Grant93

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

Just put in your camera and Lens/Telescope (Might have to do the lens FL and Aperture manually as it usually doesnt have lens info stored)

Then put in the target you wanna shoot and it will show you an image of the FOV

Edit: But at a guess, with a 224mc and a 500mm FL lens, you will be imaging core only on Andromeda

Looks like a sensible start to me. Good thing about having a setup like this is the portability, even when getting a HEQ5 I still find myself using the skyguider+135mm more, because I can be out and within 10mins I'm shooting away, so it doesn't feel like too much effort when you're only going to be shooting for 1 or 2 hours. Only get to take the HEQ5 out on the few and far between weekends that are clear.  So even when you come to purchasing a bigger mount, you still get plenty of use out of the startracker.

16 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

No need to be intimidated, thats a good image, you have got lots of the faint gas emanating from the main body. 

Thank you I do like it when you see the 'cirrus' areas of the nebula, give it that look of drifting through space.

Hello everybody,

Sometimes looking across this section of the forum, I feel a little intimidated to post anything here, as I feel unworthy to put my images amongst a lot of them I see on here. However I should put on my big boy trousers and stray away from posting in the beginners forum all the time, although I still am very much a beginner. Lets see how this is recieved anyhow, constructive criticism always welcome.

5 hours on NGC1499 @150 second exposures. 30 of each Flats and Bias

50% moon (ish)

600D

Samyang 135mm @F2.8

Skyguider Pro

L-Enhance Filter

Processed in Siril, Star reduction in Startools and noise reduction in Gimp as StarTools was playing up when trying to apply noise reduction there.

Cheers

Grant

6 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I'm afraid this is wrong. The Hyperstar advertizing is disgracefully misleading because it gives the impression that, in going from F10 to F2, you get the same image in a fraction of the time. You don't. You get a tiny image in a fraction of the time if you're shooting a small target. This is because the focal length is reduced in order to speed up the F ratio. To get the same image in a fraction of the time you would need to keep the focal length as it is and increase the aperture. This discussion comes under the famously controversial title of The F Ratio Myth. Go there at your peril!

Galaxy imaging: first you need to decide on an image scale in arcsecs per pixel. Say 1.2 or 1.5 or whatever. This is determined by FL and pixel size. Then, with both of those fixed, you can think about aperture. If you only think about F ratio you'll go up a gum tree!

lly

Sorry I should've mentioned, I understand that as you lower the the F ratio in the EdgeHD via reducer or Hyperstar, you also reduce the focal length, so the image you will be taking will become widerfield. The impression I get from Hyperstar advertisements, is that if you add it to an EdgeHD, it effectively becomes a RASA, widefield and super fast light collecting, is this wrong?

My point was, if he got all 3, he would have a choice on whether he wanted upclose and F10, or widefield F2, or something inbetween. Not arguing - Trying to clarify and make sure I understand it also

Uneducated response with little experience, so take this with a pinch of salt. But I suppose if you just wanted a good all in one, after selling all that gear, you could get an EdgeHD with a hyperstar and reducer. You've got the choice of F10, F7 and F2 then.

Might be wrong, someone correct me if I am.

Incredible image, what bortle skies do you image from may I ask?

Two entrys! Both caught under a good bortle 4 in the Lake District UK, hoping to capture IFN. Both with an EOS 800D Iso 800 and Samyang 135mm mounted on an iOptron Skyguider.

3 hours data on each 120 second subs.

Flats and Bias applied.

M45 stacked and processed in Siril. F3.2

Bodes and Cigar stacked in DSS and processed in StarTools. F2.0

3 hours ago, barbulo said:

Lovely pictures! 
It seems that Samyang f/2 thing performs outstandingly for wide field AP. It’s in my radar for long term acquisitions. 

You won't regret it, probably the purchase I get most of my enjoyment out of. Fast and wide optics are great when you don't get much imaging time 😀 

13 hours ago, Richard_ said:

Wow, Grant! These are amazing, just look at all that dust and detail from just 3hrs! Very jealous of your images, especially M81 (I've taken 6hrs with my 120mm f6.5 refractor and haven't captured any dust...). 

Hope you enjoyed your time away as much as you did taking these images. Well done! 

Thank you for the kind comment! To my knowledge, from what I've learnt from people on here, IFN is very faint, and needs two things, dark skies and fast optics, so it helped me being in a relatively dark sky and also shooting at F2.0, you can capture it in more light polluted, but need a lot of data!

Thank you to everyone else for your kind comments also

Hello everyone,

Been a few weeks since my last pictures, been taking a few, a few I have yet to process but here are some fresh ones from last week.

As always whenever I'm choosing the location for our walking holidays with the fiance and the dog, I always choose somewhere with a reasonably dark sky and during a new moon, just in hope that I can either get some snaps or just enjoy the view with binoculars .

This time I chose the Lake District, was in a 'good' bortle 4, Sky quality 21.6 according to the app, compared to my bortle 5 19.7 back garden. So a significant step up! And it was certainly noticeable. Usually on my back garden the Samyang 135mm washes out at F2.8 within 30 seconds. Here I was getting 120 second subs not even close to washing out. My aim for both of these was to pick up the surrounding IFN on these objects, as I love a good IFN picture.

I have tried an IFN snap of M45 from the back garden, with reasonable success, but this one is a definite improvement. Bodes and the cigar was taken with the taps wide open at F2.0, however I now see why people recommend against that, a bit of coma on the edges and caused blue fringes around the stars, and M45 was taken at F3.2, dont know why, probably should of stuck to F2.8 since thats usually sharp enough.

M45 was stacked in Siril and proccessed there, with some star reductions in StarTools.

Bodes and Cigar was stacked in DSS as Siril didnt seem to like stacking this, not sure why, and fully processed in StarTools, as Siril also didnt seem to like processing something from DSS.

Both 3 hours worth of data at 120 Second subs

800D + 135mm Samyang on the iOptron Skyguider Pro

Let me know what you think

Grant

51 minutes ago, Leonard Abu-Saa said:

Thanks for the suggestion Grant. I could get the HEQ-5 mount, but I’m not sure about the scope. However, I am unwilling to tweak my current 130/650 because I just don’t know how and what amount of tuning would be ‘enough’. Also, I didn’t find any images posted with this scope compared to the SW 130/150. Assuming I stick with this scope, what focuser and auto guider would you recommend? 

Thanks a lot for your input.

As these are things I've never done myself, I wouldn't be able to answer fully. The reason I say focuser is because at the moment on the website it says theres a 1.25" focuser on there, you will need a 2" focuser to be able to connect your DSLR. Once you get one, you can then see if you're able to focus with your camera, if not, then you will have to think about moving the mirror. Not something I've never done before, but there are many people here and on YouTube who would be able to help! - Main point being - although I can't give you much advice on how to get your telescope to work for AP, there are people who will be able to, and it will be a cheaper route than getting a totally new scope

As far as autoguiding goes, I myself have a AstroEssentials 50mm guidescope and a ASI224MC camera which would work for you also, you can go a little cheaper on the camera, and get a ASI120mm, but advice given to me was if I get the ASI224MC you can use it one day for planetry and lunar.

May I ask why your current telescope isnt suited for AP?

Only things I can spot is you may need to change out the focuser, and you may need to shift the mirror up the tube (Not sure on that one). Just because a telescope isn't advertised as being suited for AP, doesn't mean it isnt Obviously you would still need the HEQ5 or equivalent. 

I could be wrong though!

1 hour ago, CraigD1986 said:

@Grant93 I wouldn’t dream of modding my 5D. It’s an expensive camera and would be useless for anything but Astro if I did.

Yeah thats a fair one then

26 minutes ago, CraigD1986 said:

Apologies, I wasn’t clear. I tried a quick stretch in Photoshop after stacking in DSS.

A appreciate all the replies and you have all put my mind at ease. I’m finding many reasons to purchase a ZWO ASI533MC Pro at the moment and this is just another.

I read that IC1831 and IC1805 were beginner friendly targets so didn’t realise. Not to worry. I’ll try again on an easier target when I get the chance.

Just going to pass on a little advice I myself has recieved on this forum before. The only difference between an Astro dedicated camera and a modified DSLR - is cooling, which reduces noise not sensitivity to emission nebula such as the heart and soul. So why not consider modifiying your DSLR?

Edit: Especially considering your current DSLRs 30MP and massive full frame sensor, compared to the ASI533mcs 9MP and smaller-than-APS-C sized sensor

18 minutes ago, CraigD1986 said:

It was the other night so the moon was quite bright.

 

Screenshot is from ASIAir Plus live so it had stacked 6 images at that point. Camera is stock.

 

I didn't expect anything amazing but after trying to stretch the tiff file (Attached above straight from DSS), I was surprised to find nothing there at all

Sorry if I misunderstood this, but don't try and stretch in DSS, as they state themselves, its not a good processing tool, only good for stacking. Use other free tools such as GIMP or Siril (I've found stacking in siril is much better also, just takes a little longer), or download free trials on other software such as StarTools, APP or Pixinsight.

But the camera being stock is also something that will hold you back on emission nebulae such as these. Should stick to your broadband targets with stock cameras, reflection nebulae, star clusters, galaxys.

Hope this helps!

Grant

9 minutes ago, CraigD1986 said:

Long story short, I tried to image the Heart & Soul nebulae the other night and completely failed. I know I was on target due to the ASIAir annotations but after stacking 15x 5 min exposures (Lights only), there is just nothing there. Can anyone advise as to what might have gone wrong?

Canon 5D Mk IV, 200mm, f6.3, ISO 500, 300 sec

22-01-13-IC180 No calib.tif 243.86 MB · 2 downloads

Is this a stretched image? Is your camera modified?

Hello everyone!

Had a nice week yet again last week, these clear skies for the UK recently are astonoshing! Usually I can get 3-4 nights per month of imaging, not per week!

But there was a bright half moon night after night so I decided to point the scope north, on some relatively bright galaxys, M81 and M82. This is my first fully non-manually dithered image. Wow does dithering make a huge difference, very clear of a lot of noise, and the added bonus of not having to use darks!

The only trouble I had with this, was there was dust bunnys that appeared on the picture. I used flats, but didnt take them until the morning before processing, so I wondered if the dust bunnys just moved, because they certainly worked to get rid of any gradients from vignetting.

7 hours of data, 2min subs

40 Flats

40 Bias

Manually stacked in Siril

ZS61 + 800D

HEQ5

ASI224mc + AstroEssentials 50mm guidescope

Astroberry to control the camera and guiding.

Randomly Dithered 10 pixels every 3 frames

Let me know what you think

2 hours ago, tomato said:

Great images, I think star clusters are quite tolerant of moonlight, as your results demonstrate.

 

I think clear nights, even when the moon is up, are too precious not to try and image something.

I agree! I think star clusters are what a lot of people avoid also, as they're mostly 'boring' compared to them nice colored nebulae and galaxys we see, so I find a full moon is a good excuse to shoot some of these

1 hour ago, Ian McCallum said:

Regarding the Raspberry Pi, I've read that there are fake ones out there. Is this true? If so, where's a reputable place to buy one from? 

I'm not sure about the fake ones. But I got mine from https://thepihut.com Works, nice and reliable, no issues

10 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Great shot with the background nebulae. Nice!

I have an FMA180 and this looks like a good wide field target for the future.

Thanks 😀 I did preferably want the close up with the Zs61, but couldn't be bothered to set up the heq5 with the guiding etc after work. So I settled for the wide field hoping to pick up some IFN. Will repeat this in a few weeks when I go to the lakes with the skyguider 😀 in a bortle 2/3 rather than the 5 that I am in now. 

Good luck for when you try it! 😀

10 hours ago, smashing said:

That's mega, well done!!

Thank you very much 😊 

21 hours ago, Ian McCallum said:

Perhaps I should look into DSO subjects, instead of lunar and planetary work?🤔

Not had a read through all the answers, so I don't know if someone has already said this. But one thing that came to mind when I read this, is if spending more money on a better laptop or pc to be able to handle planetary is an issue, then investing in the rest of a set up for DSO imaging will be even more eye-watering 😆, especially to be able to take long exposures with the FL of the SW120Evostar.  So if planetary is what you really wanna do, get yourself a decent laptop. 😀

Hello everybody!

Had a pretty good week of weather last week, As I was on afternoons though by the time I got back from work I couldn't be bothered to set up the HEQ5 which the 800D is attached to, so I just took my Skyguider out every night with the 600D and Samyang 135mm Lens, polar alligned and shooting away within 10mins. Left the Dec the same so every night I just had to find M45 on RA, as no collision was possible I just let it image past the meridian. As F3.2 is pretty fast in the bortle 5 skys, I had to stick to 30 second subs unfiltered. This made for a VERY long process of stacking as there was a lot of individual images.

Happy to of picked up some snippets of that elusive space dust, although not as clear and standing out as I would've hoped. I also think the fact its mixed in with some noise gradients doesn't help.

Any advice or tips welcome as usual

7 Hours at 3.2 on the 135mm Samyang

600D and Skyguider Pro.

Flats & Bias

Stacked and mainly processed in Siril (Took sooo long to stack, ordered an extra 8 RAM for my PC 😅) Did some HDR, Star reduction and Super Structure in StarTools.

1 minute ago, AstroMuni said:

Over and above the advice given by alacant.....Also try the Sirilic tool. This automates the siril processes in an intuitive manner and it allows you to split and process data from different days with different settings. I use this for all my processing. Here is a good intro available on the startools website http://download.startools.org/Siril with Sirilic.pdf

Brilliant! Will take a look this weekend Thank you