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Hi Gogleddgazer, I too have been a lurker and need to be a bit more active. 

Hi Geordie John, Welcome to SGL ! 😀

Hi welcome to SGL 😀

That is incredible 👍

Great photo of Andromeda , especially seeing as its your first one. 👍

That is incredible , love the colours 😀

keep it up , You have done a good job finding it and capturing it.  I really struggle to use a phone against the eye piece and most of the time give up. 

I think that's an excellent first image , the stars look really good 😀

I also have the AZ GTI and use it currently in ALT-AZ mode but I use a StarTravel 102 and can manage 30sec images. I did have a few issues though and only recently sorted them. What I found was make sure you have good power, the power adapter I was using wasn't good enough. Make sure its level and the clutches are nice and tight, that made the biggest difference for me. I also do 3 star alignment, starting by being level and pointing towards Polaris. Since doing this I have been fine, I think you should be able to manage 30 seconds. 

Ok go easy, 2nd ever photo ... I have had loads of trouble getting anything and tonight I finally managed to image Bode's galaxy.   200 x 10sec (iso 3200) 30 Darks and 30 flats.

I attempted Pleiades cluster last night, I did 200 light frames at iso 800 and 20 seconds, 35 darks and 40 flats but I ended up having to stop as it got too close to a nearby streetlight. I managed to get the stars but didn't get any nebulosity at all, any ideas why?

Thanks happy-kat , yes I wasn't sure how long I could go without getting star trails. I have tried a few at 20 seconds  since but struggling to get anything good

This is my first attempt at Astrophotography,  using a Star Travel 102, AZ Gti Mount and a unmodified Canon 1100d.

350 - 4sec (1600 iso) light frames, 30 dark and 30 flats.

Struggling to photograph anything else though, anyone suggest another one to attempt?

Hi everyone, I have recently started to attempt some Astrophotography. My first attempt seemed to go pretty well capturing the Orion Nebula using my budget setup (Sky Watcher - Star Travel 102 on a AZ GTI Mount for basic GoTo guiding and a Canon 1100d un modified). I took about 300 x 4sec at 1600 about 30 darks and flats. , I know the centre is over exposed but I was pretty pleased with my first photo.

But ... since then I have really struggled , after I took that pic I bought a light pollution filter from FLO as I'm in a Class 6 Bortle area and I attempted the Rosetta nebula but couldn't see anything , then tried the Horsehead nebula but only got a red band across the photo. Thought it may be the filter so removed and tried again but it was exactly the same. I know longer exposures would help but I only have a budget setup at the moment. I do plan to modify the AZ GTI so that it can do EQ and maybe adding guiding cam in the future.

So my big question is what would you recommend I look at upgrading or purchasing first to help capture more targets and can you recommend some other nebula / galaxies that I could see with my current setup? I think I was too ambitious attempting the Horsehead nebula.

Thank you for any help

Stu