AstroNebulee

I'm the same when I look through my finderscope, I get lost just slewing to targets and observing through it. I love my 127 mak and I know Sadiestorm will love theirs just as much, be a belter for the planets later in the year, but most of all just enjoy it Sadiestorm

I have one and only ever images andromeda but wanted to try bodes galaxy but never visable in my spot because of houses, the only thing to say is give it a go and see what results you get. I've imaged some nebulae with my Canon 450d

Can I have the window seat please Alan 😉

Shame I missed this flight as passport needed renewing but I'm booked onto the next available flight

Hi Dave, lovely set up I used to have the 150p eq3-2 but sold as to bulky for me. Have fun with your scope its a beauty, just enjoy any clear night's you get, loads of friendly members here for any advice and information, they are a fantastic bunch, clear skies

Welcome back and have fun with your kit, clear skies

Very late to the party here. I've only just started doing the Lunar 100 and now see there's another 100 to complete, wow looks like I've my work cut out for me but really enjoying observing and imaging Luna when weather permits, now I've a set up that gets me outside and now can see early phases I've never been able to before. Clear skies

Yes I wads sad to hear this also. Like you I've always felt their videos on YouTube were informative, easy to understand and great review videos that have helped me choose my equipment, best wishes to them.

That's a great find, you'd be hard pushed now to get any scopes in the UK now. I have the sane scope and finder on my az gti mount, it's a beautiful scope, you'll get to see a few dso with it and double stars but it's built for planets and lunar imaging and it gives absolutley cracking views, I love mine. Like mentioned above a 32mm plossl, dew sheild as they are few magnets and probably a 10mm plossl bd a good start or a zoom lens, I have the 7.2-21.5mm hyperflex zoom on mine and works a treat. Remember to take the scope out to cool first when you have your first session, depending on where the scope is kept in your house. I generally let mine cool for 20 minutes, whilst I'm setting up. Most of all just enjoy the spectacular views you'll get. Clear skies

Thank you, I'm hoping when I have my star adventurer I'll be able to do a bit better

Thank you for your advice Andy, it's good to learn those things, I always thought higher iso was creating the noise. It's all about getting the right balance between iso and aperture then. I shall try more subs definitely (it was blooming freezing when I took these last week). Wgern my star adventurer arrives I can go longer subs at a lower iso 800 maybe 400 and 2.8-4.0f maybe. Clear skies

Thanks Kon, I'm not overly impressed really but I've got it as a project to try settings on it and vary it, instead of shooting at all the targets I can find in one night. Going to try 1600iso at 3.6f at 1 minute next time, but knowing the weather I'll have my star adventurer by then haha. If I over process it I can get a bit of Barnards loop in. Clear skies

A very poor image of Orion, only got a few light frames as most of them were out of focus when the focus ring moved slightly as its quite loose, so will tape it down next time. 1600 iso 50mm prime lens at 1 min x 5 lights, 2.8f. As I've said before in other posts when my star adventurer arrives I'll be able to get much better results. Clouds were skudding along the bottom at the time as well.

Here are my very poor first attempts at the flame and horsehead nebula with my canon 450d dslr unmodded. lights, darks, flats and bias all stacked in DSS and processed in PS4. iso 1600 at 20 sec exposures, 5.6f 300mm with my 70-300 tamron lens, Can't wait to get my star adventurer to get longer exposures and hopefully bring out more detail with lower iso. Still got so much to learn but can just make out the HH nebula.

Thanks David, I've never really got the hang of using my dslr with an imaging program, I only have APT. I use my laptop when using my zwo planetary camera though. I'm in bortle 3 skies so very little LP. I will try to get the dslr histogram near the halfway and see how I get on. I have a star adventurer on order with flo and hoping to arrive sometime in mid-late march so will make things much easier for me. Clear skies

Thank you David, so I need to really get the histogram on my dslr nearer to halfway than 1 third then?

Hi David. The .png file is just to upload on here. I always shoot in raw mode .cr2. Then stack in dss. Regarding the histogram on my dslr, am I right in thinking that it uses a scaled down jpeg and I'm not seeing the true raw histogram? So saying if it shows the peak 1 third along then the raw version will be further to the left Sorry if I'm being silly here

Thanks Carl that makes good reading, clear skies

After taking my first test image with my canon 450d unmodded dslr I check the histogram and try to get it as far away from the left as I can, I believe that as long as your at least a third of the way away from the left hand edge your ok as it doesn't clip any data. I think that you need to play around with iso and aperture to move the histogram around, the higher the iso the more noisy an image gets. But I could be wrong as I'm very green on this still. The histogram on my ps screenshot doesn't seem to replicate what i saw on my dslr as this was stretched in processing. Here is a single sub from the said Orion image.

Oh sorry that was just a screenshot I took as when I process my images I do each channel separately r, g and b. I'm just wondering wether the histogram from my dslr was over far enough when I took the data.

Then you need to build an extension on to your house including an obsy, I'm currently in dreamland with that one 😉

You can ever have to much astro equipment 😂

The Bay of E have always marked their prices up way higher than that of more reputable astronomy dealers, they are the real sharks circling now as they know of the situation with supply and demand, some people will pay it though.

Hi I am trying to process an image of the flame and hh nebula using photoshop cs4 as that is all I have. I'm following a tutorial by Backyard Astro using the stretch in curves and checking the levels. When I took the image I'm not sure if the histogram on the dslr was far enough over to the right but saying that is this why my histogram is starting to fragment, see attached screenshot from ps. I'm being gentle on the curves and not going hell for leather on it. I am very green on processing my images but want to get the basics right when I do it. I have widefield orion images to process yet and hopefully the histograms from the dslr are better on those. Which may not cause this fragmentation.

That's a fantastic image that, is it a modded dslr? I'd love to get something like that as I have an az gti mount also with my Canon 450d gives me something to go at until my star adventurer hopefully arrives in March