Nicola Hannah Butterfield

Not got to the bull's eye bit yet (is that the upper right named target in the phd2 screen grab), caring tends to get in the way, I wasn't referring to the shape in the guide camera but more that in the capture image, an ST80 is more out lay, I have limited income, on esa, caring for someone no one else will, so my primary concern is stable track, which this package from the only test I have done has delivered, I am now actually more concerned with the image capture issues that have plagued me. I could just add a Barlow 2x to the current guide system, would give about the same fl as the ST80 and aperture, and it is something I have considered trying, but how many clear nights have we had in the last 3 weeks,

The "hanging down" perplexed me for a while, blonde moment (sorry to all the intelligent blondes no offence meant). From the phd2 screen grab exposure was 2's as @wimvbpointed out the focal length of the guide scope is a possible issue when compared with the f.l. of the 200p, that said of the 4 exposures I managed to get before the clouds from Lancashire once again ruined the evening only one showed any sort of elongation, this wasn't star trialling more a flattening of the stars, a bit like when Galileo first draw Saturn, and then only just. The main thing I think I really need to work on is excess light entering the tube. Flats can reduce a lot, but I am still getting a centre bright area, I think this due to neighbours light going straight down the draw tube, because over head it is much less, M33 so far to me has been low E NE when shot and whilst not many towns in that direction, it does look across neighbours house and low. Alt/Az yesterday was 87 02' and 30 47' pretty much where I took the one in the summer.

Shame you could hoover them up as well. If you use plate solving as I am just learning how to use as well, you will be surprised how much easier it is to centre your objects, this is cropped to a Canon half sensor i.e. those not full frame, I get a lot of vignetting on my 6D on my set up, even with flats, but I digress, using Stellarium and the viewing the sensor/scope overlays it is bang dead centre. This is the quick stack I did nothing special, but only about 13 mins two 5 min one's one 2 min and one 60's all 100iso, flats shot at 200iso, bias darks taken from another day, it isn't great, but just testing software to see what I have learnt. This is a screen grab from Stellarium This is the last time I did M33 Of which non of the exposures were longer than 45-60's would need to look that up. So providing I can improve on the stacking integration. Hopefully I can produce better this winter and next year. Hope you get some clear views soon so you can try it all out.

Mount is a Skywatcher HE6 Pro, as I said it was the first attempt, and a very brief one clouds came in but got the chance to get two five minute exposures that previously I had to shoot high iso and less than 45's usually on occasions I did manage to get close to 60's, but I guess my polar alignment was better on those days. I found the polar alignment feature in Sharpcap amazing as I could do 60's unguided with perfectly round stars, the best I had ever done to that point, well worth the price. Guess it is worse in Lancashire than here in West/East/North/South Yorkshire (yes i live close to all four, I can easily cycle in all four with about 1/2 an hr. The focusing isn't great, but close enough to plate solve and guide.

Thanks for your reply, It had a some cloud towards the end. what surprised me is how it managed to lock on to a star with so much cloud coming in, yet still hold to an exposure of 5 mins, like I said, my very first phd track, 5 mins round stars, compared with less than 40's before, pretty cheffed nonetheless, no deep sky wonders from it mind.

Saw one in the late 90's early naugties, not sure which, but same time frame 6-8's, I was driving home from work about 1am, I was living on Skye at the time, totally light up the area, another same direction exploded the size o a full moon, it passed across the Isle, as I saw it go right left, gf at the tome saw it go left right, there were some 30 miles différance between us at the time.

Forgot to mention the scope is 1000 mm 200P Skywatcher, guided by a 128 mm guide scope, Canon 6D prime focus.

What a wash out this last 6 months has been, even the planets in the greenhouse thought it was autumn in August. After the debacle of changing energy suppliers in the summer, and paying 2 D.D. till it was sorted, I finally got round to getting a cheap guide scope and camera, £190 ish, early Nov 2020, and I am gobsmacked, like I said the summer here as been well not good, (and other things) so I thought I had done as much as could with my resources (yea I know could also do more), I used to polar align best I could visually, but had no way to improve it, drift align mmm I work on a budget of £170 p/w and limited knowledge, anyway, I recently got the RVO package of a RVO 32mm F/4 Mini Guide Scope and ZWO 120MC-S. West Yorkshire Skies being what they are i had to wait ttwoo week till I could even attempt anything in the sky. I can polar align visually to about 30' which usually left star trials after about 30-60's Using Sharpcap polar alignment feature on Friday, I got this. the the 30' went to 30" A quick exposure, gave me 60's round stars, they did start to trial after that. PHD2 after another weekend of intermittent cloud, and other commitments, got everything set up, and tried PHD2, (basic level, which is why it and other numerous other issues is not perfect), but to me I went from 30-45's subs at best, to what almost seem rock solid 5 min exposures, plus the three at slightly shorter exposures the stars didn't move (in camera) during those exposures, myphds2 final screen capture, yea I know all over the place. Finallay a 5 min sub of M33 at ISO 100

Not sure that is really that important, as most stuff is done through the computer. Nice feature for low down work with insects and the like, but looking totally the opposite way. These are some of my first tracked astro images with a 6D and one from when perhaps an articulated screen might have helped, but I also found the view finder, just that little quicker to respond. I only started on a more astro photography basis in Jan 2020

Wonderful image, if all these images are is, you could possibly do this shoot in the raw format, though you might have done this,

I just recently got a guide scope and camera, hoping to improve on the images I did before this perpetual cloud in the UK since May, my question is how much of an improvement I might make on the 30' accuracy visually and the 30" reported by sharpcap in this picture.

As @dannybgoodesaid it is probably best to save for the mount first, as any astro photography is tricky at the best of times. However, that said images can be done with non-driven mounts, when I started earlier this year, I had a Skywatcher 200P on a static HEQ5 mount along with a canon 6D, using a high ISO (sensor sensitivity) of 6,400, I managed to obtain this image of The Orion Nebula. It is a stack of 80 1/4's exposures, stacked in Registax, this seemed to take for ever as has been mentioned previously I had to constantly adjust the scope and wait to settle, but not it was an eq mount so a little easier to follow the object as I only really had the one axis to worry about. I also managed this image of Venus using eye-piece projection, detail are equivalent focal length of the scope was some 18m (yes 18m) @ f/90, shutter speed 1/60th and the ISO 12,800, note this was a single exposure opposed to a video sequence which can then me stacked. I would imagine, that similar can be achieved with either the 550D or 600D as there was no computer control, the only other thing I had for the Orion shot was an interval timer, so I would frame the scope so as the nebula moved through the f.o.v. I would take several short exposure whilst it was close to the centre of view, then re frame and repeat. Hope this helps in your decision.

Can I ask what equipment and how many frames. though I suspect in Bedfordshire though London might be effecting the air quality, though that depends where in Bedfordshire and where Jupiter rises in relation to those two places, at I guess I would have thought maybe looking towards Chelmsford.

Thanks, my computer in the shed decided to through a wobbly, hard drive failure, so I got an ssd drive which got delayed in the post, it will help speed the old thing up a bit, but lost all last week and the back end of the previous week, drive arrived Tuesday 28th April, so just got it setup and connected to scope, still imagining software to install, but it looks like no pressing need with the forecast, and I have painting to do,

Thanks. It's pretty bad I think, Upton where I life is a bortle 6 and I am on the fringe at that, but looking south is really bad, North and east are ok, north is over the house, east over houses but about 100 yards away. Thank you. I look directly over Donny to the S.E. this was merely a test to see if I could do video with the setup I have, once I got my head round a basic work flow in registax, the software did the work. Yes there was quite a bit of atmospherics that morning, I did a brief video of the moon and that was shockingly bad. Thank you, but like I said, it wasn't really an attempt, just a test, surprising how easy it was really, given the position of Jupiter relative to where I am

Don't forget The Hyades located around Aldebaran, quite large though

SRGB IEC61966-2.1 I think is the standard, I presume the first two are native to your laptop, you will have to forgive it a get a few things wrong, such awhile since I did this. One of my monitors, the one I am typing on is set to HP w20 LCD monitor, but has the option of SRGB IEC61966-2.1, I don't think it would make much difference but try it, you can change it back.

@adam1234 Choose either Adobe or sRGB these are standard colour profiles, it is possible your monitor may have a slightly different one, if it is different try the adobe, it's what I shoot in on the camera, though it and srgb are the same in practical terms.

If you want to dabble in a bit of of astro photography, the 150PDS would be a good starting point with visual in mind, you could do the same to a degree with the 150P, just photography can be a little more difficult, as I said the mount can be upgraded, though a more substantial mount would be advised if want to do photography later. If it is only visual undriven biggest dob you can afford, 6 or 8" dobs are not that large to use and could do imagery like I have shown, though not really advised as there are very few objects in the night sky you can do it on and it would really get frustrating, you really need to know what your equipment is like;y to produce, that means a good understanding in photography (sorry if you already are) You can mount a dslr to either the P or PDS version of the Sky Watchers, the PDS version is more practical for photography due the focal plane being slightly further back. P.S. glad you them, just wanted to show you don't need £1,000's just patiences and understanding of what your doing, still much to be said about old school photography.

@adam1234 Hows this. adam1234_owl_nebula_ABE.tif

Sky Watcher 200P with kenko 1.4 converter, Canon 6d just how the rig was set up. Southern aspect whilst pretty unobstructed from North East to ssw, there is a lot of lp. Got this a few weeks back similar direction. Only got the driven mount early March, and as you know clear skies don't happen every day

I have to say though the seeing was pretty bad. looking across the valley (well not really a valley, more a depression in the ground) across Doncaster, and never having done this type of imaging before, I guess not a bad result.

This is the Saturn one.