KevinPSJ

I struggled with processing my DSLR shots for a long while - could not eliminate noise despite taking plenty of dark frames. Looking on-line here and other forums it seems the recommended approach to reducing noise (walking noise especially) is using dithering. Unfortunately I don't have a goto mount - just RA clock drive. It seemed like this technique was out of my reach. Both necessity is the mother of invention as they say so I thought I'd at least try and see if it's possible to dither manually. Turns out it's hard but not impossible. My routine now involves setting up a sequence of lights in Backyard EOS - usually something like 30x40s for prime focus work with my Skywatcher 150P and Canon DSLR 600D. Then once the sequence starts, I suspend every 4-5 subs and put my eye to the finderscope and my hand on the dec slow motion or the RA control. Carefully I nudge the scope so the stars move by a very small amount - first north, then next time west then east then south and so on. It's tricky if you are pointing at a patch of sky with only a few dim stars in the finder scope view but I'm getting better with practice. It is easier with a wider field of view - last 2 sessions I used a Takumar 200mm f/4 and it was almost easy compared with the prime focus sessions. The main benefits are (a) I don't "waste" time taking a lot of darks and (b) satellite trails completly disappear. The downsides are (a) need to stay at the scope the whole time - no opportunity to go inside while the sequence is running and (b) lots more time squinting through the finderscope and hoping I didn't nudge too far If you look at my gallery then all of my recent images were taken without any darks. There're not amazing by any stretch but I feel like I'm getting consistently better signal to noise from the end product and I've eliminated the streakiness and walking noise issues from earlier images I've taken. Compare: 30 x 30s subs @ ISO800 (with 10 x 30s darks) and Canon 600D at prime focus with 15 x 60s subs at 800 ISO and no darks but with dithering Little bit tricky to find a target I can directly compare - there are sort of similar subjects but with different focal lengths. I'll definitely be trying the Pleiades later in the year as I've not managed to get a good image of it yet that isn't spoiled by too much noise

Beautiful image! 2 hours of 6s exposures - that's 1200 subs to process! You must either have a monster of a PC or boatloads of patience. Either way this is extremly impressive and goes to show that long exposures aren't the only way to skin the cat Or jellyfish in this case.

I have a skywatcher 150P with RA motor drive and I can get quite pleasing images from my scope. Looks like your optics are very similar to mine but I have an EQ 3-2 mount which looks to be sturdier than the EQ3 that comes with yours. I'd definitely not spend any money on a camera before you have followed @Rallemikken's advice and tried it out using something borrowed. I think you should be able to get 20 - 30 s exposures with some patience and luck. Have a look at my gallery - all taken with my Skywatcher 150P (750mm focal length) - either using a astro-modded Canon 600D or a Nikon D3200.

Amazing - something to aspire to! 2000 X 60s is an incredible total integration time and the resulting image does justice to all that effort!

Couldn't decide whether to react with 🤣 or 😥 because it's a bit of both. Thinking about braving it tonight to image Mars and I'm sure it won't be any easier for me!

Not quite as bad an experience as yours - I started recording video too early and filled up my laptop memory with buffering video. Then disconnected the camera too early after the session and feared I'd lost the video - luckily was able to recover the cache of jpegs and reconstruct the video! But had a panic filled 5 minutes while I hunted around in the filesystem! Also realized afterward I should have used 2x barlow. Was kind of caught up in the moment - it was spectacular!

Mine seems to be broken too 😄 And I got all excited last night when I was packing up after a short and unfruitful imaging session and noticed Orion starting to climb above the Eastern horizon... winter is coming

@paulyz and @happy-kat. Good point about the focus. I have also heard that other variations of 150P have issues. I have the skywatcher Explorer 150P and have used both Nikon D3200 and Canon 600D at prime focus without problems with focus. > AZ stars dicovery wifi, which can carry 5 kg I've heard (can't recall where) that ideally you should aim for payloads around 50% of max load. Obviously I 'm exceeding that with my setup and it's probably limiting me. But maybe you could avoid this .... Not sure how far your budget will stretch but you could look at a widefield camera lens combined with imaging camera rather than the using the skywatcher - second hand fixed focal length?

I have a 150p and a canon 600D which has given me some pleasing results. Have a look at my galleries - DSO and planetary. I am particularly pleased with how the 5x live view that means I can give pretty large images of Jupiter at least. I combine with a X2 Barlow but maybe x3 or x4 would be better for mars and Saturn. Not every canon can do the 5x live view with 1:1 pixel mapping - according to what I've read that is essential: https://www.astropix.com/html/equipment/canon_one_to_one_pixel_resolution.html Having said all that, In my view the key thing to consider is weight - what mount do you have? I'm using the skywatcher eq3-2. If I recall correctly it's got a max payload spec around 5kg and with the tube and the camera I'm right at the limit of capability of this mount. I can manage subs of 30s reliably but that's it.