Jm1973

Hi Aramcheck. I think you are right, It is due to some bad images rather than the tracking being out that much. I'll go through the images and see if I can get rid of the dodgy ones and stack it again. Thanks for having a go at the tiff. Your processed image looks great! Gives me something to aim for! (sorry got confused with who posted what earlier)

@ollypenrice Hi Ollie. Thank you so much for the very detailed reply. That is above and beyond mate. I will be following along with this as soon as I finish work, trying to see if I can do the same. This site is so full of helpful people, it really it a pleasure to come here to learn.

@Jamgood - Thanks for the recommendation! There are so many videos out there, it's good to have someone filter the good stuff! @happy-kat - That's a good point. I will check that next time I shoot. Thanks!

Thanks Jamgood. I will take a look at that. I appreciate you taking the time to post this. Post processing does seem like a bit of a dark art. I haven;t used PS for years either so I don't really have a solid base to build on, but I'm sure I'll get there in the end. Justr googled that. I think my polar scope is a bit out. If I foces on something and turn the RA, it does move about. I'll get that sorted out as well. @Chefgage Thanks for that. I have GIMP too so I'll take a look at that also.

Wow! How did you get it to look like that? I do polar align, but I think it's not perfect by any means. I haven't collimated it since I had it, so that definitely needs to be done. I will take your advice with regards to the flats, (and darks and bias). I think I also need to learn how to stretch more, as you've got it to look 100 times better than me in 30 seconds, whereas it took me about 2 hours to make it look worse.

Hi guys. Thanks for the replies. I took about 100 30-second lights, at iso800, with an unmodded d3300 connected directly to a Sky watcher 200p explorer, in an eq5 synscan pro. I know it's a bit overweight for that mount, but at 30 second exposures it seems ok. I'm only doing 30 seconds because I can't get the d3300 to do longer exposures with the intervalometer software I'm using. I used 10 darks, 10 flats and 10 bias frames. I have stretched out with adjustment curves, and also set the black point with adjustment levels. I tried masking off the core so it didn't blow out everything else when I stretched it. Here is a compressed jpeg of the processed image: Here is a link to the stacked tiff: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8n1nl4d337sv52m/M31 260920.tif?dl=0 Thanks!

Hi everyone. I've just recently started imaging. One of my first targets was Andromeda Galaxy M31. I watched a bunch of tutorials, took a bunch of images, stacked them and prcoessed them in Photoshop. However they don't look right. Whereas all the images I've seen show the actual galaxy as being somewhat oval, no matter what I do with my images they are kind of round. I know may not make a lot of sense said like that, but either I am doing something totally wrong in my post processing, or the data in my shots has some kind of problem. Are there any people on here who are good at post processing, and able to take my stacked tiff and see what they can do with it? It would be good to see if someone else can make something reasonable out of it. Then I would know if I need to research post processing more, or whether there is some flaw in my photography. For me this stuff takes hours, but I'm aware that there are people who may have a workflow that enables them to process an image quite quickly.

Hi Richard. I'm in the north of Bristol. Henbury to be precise. Interested in any good spots in this neck of the woods.

I wouldn't buy cheap eyepieces. I'd go straight for something half decent.

It seems to have play when I move the mount back and forth. But only within a certain angle. I'm afraid if I unscrew it it will get damaged. It's that stiff. I think I'll take it apart and see what I'm dealing with. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Thanks. This is very helpful. I'll take a look and consider getting the uprated versions.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm reasonably competent at tinkering with things, but at the same time I don;t want to risk break anything on my newest toy without checking first.

Hi All.. I'm having a problem with my EQ5 mount, and I'm not sure what to do about it. One of the altitude adjustment bolts that are used to adjust and lock in the mount when doing polar alignment is extremely stiff. One I can unscrew completely quite easily. The other feels very stiff whether I am tightening or loosening it, and it only seems to go a little way in or out. Luckily it is more or less in the vicinity of 51 degrees which is my latitude. I am afraid to force it in case it strips the thread. Is there anything that can be done? Am I doing something stupid? The thread looks ok on the bolts itself. It's the one on the right hand side in the pic. there are a couple of allan key bolts on the other side. Can I adjust anything with those?

Thanks for the replies! Is that the GoSky above? I have heard reasonable reviews on it. I will try that one as a first stop, and as it's Amazon, if it doesn't work I'll just return it and try the other Amazon one!

Hi All! I'm trying to get some photos on the planets in the next few weeks, on a budget. It seems to me I have two options: 1. Attach my DSLR to telescope with adaptor tube and lens. I have tried this and I cannot quite achieve focus. 2. Attach my smartphone to the lens and take a video, get frames from that and stack them. I don't want to mess about with pushing the mirror up or anything like that, so 1 seems out. Unless there is some kind of adaptor I can buy? The easiest way would seem to be buying some kind of mount for the smartphone. Can anyone recommend one that will work ok? Some seem quite expensive, others quite cheap. Obviously you get what you pay for, but equally I just need something to hold my smartphone onto a lens, so I don;t want to spend a lot of cash on this if I can get it done passably well for less money. Can anyone please recommend a smartphone holder that works? I have a Skywatcher200p with standard focuser etc, and a Samsung Galaxy s8+. As ever, thanks for the advice.

Yeah, I used the 25mm to locate it. Then I switched to a 10mm, and even a 6mm, but still couldn't really see it properly. Whereas with the ring nebula it was quite clear. I have quite cheap plossls for my 10mm and 6mm though, so maybe they weren't quite up to the task?

Welcome to the forum. I'm pretty new myself, having recently been in as similar position. Although I went the other way and researched for weeks before buying a telescope, but then upgraded first the telescope, then the mount, within a matter of weeks. Very addictive hobby. You'll find the people who post here are extremely helpful. I've been given plenty of good advice in the time I've been posting here. I hope you get as much pleasure out of stargazing as I have. Clear skies.

Thanks for all the replies. I actually managed to get proper star alignment, and all it took was a bit of planning. I used Vega, Dubhe and Deneb. All pretty bright stars so easy to hone in on when doing the alignment. After that I checked by going back to the same stars and calibrating with PAE. That seemed to do the trick. I went straight to ring nebula using goto, and it was right there.. just off the centre with a 25mm EP. After that I had a look a Hercules nebula which I could see, but not very well, as the skies were quite bright. I tried the blue snowball as well, but it was so faint and small I could not really see it. I feel I am making progress though.

Thanks for all the sugestions. The reason why I am asking about finding them manually, when I have a goto mount, is that I haven't been having much luck with the goto so far. I put in my alignment stars, and it just plops me down in the middle of a bunch of stars, which I have no idea about. There usually isn't one massively brighter than the others visible in the finderscope, so I just guess. Then it miraculously says successful, but it never seems to take me very close to what I am trying to goto. So I figured I would be better trying to learn some basic stuff manually first. The goto isn't much good if you don't even know enough stars to be able to do the star aligment.

Hi All! According to Clear Outside there is 0% of cloud cover for me tomorrow from 16:00 to about 06:00 Thursday morning (I live in Bristol). With that in mind, does anyone have any suggestions for a DSO I can try to find visually, and observe? And then maybe try to take a photo of? I'll be trying to find it manually, so preferably spomething in Turn Left at Orion as I have it here. If it helps my equipment is Skywatcher 200p with EQ5 Pro Goto (I know it's a bit big foir the mount, but it's primarily for observing), and I have a NikonD3300 which I connect directly to the telescope. All suggestions gratefully received!

I picked up a 200P Skywatcher OTA used for £145 and an EQ5 Pro Goto used for £350. The telescope is a bit big for the mount to do AP, but is fine for visual. I've seen Skywatcher 130PDS OTA going from about £100 used, and that would work well I think with the EQ Pro Goto. So you could maybe get both for around £450 or less? A lot of people use the 130PDS and EQ5 goto for AP. Edit: actually people even use the EQ3 pro with the 130PDS - even cheaper! There is even a Facebook group for people who use this setup: https://www.facebook.com/groups/130pdsastroimagers

Ah, that makes more sense. I'm finding it difficult to spot the constellation stars amongst all the others. I expect I will get better with practise. M57 looks closer to the centre os Sheliak and Sulafat than I thought.

Oh wow. That shows up quite well. I've got a 10mm EP or a 6mm. They aren't particularly expensive ones, but hopefully good enough to make it out visually. I'm not sure how well it will get picked up by my Nikon though, unless I try putting a EP between the camera and the telescope.

What size EP were you using when you saw it, please?

Sorry, I've no idea where I'm supposed to be looking. I assume the birghter star is Vega.