Roy Foreman

Very nice image Gerr - well done !

Thanks Gerr. I image Betelgeuse each year just in case it blows ! Could be tomorrow, could be in a million years - who knows !

Hi Gerr - thanks for your response. Shooting stars is not as straight forward as it might seem. You need to have pin sharp focus and correct exposure - there is a fine balance, which varies with the star field and atmospheric conditions. I find a DSLR gives better results than a dedicated astro camera, in terms of colour balance and ease of use. You don't need a modded camera. I generally use 4 sec at ISO 200. And yes I do have a shot of Betelgeuse - see below.

Before an imaging run, and often while it is still twilight, I will use a bright star to sync the scope to that part of the sky, and take a few images of it to check focus etc. I eventually started processing these test images and grew to like the results. I now have a growing collection of stars like Vega (shown below), Regulus, Betelgeuse etc. against their starry backdrops. Had a quick search through the SGL galleries but could not find any 'single star' images done by others. Am I alone in this, or is anyone out there doing the same ?

Increasing light pollution is the bane of all astronomers - particularly those doing imaging. I am fortunate enough to live in an area where light pollution, although present, is low enough to enable imaging without the use of filtration on occasions. My big problem is - pollution. It feels like I am constantly trying to image through a fog of water vapour and other airborne rubbish. And not all of it is airborne. Recently, trying to image in the constellation of Orion, an alarming number of my subs were ruined by satellite trails. This reminded me of an imaging session a couple of years back, taking wide angle shots of the whole of Orion. I guess about 25% of the frames had satellite trails on, and one had captured five trails in a single 60 sec exposure ! I am now starting to take additional subs just to compensate for this. It seems, not content with polluting our own planet, we are now starting to clutter up space as well. Heaven help us.

I have a Baader FFC and can confirm that it is a top notch piece of kit. As well as amplifying the image it doubles up as a field flattener, and a coma corrector as well, and provides a flat field 90mm in diameter. But be warned, it is not an item to be trifled with. Two of it's four elements are made from REAL calcium fluoride, with all the thermal limitations that go with it. Take it from the cold night air into a warm room and it will damage beyond repair. And the warranty does not cover for this. The minimum magnification is 3x, for which requires 100mm of spacing from lens to sensor. Maximum 8x magnification requires a substantial 370mm spacing ! Telescope balance very quickly becomes a problem. You need to be using a pretty serious setup before thinking about acquiring an FFC.

I like the first one best, but they are all good. Well done under moonlight !

Thank you ! In reality I wasn't expecting it to turn out well at all !

What do you do if your thing is deep sky imaging and the first decent run of clear nights in nearly 5 months occurs under a full moon ? And what do you do if all this happens when you have a new camera to try out ? You go for the only object likely to shine through the glare - good old Orion Nebula ! Started imaging as soon as it was reasonably dark and used a dual band filter to hopefully get better results. Vital stats are as follows :- 16" F/4.5 Reflector ZWO 6200 MC Pro full Frame OSC Optolong L-enhance Dual Band Filter 20 x 30sec at gain 414 20 x 30 sec at gain 305 Sensor Temperature -25C I'm reasonably happy with it apart from the star colours !

Love it Well done. Makes me envious !!!

Hi Dave and welcome to SGL from a sort of local astro imager in Minehead. Plenty of help and advise available on this site Don't hesitate to ask

I have the same setup - SW 10CF plus F/4 coma corrector. and yes it does protrude into the optical path, but the only effect this has on mine is that the star images have more diffraction spikes on one side. That is - four main spikes plus a few smaller ones on one side. With a full frame camera in produces significant vignetting - even without a filter attached. The Baader MPCC3 is far smaller - less than 2 inches long and is rated down to F/3.5 but star images are not as pinpoint to the edges like with the SW one. Can't really be much more help than that I'm afraid

Thanks to all who have contributed to this topic - makes interesting reading ! Never knew that the moon and mars were included in these schemes. It would have been nice to have chosen a particular star, even if only a faint one, but then it wouldn't have been a surprise for me.