1600 @ 200mm Taken using a Canon 200D mounted on a star adventurer pro. Processed using DSS and GIMP I originally took 60 lights but did not realise that dew had formed after about the 10th light frame!!! I have since bought a dew heater to hopefully stop that happening next time.

I am having a hard time making out many constallations due to the sheer amount of stars 😀. I have found orion plus the orion nebula of course and m45 the pleiades. I need to view the image on a bigger screen so fimd more. Again thanks for sharing.

Very nice image. Its a pity you could not call at the pub for a drink though.

I have that problem with neighbours trees as well. I see i have three options. First i could ask them to cut a bit off the tree. Second i could pop out tonight and do the pruning myself or probably the best idea is to take advantage of the adjustable height of the head on my tripod which i hope should bring saturn into view.

I managed to find my ball head adapter earlier that i had removed from my tripod so i could fit a star adventurer. Just need to fit the ball head back on and im all set for tomorrow morning (if my alarm wakes me up 😀 ).

Just had another look and zoomed in and i do believe i can see one of jupiters moons.

Nice. I have just this minute come in with the binos for a quick look. I saw jupiter,mars and saturn. Couldnt make out pluto (maybe i need some better binos 😄). Although could not see all three through the field of view. Checking the weather for tomorrow morning it looks good so hopefully i will get a shot.

Yes it does feel weird, i dont like leaving mine even for 5 minutes. I image from the driveway but we used to have a good tall gate that you could not see through so it was a lot more secure. So at the minute i sit in the garage with the door up with my rig a few feet a way.

Thanks, i will take a look.

I never thought about making a dew shield for a camera lens. I do have loads of flower pots in the garage.

Hello all. Hope you are all well during these troubled times. I managed to get out imaging tonight. Spent about 50 mins locating and framing the beehive cluster. Starting taking my images. About after 15 images of 60s each i noticed the images were starting to become washed out. I just put it down to maybe an increase in light pollution or something else. Any way, when i came to take my darks about an hour later i noticed my lens was all dewed up. Great, i have out in the cold for only probably 10 good images i can use out of 60. Any way, can any one recomend a good dew heater for a canon 75mm to 300mm lens please.

It is fine to carry by the handles. I have done this from the house to the garden and back again many times. Just be carefull not to bash your shins. With regards the centre bolt for the pan left and right as you put it, just tighten it enough that the base does not swivel around too easily but agin does not require a lot of effort to move it. There is a fine balance between it being too loose and too tight. Many people have found though that the base does not swivel around very smoothly. There are a number of modifications that can be done to rectify this. These include using washers made from olastic milk cartons to fitting a lazy susan bearing. I will post a link to some modifications i have made to mine including fitting electronic encoders to help find deep sky objects. Here it is.

Nice image. You did a lot better than me last night. I managed to get polar aligned and then took a few test exposures to check the histogram. Then the clouds rolled in. They cleared a bit so i started to take 2 min exposures. Got one done and then more cloud. Sat about waiting but the clouds never really parted long enough. In the end i just took a 5 min wide angled exposure of M45 and called it a night.

According to the manual the nikon camera does have a bulb mode in manual. Does this not allow you to go above 30 seconds?

A lot of dslr cameras are 'limited' as you put it to 30 second exposures but if you look, there should be the word "bulb" next to the 30 second exposure setting (or somewhere else in the cameras settings. This bulb setting allows a longer expsure than 30 seconds. If the camera is not connected to a pc/laptop then the longer exposure can be controlled with a intervalometer. With this device you can set the exposure time, interval time between exposures, number of subs etc..

Never mind. Too much cloud about ☹

I was planning on imaging the orion nebula again tonight. I have done a number of subs at exposures of 60s. I was going to do 120s exposures as a comparison. Anyway i have just noticed that the moon is placed near to orion so that spoils that. I get a lot of light pollution to the north. So i was thinking of doing a wide angle, something like 55mm towards the east. Anything of interest that way that would look good wide angle?

I think the point was, communicating in text speak is fine if you are texting your mates about going for a pint at the pub. On a forum when giving technical advice/explaining how things work it is probably best to use the actual words. This way everyone can understand what is being said.

Keeping a close eye on both of the weather apps i use. Keeping my fingers crossed etc.. 😀. Hopefully all will be good as i am off work the Monday and Tuesday so i can get set up earlier and enjoy a few beers whilst sat out taking many subs.

Very nice. I have only managed a couple of sessions on the orion nebula since getting my star adventurer. I would be out all the time if it was not for this persistant rain and very windy condions. Its looking like Monday night is nice.and clear plus a lot less wind. So hopefully i can get out and improve on the last session of about 35 subs of 60s. Hopeing to do the same amount of subs but 120s exposure this time so i can do a comparison. Fingers crossed for the clear skies 😀

I have mine sat on top of the finderscope. I started a thread on here about the mods i have done to my dob. I will see if i can find the link as it shows a picture of where my rigel sits. Found the link

I would suggest having a good play with it first in the day light. At least then you will be familar with it when it gets dark (i was not, i was too keen to get outside 😀).