AstroRookie

Hello Spider-Man, maybe not the answer you were expecting, but I renewed my interest in astronomy after some 15 years, and upgraded my gear. As I want to tackle astrophotography I bought a new mount and a QHYCCD PoleMaster; I haven't even removed the cap of the polarscope of my new mount. This PoleMaster is such a lovely tool to almost perfectly align your scope in no-time. I've found comments on the web of experienced amateur astronomers that admitted they never had polar aligned their mount so accurately before. For what it's worth. AstroRookie

Thanks, James. that's exactly what I'm doing now, and the camera works fine ... AstroRookie

Hello, Inspired by https://www.astrobiscuit.com/, which advocates astrophotography on a budget, I purchased a SVBONY SV305 camera. Despite the positive posts on the web (also on stargazerslounge), I can't manage to get any decent image. As capture software I use AstroDMX, to only option I have since I'm running Linux Debian. But which I doubt being the problem. Here's what I tried to no avail: SVBONY SV20 80mmx400mm refractor: target Venus SV305 camera settings: format: raw 16-bit resolution: 1920x1080 output format: SER color mode: raw not debayered gain: 24 % gamma: 10 % contrast: 50 % 50 frames saved at 9.91277 frames/sec Result: a tiny light blob, where with some goodwill one could see a crescent, but not sharp at all Meade 15cm Newton reflector: target: M82 SV305 camera settings: format: RGB24 resolution: 1920x1080 output format: TIFF exposure: 30 sec/ frame number of frames: 50 gain: 70 % gamma: 10 % contrast: 50 % saturation: 58 % Result: in the life view, the galaxy was a white light bulb, with some red (noise?) around it, some stars, on an extremely noisy reddish background; I did take some darks, flats and bias frames, but the stacked result (I used siril) was ridiculous - but for that I blame myself SVBONY SV20 80mmx400mm refractor: target: Moon (1st quarter) - I did not capture any thing, as the life result was nothing but a hazy white light blob; nothing but white light, where one could see that it was a round shaped object SV305 camera settings: format: tried raw 8-mono, raw 8, raw 16 and rgb24 exposure: tried anything between 10ms and 25ms gain: anything between 4% and 10% the rest I don't remember, I was too disappointed result: I have now a dust bulb on the censor ... I live in a very lightpolluted area (see uploaded image). My final question is, is this camera broken or is it me that is utterly stupid? Any help, greatly appreciated! greetings, AstroRookie

Thanks for the tip; I ordered it.

Hello everyone, I recently started to enjoy the eq6-r pro. But how do I join the eq6-r pro club? I've been interested in astronomy since my childhood, but I happen to be the person that ends up buying the wrong things for it. Back in the eighties I bought a 10cm Newton reflector, made in china. Ok, big excitement when pointed to the moon, Saturn and Jupiter for the first time, but impossible to point it at nebulae, galaxies as I saw in the magazines I was reading at that time - no internet in these days. Some 20 years ago I bought a second hand Celestron C8 on a wedgepod mount, but that was not the best choice either, I found out later on. Tracking was not very accurate and polar aligning was a nightmare, the tripod need to be moved entirely in for azimut adjustment; though I was thinking about astrophotgraphy, I soon realized it was not possible with this kind of gear. But with the C8 I had a decent OTA, with an decent Orion 8x50 finder scope mounted on it. But hardly any time to make use of it, kids, work and some fanatic sports period, the usual excuses. Some 15 years ago a colleague of mine mentioned that he bought a Meade LXD75 with a 15cm Newton reflector at Lidl for his kids, but they were not interested in it, so I asked him if he was prepared to sell it to me. That's how I became a LXD75 owner, but not a user. To OTA was stored in the attic and the mount I only used a couple of times as I was away for work for a whole week in these days. And then I got a project which allowed me to be at home every evening. And I started to pick up where I left off, I moved the LXD75 with C8 out off the garden shed (I know I should be ashamed, I left it for more than 10 years in the garden shed under a table cloth). In the meantime I've found on the internet that the LXD75 is not ideal for astrophtography either, but I wanted to take my chances on it and thought if I take it apart and clean it a bit, I'll probably get something out of it; but alas, I underestimated my clumsiness and I ruined it. I also bought a SVBONY 305, still playing with the idea of astrophotography, which was a bit too impulsive purchase, I know realize. . As I roamed the internet on information about beginning astrophotography, I learned that a decent mount is one of the key elements, and that's how I came across the eq6-r pro. For weeks I hesitated as one has to admit it's a lot of money, and in my case only the beginning, but then I decided to go for it and remembering my struggles to polar align the LXD75 by kneeling in the grass, and still having a lot lot of drift afterwards, I bought a PolerMaster with it. And do I love this combination, no more kneeling in the grass and peeping thru that polarscope with poor result afterwards. Since I have to do tele-work (we all know why) I found myself almost every clear night outside with my eq6-r pro and Celestron C8. The drawback that it is very heavy, I solved by using the Stanley Fatmax where I fitted in the foam the mount came with, and now I can transport the mount, the tripod, handbox, power, PoleMaster, counterweights all in one go - and I still have room for other stuff. And now I want to try astrophotography. With all my savings spent on the mount and the PoleMaster, the last one being more expensive than the SVBONY 305 I'm using, nothing more left for a decent astro camera. The first nights I could see nothing with it (I use a HP laptop with Linux Debian and AstroDMX as capturing software), only a black screen. But after having exchanged some emails with Nicola (the programmer of AstroDMX, who was super helpful even with a stupid astrorookie like me) , I could get a glimpse of M82 which I tried to capture. I also took some flats, bias and dark frames and processed every thing with siril. The result was ridiculous. This is what I think I did wrong (well I could keep it short by writing: almost everything), captured at a too high gain, flats and bias taken with the camera in a different orientation and focus when capturing the lights. So I will not post the result here, it would honor my username, that's for sure 😉 If I can give 2 cents advice to anyone posting a "beginners astrophotography" article on the web, please don't start with showing stunning pictures of nebulae and galaxies, but show me the bloopers with comments why and how it went wrong. Maybe I could start a site astrophotographybloopers.com 😉 greetings, AstroRookie