Desmond

2 hours ago, rnobleeddy said:

I use a similar filter + DSLR. I'd suggest

- longer exposures - if your mount can manage it, as long as possible, with 300s tending to be typical (this was explained to me well by another member recently, but it's likely that at 1 minute exposures, the read noise of the camera is the dominating factor in your noise)

- more total exposure time - I don't see good results (usually) until I've got 2 hours of data, obviously that's somewhat target dependent

- trying again when the moon isn't at 100% - even with a narrow band filter, the moon has a big impact

Great - thanks for the info - much appreciated. Lots to improve on
I'll try and get this mount going in EQ mode (failed a few times but I know now what I did wrong). Then I hope to get longer exposure times going. I think 90 seconds is about as much as I can do in AZ mode.
Yep - bright Moon, eager beaver to test things out!

2 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

It's a faint object so you need much more time on it. You have stretched a lot of sensor noise.

Try 3 minute subs although I'm not familiar with that mount. I think from the description it is an alt azimuth so you will get field rotation and it is therefore very limited for long exposure deep space work.

Great - thanks for the insight - I'll get this going in EQ mode for my next assignment

2 hours ago, blinky said:

Yeah looks like you need longer exposures - long time since I've used a DSLR but I would have thought exposures in the 5mins plus would be what you are aiming for.  What confuses me is that you said the mount is in Az mode until you can polar align, I would have expected to see star trailing at 90 second exposure length...

I have had trailing at some elevations, but if the scope is fairly high, it seems to cope for 90 seconds  - but EQ mode is the future

Hi,

I recently spent my Xmas money on an L-Enhance filter as I have seen amazing results with this filter.

I took it for a test run on the Y Cas Nebula last night (not the best night, but when is?)

I managed to get around 43 mins of time.

I normally shoot 1 min exposures with my 1000D modified camera but I thought I'd go for 90 seconds as the filter would reduce brightness? (any thoughts on exposure times here would be great)

The results were not as great as I was hoping for - see below.

O over stretched it just to see if I had captured the 'ghost'. He's there, but it turns out really grainy and not the nice subtle wispy nebula that I see from other folks.

So my questions are:

- is this a tricky nebula target?

- What exposure times should I run? 

- Is 43 mins way too little for this (or any) target?

- any other advice???

Setup is:

Canon 1000D - modified

L-Enhance filter

Skywatcher 72ED Telescope

Skywatcher AzGTI mount (AZ mode at the moment until I can get polar alignment working with SharpCap)

Any thoughts, hints, tips greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!