Erling G-P

Sorry about the late reply. Weather has been so abysmal here that I haven't made any photos since September! So have gone all dormant, including with the forum. Here's my similar effort, including M82. Total 6.5 hours over two consecutive nights. Equipment as per signature, using the 200 PDS here

It has been a long wait since April, when I made my last images, through abysmal spring weather and the bright summer nights. Initially shot 4 hours of the Crescent Nebula on Saturday. Star background had a reddish tinge, which I removed by making an inverted mask around the nebula, and then toning red down. While it made the nebula stand out fine in a more 'clean' looking image, a check of some other Crescent images revealed the entire area to be full of Hydrogen clouds. So more data needed; added another 3 hours Sunday, for a 7 hours total, which brought out the Hydrogen much better, to produce the attached image. Equipment as per signature. The 200PDS was used for this. Crescent Nebula is Caldwell 27 / NGC 6888

Amazing image! All the hard work was certainly worth it!

Stunning image!

Second entry is M109, taken on April 15/16. Again 200PDS, 81 x 3 minutes = 243 minutes total (4 hours).

Some very fine contributions already and mine certainly can't hold a candle to them, but will post them anyway. Spring here just as winter has been abysmal, with next to no clear nights at all. Still have two images, made in April to submit, but unlikely to get more, given the quickly waning darkness. This first one is the Leo Triplets. Taken with the 200PDS on April 13/14, 74 x 3 minutes = 222 minutes total (3.7 hours).

Posted this before, but here is my best effort yet, from last year, with the 200PDS. Both cropped & full field. Rest of equipment as per signature.

Here's my attempt with the 200PDS from last year. Certainly nothing to write home about. Have cropped much of the image away - my full field looks much like yours. Equipment as per signature. Edit: 71 x 3 minutes = 213 minutes or 3.55 hours total

Nicely done! And it was hard not to spot, when using almost the same equipment - this single shot's field of view looks a lot more like mine

Very nice images for sure! Envious of your star colours in the Rosette shot; in my own with the 130PDS, the blue stars remain completely white, no matter how high I crank the saturation. Very nice Orion Nebula too, but am puzzled by your Andromeda Galaxy - is it a mosaic? In my own image, also with a DSLR 'crop sensor' & 130PDS, I can barely fit the galaxy across the image, so wondering about your much larger field of view.

It sounds like you're going to rely on battery power? If so, then keep in mind that a cooled camera has a fairly hefty power consumption - the cooled Canon I'm using is spec'ed as requiring a 12V 5A power supply. I measured it drawing 3.5A (nearly melted the thin wires of my multimeter!). I'm assuming the same goes for cooled, dedicated astro cameras, so others please correct me if this is not the case. I have the larger Skywatcher powertank from a couple of years back.; I believe it's 17Ah. Tried powering both my Heq5 & camera with it, but voltage dipped too low for the mount's liking. Even without this issue, it would only have lasted 3-4 hours at most - and this was without guiding, which increases the mount's power consumption and needs power for the guider too. Thus I now use mains power, which is possible as I image from my garden, but going to another location would be problematic - would need an additional power tank, or a larger one with higher capacity, neither of which is very portable at all.

WOW and then WOW again!! Absolutely stunning image! If ever there was a sales add for this lens, your image has got to be it. Can't believe you used a modified 700D, as that's very much what I have. Looking at all the various image runs with different filters and exposure lengths going into it, I take it it was not a simple job making this however, but boy what a result!

I have a 700Da and yes, you can certainly zoom in live view. In the upper right corner of the rear of the camera body are two small round buttons which zoom in & out.

When you say you get no red at all with the nebulae, are you talking about single subs or stacks of several images ? Even with a modded camera, I get only very faint traces of red on single 3-minute exposures at ISO 800 of the Soul Nebula, with a SW 130PDS scope

Here's a couple of recent ones from me; Orion & Flaming Star nebulae

That's a very nice M109 for sure!!

Very very nice indeed!

You're very welcome Steve; I'm happy and humbled that you like my photos Sounds quite absurd that it would be cheaper to pick it up in person, but Brexit has certainly complicated things in some regards. I buy a lot of books in English, and have bought several items from FLO & other UK suppliers, but with customs processing fees of £20 + VAT of 25%, I'm now wondering where to source things from. Cheers, Erling

It does sound appealing, so something I'll have to look into. Thanks again Gaj & all for suggestions & info

Thanks, definitely sounds like it's worth looking into!

Patience and a fair amount of stubbornness certainly helps.. My camera has one of those mini USB sockets (fits a USB harddrive cable I have), marked 'A/V Out' & 'Digital' - I take it that must be the one to use ? Thanks again all for the comments and suggestions.

That sounds great! How if I may ask, do you connect the camera with the PC?

I am yes, thanks again all for the kind comments Regarding plate solving; would it work with a DSLR, or do you need a dedicated camera for that ?

Thanks guys, Been trying to keep a computer out of the loop, which is probably strange for an IT guy, but as soon as a computer is introduced, a whole lot of "why don't you..." questions pops up, and I have been worrying that the preciously few imaging windows will all be spent trying to get a multitude of software set up and configured. Sounds like it might be time well spent, so should probably take the plunge..

I'm sure many will recognize the kind of session I had in the weekend - when the weather for once plays ball, technology will fight you every bit of the way instead.. Have just had a lot of trees to the SSW & W of my garden trimmed down, vastly improving my field of view in those directions, so itching to have a go at some southern targets before they disappear for this season. Friday I was out for the first time since mid-October. Target the Rosette Nebula. Routine session; good polar alignment and no real problems. Only annoying thing is a gradient in the image I can't remove with Astroart; possibly from my neighbur's Christmas lighting. Saturday I wanted a go at the Orion Nebula, with the 130 PDS. Have imaged it before with the 200 PDS; once unguided with unmodded DSLR, and once with current camera & guided with a Synguider2 I was testing, but it did more harm than good. Felt the field of view of the 130 might be better for framing the entire nebula, including the Running Man. Plan was to be setup & ready to start imaging as soon as it cleared a tree in my garden, when it would be almost due south. Realised I was out too late, as it had already cleared as I started my setup. Did polar alignment as always, with polar scope, Synscaninit app & angle finder with 2.5x magnification. Onwards to 2-star alignment. Rejected Sirius as the first star, as it was behind branches. Happily accepted Rigel as alternative - comfortably low in the sky, so I wouldn't have to contort myself looking through the 130's finder. Pollux suggested as 2nd star, which puzzled me - normally Synscan picks stars further apart, but it was readily visible so I used it. "Alignment succesful", however the reported Mel-Maz deviations were horrendous, at 33/34 arc minutes respectively, indicating a hopeless polar alignment. "Sigh", turn off mount, return to start position, start over with polar alignment. Polaris was still where it should be, but moved things a little back & forth for good measure and then did a new 2-star alignment. This time with Sirius, which was visible enough, and Dubhe as the 2nd. Much better, but not good, with Mel-Maz now 4 & 16 arc minutes, but I was losing precious imaging time and didn't know what to do differently, so accepted it, hoping guiding would compensate. Slew to Betelgeuse for focusing, replace crosshair eyepiece with camera, slap on Bahtinov mask, do the focus. Short slew down to M42. Do test shot. Framing spot on; no adjustment necessary. Time to get the guider going. As I bend down to hook up the ST4 cable, I accidently head butt the camera 😖 Not hard but still.. New test shot; only seemed to have moved very little, shouldn't be enough to upset the tracking. Program the camera, start the run and go inside. Nagging doubts plagued me - "did I knock it out of focus?", "stupid to get several hours of fuzzy images", "better check; it's quickly done - short slew up to Betelgeuse and back again". So stopped the run, redid focus on Betelgeuse (it was ok) and then back to M42. "Wait a minute, where the h... is it going?" - "Arrrgh nooooo, meridian flip!!!". Sure enough, the darn mount decided to take the long way round, and this time the framing wasn't spot on at all. Synscan movement with the arrow keys is still very much trial and error for me, especially with the camera turned 90º, as it was for M42. Thus required lots of test shots, wasting more time and freezing my fingers off - can't operate the camera with gloves on. Finally ready again, starting the run & returning inside, wondering why I'm doing this.. Managed to get a little over 2 hours worth of 60-sec subs, before M42 dipped too low, to produce the attached image. As before, I find M42 tricky to process, with this being the best I could do so far.