Andy R

I actually had 3 hours of almost clear skies 🌌 last night. A rare occurrence around these parts. Ive been chopping for on the bit to get a guiding rig up and running after an unsuccessful first attempt last week; and last night it all came together. Battery fully charged, mount polar aligned; laptop behaving, EQMOD behaving, star aligned perfectly, guide scope focused, phd2 and guiding working(eventually) and first target panstar dead centre. Over the moon literally then a huge rain cloud came and put a dampener on everything.

Once I reach focus and happy with it I use a small piece of decorators masking tape (low adhesive and leaves no residue when removed) across the focus ring and zoom to hold focus. I then use a coowoo lens heater/dew band which runs off usb.

Stunning

The Pleiades, M45, Severn Sisters, Subaru or "that bunch of stars that look like a little saucepan", as I use to refer to it, when I didn't know any different. I love the star cluster and the reflection nebulae it creates, One of the first DSO's I imaged last August and one I will always try to improve on. Went for a widefield image a few nights back, just short of 2 hours of data taken with an unguided Star Adventurer, unmodded Canon 6D mkii with the kit lens @105mm, ISO800 210' subs. 25 darks, bias and flats. Stacked in DSS processed in StarTools.

Lovely detail in there, yes the weather sore subject!

Found this thread really useful thanks to everyone's input, as I too have just started to setup my mount, ascom/eqmod and stellarium with no previous experience. Managed to get everything talking and working then my graphics card let the side down and kept crashing stellarium and my laptop. Its 8 years (windows10 upgrade) old and I think the graphics card doesn't supports opengl3.0 or the other spec requirement or both. anyhow I downloaded and ran Cartes du ciel and truthfully I was up and running slewing to targets in 2 minutes without researching how or when. It may not be as graphically pleasing to the eye as stellarium but its has my vote for newbie usability. Right im off to research APT now.

29/12/2019 Widefield picture Rosette Nebula region, stars not the most pin sharp due to random strong gusts of wind causing vibrations on the camera/mount. I will probably process again with less subs but I thought I'd give it a go with what I had. Plagued once again by camera going out of focus every now and then (even tried a bit of low adhesive masking tape across the focuser&zoom). 63x210' subs, 25 darks, flats and bias. stacked with DSS and processed in StarTools, tweeked in Photoshop. Can anyone recommend any astro plugin they use? 85mm (x1.6 crop factor) canon F/F kit lens ISO800 F5.6. Ta for looking.

Some cracking images there indeed.

20/12/2019 31 x 240' subs, 20 darks, 25 bias and 25 flats. ISO 400 @F5 Modified Canon 600D - Full frame Kit lens 24-105mm @ 24mm (*1.6 crop factor) unguided Star Adventurer & WO wedge. Stacked in DSS, processed in StarTools v.1.6.383A

I Found its tough going a few weeks back, 130 minutes of data and it could of done with a lot lot lot more. I was using a unmodded full frame DSLR with a whitecat 51 & the next night I tried a modded DSLR, messed it up the framing with the crop factor thou and cut half of it off. Im still playing around with the data in StarTools but having problems trying to tease out the Nebula. I will however try with photoshop but I don't expect any better results. So the only advise I can give is collect as many hours of data as you can and use Rigel to frame your images. That said Im still new to AP so ill be looking at what other members advise too. Good luck.

nice selection, spoilt for choice.👍

I keep my visual & imaging setups indoors, in the dining room, ready to go at a moments notice. I don't have a shed, and if I did it would of long been blown away. I do however have a 20' storage container but due to a rather large false widow spider population and slight dampness I find the idea a little off putting. However its a growing collection and sooner or later the lesser used items will have to collapsed and moved upstairs.

Thank you Bryan, I think I will be attempting the Rosette & Cone Nebulae next time around with the same lens at a higher zoom. I've took the plunge this week and purchased Photoshop so I will no doubt attempt to process the data again using this, just for a comparison. Andy

Also worth considering is buying used/secondhand. I bought a well looked after Heq5 pro mount & tripod last week, its not as beefy as a Neq6 (smaller payload) but still a capable mount for starting AP etc. Plus the money I’ve saved will go towards a suitable triplet refractor/guiding setup.

Welcome back sir. e2a: yes nice images too

Thanks for the encouraging words Bryan, I’m currently at the DSLR stage Andy

This image certainly has the wow factor; someday in the distant future I hope to be at this level. Nice work.

If I’m imaging say a constellation with and a 50mm camera lens then generally aim it at the area of sky take photo and check then recompose if needed. If I’m using my redcat 51 (250mm focal length) on smaller less visible targets, I use a red dot finder and sky safari app to star hop to where I think it should be take a picture and adjust, usually I find it first time or within 10 minutes. Before I had a RDF I could take up to an hour on some targets. I had a very rough idea where I was pointing (looking through camera view finder) and would try and match the star in my image to SkySafari. I got very frustrated, I even gave up on one or two occasions and imaged other more obvious targets Andy

I have a secondhand modified 600d and a f/f 6d mkii, 600d is my goto choice when imaging AP, good size swivel screen, easy to use, recommended iso range of 800-1600 is all that is needed, max iso 6400 but I only use that for focusing and you can pick up secondhand pretty cheaply.

This was going to be my Xmas present to myself, it still is, I just can’t see me unwrapping it until January 😞(violin music please)

Would you give your last one away though?

Lol sounds familar, good luck with your journey 👍

Couple of links to Trevors astrobackyard website for DSLR imaging, I found useful too along with this smashing forum:- https://astrobackyard.com/bias-frames-astrophotography/ https://astrobackyard.com/how-to-take-dark-frames/ https://astrobackyard.com/how-to-take-flat-frames/ Failing that look for a copy of "Making Every Photon Count" (available from FLO) I found it useful to start with but had to put it down as I became a bit lost and overwhelmed with the more technical side of things, so I practised what I learnt from the book upto that point. Now I shall finish reading it (after misplacing the book), as I have gained more experience and would be able to understand everything a little better. Good luck

There's some lovely images in your album, nice work👍

There’s an Aussie chap on a YouTube channel called “Nightscape Images” that’s pretty good and informative, he even takes the time to answer any questions posted. While he doesn’t use a tracking mount (stacked images with foreground light painting instead) the work flow tutorials he uses can be used just the same. He uses Sequator for stacking, LR & PS for processing & editing. Sequator is freeware and if you don’t have the adobe package, Darkroom and GIMP(both freeware too) can be used with pretty much the same result. HTH Andy