Damien2904

Lovely detail… 

I haven’t been able to get out & see this sunspot yet 

Amazing images! 

Hello everyone,

I hope you can help me, I'm just getting started with Deep Sky imaging from scratch and recently I've been practising using my Canon EOS 5D Mark III with my scopes.

At first I tried using my SW SkyMax 180PRO as it was the only scope I had at the time (I'm aware that this scope isn't ideal for Deep Sky), and after taking various images I noticed that the images were coming back with a dark circle around the centre.

I've very recently purchased the SW Evostar 80ED PRO with a .85x reducer, I did a couple test shots using the Canon & noticed the same thing but further out. Originally I thought this maybe my dew shield on the SkyMAX, or possibly the telescope barrel...but when practising DSS I noticed that stars are appearing outside the dark circle so presume it can't be either of those things. Is this vignetting? Ultimately...can I stop this happening? 

I've included some images for you to see what I'm referring to...

SkyMAX images 

Evostar 80ED - image of Vega on a night with lots of high cloud looking in a heavily light polluted direction.

Please let me know if you know what's happening here.

Thanks for reading. 

Damien 🙂

Thank you Pete. 

Unexpectedly I had an evening out with my scope last night even though the forecast was terrible, but to my surprise it was fairly clear-ish most of the evening apart from the occasional passing high cloud.

Below is my second attempt at Uranus, not amazing but it's all practise for me, I'm quite chuffed. First two are without using a barlow lens, the last is with a barlow lens. 

Unfortunately when I used the IR pass filter I hadn't focused correctly, so when I processed them there wasn't much point going any further. 

Other than resizing the images for this post, I think I took them using different ROI settings in FireCapture - this was my first attempt at Uranus so after finding it, spending ages trying to get the best focus, it was probably one thing I forgot to change from the standard settings on the Uranus profile. 

Thanks for the info vlaiv 

Morning all,

I thought I'd share some of my recent images of the outer planets, all taken throughout October. 

I'm only just getting started with Uranus & Neptune...so be gentle. I'm quite pleased that their colour has pulled through more than anything at the moment, however I'm hoping to concentrate more on focusing next time, but as I'm sure you all know....it is surprisingly difficult! 🥴

Photos taken using my SkyMax 180, ADC corrector (for Jupiter & Saturn), ZWO ASI224MC & Baader IR/UV cut filter. I've been trying out my IR Pass filter for Uranus & Neptune but I'm not having much luck yet, probably something I'm doing wrong somewhere. 

Damien 

 - with Io

Great selection of photos Reggie  Love the conjunction photos, Neptune has come out so clear against the other planets, and yes you can see the blue hue. Fantastic.

I've only made one attempt at Neptune so far, a combination of it being overshadowed by Jupiter/Saturn and that the summer weather here has been so dreadful.

Here's a couple photos of my first attempt last week using my ASI224MC, in the second photo if I remember right, I used a barlow & overexposed on purpose to pick out Triton. Not the best I know, but it was just a trial.

My Crayford Focuser came through the post yesterday for my 180Pro, so I'm hoping to link that up & get out tonight if the weather holds.  

Damien 🪐

Wonderful image Peter 

Evening all, 

Just wanted to say thank you all for the advise you have given me, I've been putting it to good use.

Below is an animation I made today of last nights Io transit, unfortunately due to the timing & a tree in my neighbours garden I only got the lead up & beginning of the transit. Gutted I couldn't go further as it was quite good seeing conditions. By the time Jupiter reappeared from behind the tree, Io had already moved on. Hey ho...next time.  

Thanks everyone for your comments & guidance. 

Last night after work I noted down everything advised and gave it a go, albeit there was a lot of high cloud around. I didn't have much luck with Saturn...using FireCapture I set the Exposure to 5.9ms, Gain 353 & Gamma 50(off), the planet was extremely dim on the screen however visible enough to make out where it was....so I captured a number of videos, however when heading to PIPP, it was unable to pick out the planet...and even after increasing the object detection threshold. Saturn disappeared after that (TREES!!!! ), so I had no time to make any adjustments. 

I moved to Jupiter (which was very watery in the sky)....

FireCapture : Exp=30.1, Gain=353, Gamma=50(off)

PIPP : selected 50% of frames (I took 3mins worth, about 5,000 frames)

AutoStak : Analysed & selected 25% of frames...Norm Stack 90%, Sharpened Blend RAW 50%, Drizzle off, Auto AP to 48 & stacked.

Registax : Dyadic, Gaussain, Wavelet layer 1 (100), 2 (27.5) with slight sharpen & denoise, RGB balanced & in the histogram chopped down just before RGB lines.

Result was this....

615EB694-3CE8-4147-B6D9-36E9DE554884.tiff

I'm quite happy with it even though the weather wasn't great....

On 06/08/2021 at 21:18, Tommohawk said:

Looks good to me - I wonder what gain and exposure and frame rate you are using, and how many frames you are keeping in Autostakkert? 

Jupiter photos : Exp 80.2 Gain 129 & Gamma 63 - took around 2,000 frames. 

Saturn photos : Exp 652.9 Gain 111 & Gamma 60 - I believe Saturn was 1,000 frames if lucky

Do let me know if you think I should adjust any of these for better results. 

I seem to still be having a problem where the planets slowly move out of my FOV even though I'm using my AZ EQ5-GT mount ....think I have to read up more about alignment, the scope is obviously not following them correctly, I'd like to get them to stay still but I think I'm missing something, so I'm pausing the captures to adjust the planet back to the centre. 

I did manage to take this close up of Saturn on Friday night (3 Aug), bit noisy...a but for me it is definitely progress in taking closer shots of Saturn. 

Thanks Reggie, great to hear that I'm on the right path. 

Oh...let me try again, I uploaded the original post from my iPhone so maybe something went wrong...? I'll also include the one I made of the Ganymede transit back mid July. Hope you can see them....

Hoping to maybe catch the Europa transit later tonight, but it's not getting started until quite late & I have work tomorrow. 

Hello, 

I thought I’d share some photos that I took last night (03Aug) of both Jupiter & Saturn. 
All taken using my SkyMax 180 Pro & ASI224 MC in FireCapture. Processing after with PIPP, AutoStakkert & Registax for wavelets. 

I’ve included a small animation of Jupiter…however I think I need to clean my Barlow lens, not sure what the sploge is at the end…🙄 unfortunately I missed the GRS when doing closer shots. 

Please feel free to post any suggestions about how I can brush up on anything you think I’m doing wrong.
Only been doing this a few months so I’m still teaching myself lol. 🤓

Thank you both for your replies. 👍

Quote

14 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Alternatively if you record in .ser format you will not need to debayer the video afterwards.

 

Do I set to record in .ser in ASICap??

Hello, 

Please can you help, recently I've been using my ZWO ASI224MC camera to capture Jupiter & Saturn. I'm getting a little frustrated that everything I've been capturing seems to be coming out in Black & White, & I can't seem to work out how to take shots in colour. 

When I'm looking through the laptop at what the camera is viewing in ASICap the display is in colour but it's not until I view on the laptop what it's captured or in SiriL that I then see it's black & white & this is driving me crazy.😖  I'm sure it's something so silly but I'm not too experienced with this yet. 

Any advice you can give would be appreciated, I can include some screen shots if necessary. 

Thank you.

Damien

Thank you for letting me know Reggie. 🙂

I’m very surprised that I was able to capture it, there was quite a lot of light pollution in the area. I will try and improve my photos next time. 
 

I hope you get to take some images and share with us soon. 
 

Damien

Hello 

Tonight I viewed and took some photos of Neptune for the first time. I thought I’d share a couple below….please excuse the quality, I’m still learning photography….I hope you can make it out. ☺️

In the first photo you can just make out an object to the right of the planet, I couldn’t quite work out via SkySafari what it was…it was probably me getting confused tbh. 
I’m presuming it’s probably a star as there was one fairly close tonight, but it couldn’t be Nereid or Triton? 🤔 I image they’d be a lot smaller and not that visible? 
Any help would be great, I’d love to know if it is a moon of Neptune. 

Photos we taken using my SkyMax 180 Pro with Nikon D3200 attached to the Baader Hyperion Zoom. 

Damien 

Hello,

Just wondered if anyone has had any experience or has any advice on these two scopes. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/sky-watcher-skymax-127-az-gti.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/maksutov/skywatcher-skymax-180-pro.html

I've been plodding on with my Celestron AstroMaster for an age now, & would like to make the jump to something else more advanced when things come back in stock. I'd like some sort of Go-To system with my next scope & something more powerful in terms of scope.

What I'd use it for - Lunar & Planetary observing / photography, I'm not all that interested in deep sky imaging, but it would be nice to pick up a decent photo of something like the Pleiades etc. 

Equipment I'd use with it - ZWO ASI224MC colour / Baader Hyperion Zoom eyepiece / Baader 2.25 Barlow / NIKON DSLR 

The Skymax 127 was recommended to me by FLO when I stated my budget, but now I feel I can stretch that further....& since I have read some great reviews about the Skymax 180. Only thing is that no mount comes with, however I'm wondering if I could use the Sky-Watcher AZ GTi WiFi Alt-Az Astronomy Mount? 

 ...Anyway, any help / advice or even other suggestions would be great. 🙂 Thanks. 

Damien 

Hello all,

Please can you help me, I've spent the last few months with my first telescope (a Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ) learning the basics and whether I'd like to continue this as a hobby, now I've come to the conclusion that I'd like to continue and take the next step and buy a more higher quality scope. I've become completely overwhelmed by the varieties and information online....so I come seeking your advise. 

Reasons for use :

Viewing & photographing the planets & moon (mainly), I'd love to have something powerful enough to see Uranus & Neptune in good enough detail that shows them as a planet rather than a star like object, as they both fascinate me the most. Photography - a big must....currently I have a Nikon DSLR with adaptors etc.....but plan to purchase one of the ZWO planetary cameras in the future.

Stars/Galaxies....I'm not intending to go as far as imaging galaxies etc but it would be nice to at least see them, however its not my main focus....plus I understand that I may need a completely different set-up for that....maybe another time.

Other equipment I have that I intend using : Baader Hyperion Zoom Mark IV, Baader 2.25 Barlow for Zoom Hyperion,  various Plossl eyepieces

Budget : like everyone I'd prefer to keep it low, but like most things, the more you pay the better the quality, so hit me with it. Around £500 would be ideal but I've read for decent set-ups it can amount to the £1000 mark. 

Scopes I've been checking out: 

Sky Watcher Maksutov variety

Sky Watcher Dobsonian SkyLiners & Heritage variety - can't say I'm overly keen on the design, they look big & bulky - but if good enough I'd roll with it.

Celestron NexStar - although slightly over my desired price range

Any recommendations would be great, whether it's whole set-ups or separate mount / scope. Thanks. 

Damien

Hello everyone.

Over the last week or so, I've started to think that my telescope may need collimating / mirrors realigning, as objects don't seem to focus all that great. I've never made any adjustments since having the telescope, however I imagine due to movement about the house/garden the mirrors may have moved slightly. Also from what I'm reading online about what I should be seeing I don't seem to be achieving this, with Jupiter I can just about make out some of the cloud bands, but never much detail & never the Red Spot (I do understand it does depend on atmospheric conditions). 

My telescope is a Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ, Newtonian reflector, Bird-Jones.

I've posted some photos below & would appreciate your opinion on whether you think its necessary.

The first three photos are aimed at Arcturus, with the eyepiece slightly out of focus to create the ring effect, the black circle does look slightly off centre to me. 🤔

The next couple are looking through the focuser without an eyepiece. The reflection of my phone again looks off centre, more towards the upper left side. 

Any feedback would be appreciated before I head to YouTube to work out how to adjust it. 

Damien

15 hours ago, Craney said:

 This is an image I got from Amazon and it seems not to have a small knurled knob between the two circular focus adjusters.

Thanks for researching Sean, you are right...I don't have the focuser screw on my telescope. Guess I'll just have to focus the best I can using LV & hope it stays there. 

I see what you're saying about the softwares, I'll try out Photoshop first, then if no success look into other options (this is the first time I'm wishing I had a Windows laptop! 🙄)

To my surprise, last night....just as I was off to bed I looked out the window & it was clear skies....very clear in fact!!! I managed to take some videos & over 500 photos of Jupiter on a continuous shutter, I've segregated them into groups so will brush through them at some point to pick out the better ones and try Photoshop. 

21 hours ago, dd999 said:

You may want to drop the ISO on Jupiter - try around the 200 mark. 1/20th a second sounds about right.

You won't get the moons, and it will appear darker, but you should get a little more detail and less of a wash out

I tried your suggestion to drop the ISO to 200, the photo below I picked out this morning & touched up a little but the cloud bands do seem more clearer than my last attempt. 😀👍 I'll try out the ISO suggestion for the moons next time.  

7 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

You may make some progress with your existing equipment, but equally I suspect that a different scope, a dedicated planetary video camera, and a Windows laptop (or dual boot on your Mac) would improve matters.  See the images taken with a 127mm Maksutov in the Planetary Imaging thread.

A planetary camera was next on my list of potential purchases, I've particularly been looking at the ZWO cameras (120MC-S Colour, 120MM-S Mono & 224MC Colour).

I need to research more about what each one can do etc....they seem quite reasonably priced but unfortunately budget does come into it (unless I've had a few beers & 'accidentally' press the purchase button). Does anyone have these cameras, if so...any good?

Thanks.

Damien

Thanks for all your advise....so it doesn't sound like I'm going too far wrong. 😀

I'll look up about the Bahtinov Sean....I've seen on Youtube you can make your own...lol I don't think I'd have the right skills and patience for that though. 

4 hours ago, Craney said:

Either,  check if your Nikon has a Video capture function off of the 'live-screen' mode. Think I read somewhere that you can take high frame rate movies with a DSLR....

My Nikon does have the video function, I have been using it to try focus before capturing the photos, think I read somewhere that it is best to do that? Can I ask what you mean by locking the focuser, on the camera? I must point out that the world of camera, photography & telescope is all new to me so if I sound dim then please bare with.

Taking videos, converting & stacking is something I later found out that I could try, but I'm yet to try this due to the unfavourable weather recently.

With regards to the softwares, I understand that RegiStax, AutoStakkert, Siril etc are all Windows programmes....I have a MAC and haven't had much luck finding one similar, does anyone have some suggestions? I'm currently playing around with (well...actually I'm learning from scratch 🤯) Photoshop which does have a layering/stack function, but I don't have the images yet to trial. 

My videos are .MOV so I need to convert to AVI....hmmmmmmm? Have to look up how 🤔 

4 hours ago, dd999 said:

You may want to drop the ISO on Jupiter - try around the 200 mark. 1/20th a second sounds about right.

You won't get the moons, and it will appear darker, but you should get a little more detail and less of a wash out

I'll try the ISO at 200 next time deffo 👍, I did manage to get an image of the 4 moons, the shutter was something like 1 sec so Jupiter was BRIGHT!

You can just see Io beginning to peep out from behind Jupiter on the right.

Thanks again.

Damien

Hello,

Please can I ask for your advice.....I've been taking some photos of the moon / planets for a couple months now. I've made some progress along the way but I am equally becoming more frustrated with my results. 

My telescope is a Celestron Powerseeker 127EQ (not the best scope in the world I know), and a Nikon D3200 camera along with the following bits and pieces, arranged in the order as I fit to the scope.

IMG_7866.HEIC

Below are the results I've been getting.....

Jupiter : ISO 800 - Manual Mode - 1/20th sec with white balance at daylight, exposure has been reduced slightly via Photoshop.

Moon : 

I haven't included my attempt at Saturn due to it being so grainy & out of focus...I just don't seem to be able to reach focus to pick out detail.  I understand a lot of image processing is done via various softwares...but is there anymore I can do whilst taking the actual image? 

Am I missing something? Like a piece of equipment? I've been reading about a T-Adaptor / Focusers?

Or maybe is this the best I will achieve with my current equipment? 

Thanks for looking and reading.

Damien

Are you able to use the BST Starguiders with a DSLR using some kind of T-Adaptor?

I spoke to someone from FLO who said you can't....and recommended me to the Baaders (more costly)? 🤷‍♂️

Thanks Louis, I have worked out over the last few days that the Jones-Bird telescope design isn't the best....but I'm gonna try and roll with it, I'm just starting out so anything I see at the moment is quite thrilling. 

I have looked into the Starguiders range, I was surprised at the price...quite cheap 👍. I contacted FLO to ask about using a DSLR with this range, they have advised they're not compatible & as an alternative suggested the Baader Hyperion range as the DSLR can attach to them. Have you or anyone else had any experience with these?

Please do tell me if I'm missing the point on something, I'm also trying to get my head around the mirrors etc in the telescope itself...alot to take in but I'll get there. 

Damien