Lancebloke

Ok... so here is my second attempt. 

46% waxing moon to the left didn't help anything but not sure how I ended up from quite a red picture (from general light pollution) to a very white one.

Not sure if that is because of the data quality captured or processing. Likely both since this is only the third image I have shot and processed. 

I am new to this but I normally focus a good as possible at the zoom I want, then use the digital zoom, refocus and the same again until I cant (normally twice). That has seemed to work ok so far.

With exposure time, I used 180s exposures for my last attempt which got quite a lit of the fainter detail but blew out the core. 

Next time I am going to do the same for the detail and then some much shorter (15 - 30 seconds) for the core. See how that goes.

Hi,

Yes, I adjusted the star threshold down to 3% to try and fix the issue. I also used 100% of frames as I manually check them all to remove dodgy ones beforehand.

Hi,

Yes, I am using a Canon 90d DSLR.

Thanks. Will try again when I get some favourable skies.

Hi Happy-kat,

The data I captured was trash for that target anyway but I also captured what I could of Andromeda yesterday too. 

Am I better trying to stack just the 16 light frames and none of the calibration frames I took? 

Would you recommend a certain ratio of each per light frame or just as many as all of them as possible in the time?

Hi all,

I tried imaging the horsehead nebula yesterday as a bit of a target of opportunity for learning.

I have been trying to stack the images with the darks, flats and bias frames I also took at the time but when I do so it tells me it will only be using one frame to stack.

If I do the same thing without any calibration frames it seems to work ok.

Am i using too many calibration frames? 

For reference I have:

- 12 Light frames (detected c.200+ stars when registering but had to set threshold to 3% because of street and moon light pollution) @ 2 min exposures, ISO 800.

- 10 Dark frames at same exposure/ISO etc

- 8 Flat frames at same exposure/ISO etc

- The potential of 17 bias frames (only using 8 at my cameras quickest shutter speed.

Why would DSS tell me it can only use 1 light frame to stack when I use those calibration frames but be fine when I dont?

Any help appreciated as not experienced that before.

Thanks

Lance

Managed to get some more colour in the image. Learning the whole processing thing but more luck than judgement at the moment. 

I will try and get both the colour and the detail/nebulosity when I get a few hours tomorrow. 

Well... final process below. Think that is about as good as I can get it.

I just had my first attempt at m42 this evening. The histogram looks like I blew out the image a little bit but it came out ok with a quick bit of processing.

I will look for a good tutorial of processing the nebula at the weekend... might get a little bit more out of it before I can try and shoot it again.

On 07/02/2020 at 15:26, MartinB said:

3 minute guided exposures, that's quite something for a first astroimage!  Great first attempt at a deceptively tricky target.  Re LP filter.  Most were designed with sodium street lighting in mind and they are useless when confronted with LED lighting and the sort of stuff shown in your photo.  So I agree with the suggestion to stop using it.  

Thanks!

I will be giving it a go without as soon as the moon stops being so bright! I had a quick go of the Pleiades and Orion nebula earlier in the week and were just completely blown out!

Tell that to these guys!

@happy-kat It is part of a hospital so they have to keep the lighting on all night which is unfortunate. 

@MartinFransson I am going to give the same target a go without the filter next time. Also going to wait for the moon phase to change as that isnt going to help over the next couple of weeks!

Hi,

My general area is class 5 I think, however my back garden happens to back on to a building that had lots of safety lighting around it.

Yes, I had everything else on mains at the time... I just didnt think about the camera. One of many learnings!

I am trying to work out PHD2 at the moment for guiding. My graph was all over the place at some points but since I didnt stay with it all the time I dont know if all of the problems were self inflicted (e.g. cable snagging) or something else.

@happy-kat I am going to give it a go without a filter next time I get a clear night but it is not great. Below is 20s straight through my DSLR (ignore the tree branch) without that filter.

@Tommohawk I used ISO 800 for M31. I had lots of facepalm issues (cable snagged when tracking the sky, camera battery died quickly as it was very cold etc) that resulted in my planned 30 x 180s images turning in to 9.

I was going to attempt a bunch of shorter exposures for the core (maybe 30s) and then longer exposures (5 mins) for the rest next time I target Andromeda. 

No idea how to process that but thought it might help.

Lance

Hi Olly,

Thanks. I attempted to do that. My main problem, aside for inexperience, was that inised a light pollution filter which meant there was a lot less data in the red channel.

I would be interested what other people could do with the TIFF file from my stack as deep sky stacked had quite a good preview image after the stack that I cannot seem to recreate!

Thanks both.

I am using an Orion ED80 Apochromatic Refractor which is an 80mm f/7.5 scope. Seemed like a good starter.

I bought it as a beginner bundle with a Sirius EQ-G mount, 50mm guide scope and StarShoot guide camera.

My imaging camera is a stock Canon 60D DSLR.

I use PHD2 to badly guide my scope (just getting used to that) and Astrophotography Tool for controlling the imaging. 

Post processing for this photo was in GIMP. I havent invested in anything else yet as not sure if I can do everything there or if something like Photoshop is better.

So, although I had some issues with my auto guiding (which I found out afterwards) I did manage to get 9x180s exposures and 5 darks of Andromeda and give both stacking (using DSS) and processing (using GIMP).

My first attempted DSO....

I am pretty sure that people could get far more information out of the TIFF file from the stack.

Hopefully I will get another clear night soon. I am in a heavily light polluted area so I do have a clip in filter on my DSLR which I think took a lot away.

More practise needed!

Lance

Hi all,

I got another issue sorted and it looks like tracking is working via the handset connection. 

Thanks for your help getting me this far! I will give it a proper go when I get some clear enough skies and can align my mount etc but looked good today.

Looks like you were right!

Managed to get it tracking too (albeit without and alignment as was just testing).

PHD2 tutorial next and then need clear skies!

Thanks for your help all!!!

Marcus - yes... I went for the cheap version since I am just starting out.

Michael - ok... I will give it a go. There isnt much to play with there but at those distances not much is quite a lot. 

Thanks all.

4 hours ago, MarcusH said:

Am I daft, or is there a focuser missing from that picture…????🤔

That is all it came with... supposed to be the full package.

I focus the scope using the twisty bit (sorry) and locking ring at the front.

Hi,

I think that is the starshoot pro camera so not sure now that compares. The starshoot has a little extension tube which is pushed all the way in at the moment. 

In the day I have to set the exposure rate to 0.01s as it is too bright otherwise and the frame freezes until I lower the exposure rate or take it somewhere darker.

I will try again. I am in a very flat part of the UK so without taking a little trek, a distant object is probably 1/4 mile at most.

Thanks

Lance

Well, I tried to do this in daylight with exposure rate of 0.01s (otherwise it froze) and brightness turned down but came to the conclusion that everything I am able to point at is too close for that to work. 

So tonight I point my telescope up and tried to manually focus the guide scope... no luck, just grey lines. It seems to find super bright items that appear HUGE in PHD2 (e.g. sirius) but I cannot get it to be anything other than huge.

I tried a couple of spots in the sky in which I assumed the scope would pick up stars (tried pointing at Capella for example) but nothing.

Think I may have a dead camera!

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/sky-watcher-synscan-wifi-adapter.html

Would this cover the last option? 

The less cables to manage and free up scope/laptop the better!

Dave,

Thanks. Would that go from the handset port on mount to my laptop?