CloudMagnet

Stunning. Really shows the advantages of long intergration time in bringing out the smallest of details. I would be interested to know what that dusty smudge is on the exteme left hand side of M51 is.

Agreed. It is amazing the results people have got from little more than a DSLR and a basic tripod. I think a lot of the fun in the hobby as well comes from improving your equipment and seeing that improvement shine through in either your pictures or visual astronomy. Thats why I think it is important to keep a record of all your nights outside and document progress. Gives you something to look back on on cloudy nights... and also to laugh a little at some of your first attempts.

Do they show in the flat frames as well? Would indicate dust or some obstruction. Might be worth looking at previous nights images to see if these patches have ever shown up before- they might just have passed unoticed.

Not sure, could have been reflections or dust in the filter. Could rule that out if the patches dont show in each image. Do the patches show in each image or just some of them? Were the O3 frames shot on the same night as the others?

Good to hear, the cost of astronomy is high but so is the enjoyment . I don't think you can really compare it to anything else really. For what a lot of people will spend on a single holiday lasting a couple of weeks, you can put together a fairly serious setup that will give years of stunning views of places we won't ever likely be able to visit-far more interesting to me than usual holiday destinations. Not bad value when you think about it perhaps.

There is also the ZWO 533 if you can live with a square sensor, cheaper than the two you are looking at as well. I personally streched myself for the 071 and I have no regrets at all (expect the day I paid the credit card). It it a fantastic camera and calibration pcitures work very well to. The 294 I have heard discussed sometimes can have issues with calibration due to the deisgn of of cooling system. I don't know if this has been fixed but worth looking into.

Agree with the above, just also taking basic precautions such as keeping the camera horizontal as much as possible and store it within a platic bag or under a cover will also help. If you have anything like a Barlow lens, you can screw that on the camera while you are not using it as well to form a seal from the outside as well.

Yep, there is a still a big argument that if you want the absolute best quaility, mono with narrowband filters is the way to go. But for me in the limited clear skies we tend to get, OSC with a dual/tri band pass is too much convenience to ignore. I cant be bothered (to be honest) shooting multiple flats, refocusing etc for each filter. I prefer just one filter, press go and come back at the end of then night when its done

Great progress, its amazing what taking out a little filter will do. How long was the total exposure time?

I don't think it is selfish to buy gear for yourself. If anything astronomy is very humbling- at least in my mind. It helps you realise just how much more there is out there and how unimportant arguments can be in the grand scheme of things. Also, other people are spending plently of money on other things- most people won't tell you about of thousands of pounds of debt they have on credit. Keeping up with the Joneses and all that. Best thing at the end of the day is keeping a roof over your head and being financially secure- then spending the rest on what keeps you happy as well.

This is a question I have been asking myself recently. I also use the 200p right now just on its standard EQ5 so have been looking for an upgrade. I feel for the relative prices it is worth making the leap to the EQ6 and being comfortable within the load limits.

Nicely done, a modified camera will be a big step up in terms of what you will see with emission nebula, so good luck!

Good question, its never something that has came up as a problem for me. I normally would process in photoshop where I would select a star as a white point and balance the colours around that so that the RGB channels all show the same value. Gradient XTerminator also does a colour balance I think that helps as well.

Just to give an idea of what you can do, this is from a only week ago with the L-enhance filter on the wizard nebula which is low in the north. I have stacked the 4 images I took before astro twilight totaling just 16mins of exposure. Just stacked with flats, quick levels, curves and saturation in GIMP. Not going to win awards but it does add up when you add it to the rest of your night. I think it is worth starting around 15mins before and after official astro twilight. We need all the time possible right now with the short nights so well worth it.

Really an unmodified DSLR will really struggle to pick up Hydrogen alpha (what is emitted by most nebula) as most cameras will have a filter within them that blocks this wavelength of light. This means that very little of the nebula light will actually reach your sensor. The relative short exposure and low ISO won't help either i'm afraid. This is quite a dim nebula as well which benefits from narrowband filters and a modified DSLR/ dedicated astronomy camera. No harm in stacking your other data as well, but i'm not sure how much it will help

It can't make it any worse to be honest that using a broadband filter... so I guess will improve things a bit. I think the best idea it just to keep as far away from the setting sun as possible. For me, the darkest part of the sky tends to be around Vega right now so to get the best results I would stick around that region of sky rather than low in the north where it just doesn't get dark anymore.

Thanks Mark, I had a hard decision with how to frame this due to the small FOV at 900mm focal length, glad you like the contrast! Thanks Peter, I didn't expect it to turn out so well in 3 hours when it isn't even fully dark now. I think I will add more data to it later in the year or start a mosaic to help the FOV.

I take it you are using a reflector? Its normal for bight stars like Vega to have that effect. Looking at the other stars, the focus seems OK.

Hello everyone, Even though the day I took this was 40mph winds and cloud, it finally cleared up around 8pm, decided I would finally get round to doing the North America nebula for the first time- this had been on my todo list for around a year so it was about time! Total of 3 hours exposure (45x 4 min) subs ZWO ASI 071MC Pro and Skywatcher 200p and dual narrowband filter. Not really a scope suited to this target due to the sheer size but it gave a good opportunity to zoom in and focus on a nice contrast area around the wall and the gulf. This is a really beautiful part of sky- my only regret is not doing this earlier. Only thing that is stopping me now is those pesky short days. Thanks for looking, any feedback of how to process this any better would be appreciated. Not really sure if the colour balance is right

I was setting up in the dark of my garden, taking out my 200p, it is quite a wide scope and I always carry it out in front of me, almost vertical as it makes it easier to mount. Inside the house had full lights on so I had no night vision when I walked outside and promptly crashed the scope into a retracted clothesline- the scope then bounced back and I headbutted it for good measure. Kind of caught me by suprise. Turns out when held out in front, the scope is wider than the clothesline pole. Gave me a good fright... but I never did it again.

Good picture considering its "only" from a phone. I don't think it is really possible to improve further, perhaps with planets or the orion nebula. Really the best way for astrophotography is using a camera directly mounted to the scope (prime focus). This does introduce complexity and cost, but if it is something you enjoy, its worth looking at doing.

Now managed to reprocess it with a bit more time and effort, I honestly think that a lot of the fun in this hobby is trying to extract 100% from the picture you have taken rather than settling for "it looks good so i'll stop" Not sure which one I prefer now I look at them

Hello, I think this will be the last image I will be able to capture before the nights get longer again. For once, everything seemed to go well, no cloud, wind, dew or moon to contend with . Final image is a total of 36x 240s exposures totaling 2hr 24min. Taken with Skywatcher 200p scope (900mm focal length with reducer), EQ5 mount and ZWO ASI071MC Pro with Optolong L-eNhance dual narrowband filter. Guided on PHD2, stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop. I was suprised at just how much faint detail and structure showed after a relatively short exposure time. What I like most about the image is how long you can look at it and still spot some detail you missed before- lovely part of the sky. The way it turned out makes it look like the darker part in the center is a river running through the picture. Hopefully will be able to add more data later on in the year . Any feedback would be welcome!

Imaging and stacking is all about increasing the signal to noise ratio. You want to maximise the useful signal and lower the noise as much as possible. For given single image lets say it has a signal of 10 and a noise of 2 (giving an SNR of 5) If you just mulitply the frames by 10, you now have a signal of 100 but noise of 20. You still have the same SNR so no improvement is made. The maths behind stacking is that you will average out the noise but still add together the signal. So you would still have a signal of 100 but might have noise of 5, so your SNR is now 20 giving a better quality image. Its probably more complex than this, but it gives you an idea of the theory behind it.

I get halos around most bright stars, but it is only really noticable on magnitude 2-3 stars and brighter -I use a newtonian so this might not be so bad for you. The star colour can take some adjustment but normally processes out OK. The contrast on nebulas is a definite improvement than without a filter. I wouldn't image without one now in my Bortle 6-7 skies.