Grant93

I have the 15x70 Skymaster Pros, I would always recommend the extra cost at having nitrogen purged, makes for much less risk of any problems further down the line. I like the 15x70 as they're worth mounting on a tripod - but also for myself personally, I can hold them steady for long enough to scan the skys without the need of a tripod, but thats not for everyone! I don't think that would be possible with more magnification. So its a good all rounder for me.

Not tried it myself yet, but I did read jupiters moons and saturns rings are also visible through them. Can't say from experience though!

Hello everyone,

I would say it was about 80% clear last night, with about 20% low clouds, being in the UK you've gotta take what you get given, sometimes this contains periodic clouds haha 😆. I decided to ditch the imaging gear for tonight due to the periodic clouds, and got out the 10" Dob which has been a bit neglected for a month or so since I started learning about and practicing with my imaging gear. Got it out at about 22:45, to allow time to reach ambient temperature, whilst waiting for that and for it to get darker I collimated the mirrors and alligned the spotting scope, did a test on Artcurus to look for the unfocussed perfect donut. Still quite light, had a quick look at M13, just a blob with no detail!

So whilst waiting for astronomical twilight (No night time here sadly this time of year), grabbed a beer and gave my fiance puppy eyes through the patio door, in hoping she would join me. She responded with her puppy eyes and wrapped herself tighter in her blanket on the sofa, No success there! It finally looked dark enough so I decided to start. Equipment was the 10" Skywatcher flextube, the 25mm Plossl eyepiece it came with (48 Magnifiction), and a 2x Celestron Barlow for them close ups (96 Mag). Bortle 5 back garden.

M13 - Started at this big glob. Being very high in the sky, had a bright core with both 48 Mag and 96 Mag. With 96 Mag was the best I'd ever seen it, core seemed just as bright, but saw a lot of glittery individual stars surrounding, Good start!

M92 - Moved over to M13s neighbouring globular. Not as impressive but still very nice in both 48 and 96 Mag. 96 showed a slight glittery surrounding, couldn't see as many surrounding stars. To be expected when comparing to M13 I suppose!

Clouds hovered over that side of the sky, so I turned to the lower end of the big dipper to do see if I could spot some galaxys I havent tried for before. (Only had the dob since november).

M82 - Happened onto the cigar galaxy when looking for M81, Not a surprise considering they're next to each other, just didnt think I would be able to see this especially during astronomical twilight. Stood out surprisingly well compared to the background of the nightsky, spotted straight away and instantly recognisable. Didn't look like a faded grey blob compared to other ones, I assume this has quite high surface brightness compared to others. Looked like a sharp grey cigar, as the name suggests! All with 48 Mag, didn't attempt 96 Mag as the clouds were heading this way so wanted to find bodes galaxy asap!

M81 - Found this easily once I was done with the Cigar galaxy. This was on my mind tonight because I read somewhere on this forum that its a surprisingly bright galaxy with the spiral arms being easily spotted! Sadly this was not my experience, but that can easily be put down to the seeing conditions, also only being astronomical twilight and the fact it was roughly in the direction towards where the sun sets. However it had a bright core with a shadow of grey surrounding. Similar views in both 48 Mag and 96 Mag.

Both of these galaxys were a surprise to me at how bright they were without perfect nighttime. I've observed the Andromeda galaxy before, which is obviously very big and easy to spot but with no success on anything other than the core. And M51 near the zenith earlier this year at perfect nighttime, seeing both cores and a slight grey outter mist. Personally I can't wait for nighttime come back again for another attempt at M82 and M81, Bodes spiral arms are high up on my list to see!

Clouds arrived. I turned my dob back round towards the house as Lyra was slowly hovering above my house, within the next 10-15 minutes M57 the Ring nebula would be in a good position to observe, so I waited. M57 is the first nebula and messier object I ever spotted when I first got this telescope back in november but quite low on the horizon, it looked like a grey smoke ring as everyone describes. But whilst imaging the other night I had my binoculars out, looking up at the ring nebula although I couldnt see it clearly, I could see a blue glow in its location, between the lower 2 stars of Lyra. Although very very unlikely to see any color in a bortle 5 especially through binoculars (impossible probably), it still got me intrigued to see what it looked like so high through my dob, rather than close to the horizon. So this was high on my list to observe tonight, too bad it started behind my house.

Sadly, when it was in position at around 00:40, clouds filled the sky with very few breaks. M57 wasn't to be tonight, so I packed up my stuff and headed inside. Due to the fight with the clouds, I couldn't really spend longer than 5-10 minutes observing each object, but I must say it was good it have a plan and felt very productive because of this!

Hopefully this is a decent first report that people enjoy reading! Time for a bonus question since I'm rather new to this. Packing stuff away, lids and dust protectors on eye pieces and telescope on straight away to try and prevent dew forming, or leave off until dew forms and disappears? I've heard very mixed answers.

Thank you everyone who gave their time to read my first report!

Grant

12 hours ago, symmetal said:

I'd be happy buying one in place of a standard lens for astrophotography as the settings are all manual, which is what you want anyway, with easier external automation of focus and aperture if required. Optically, in this case, the cine Samyang will be the same as the standard lens version so if you can get it easier I'd go for it. It's not been 'tampered with' as such as both are made by Samyang. 🙂

Alan

Thank you very much for your extensive help and patience, I have decided to purchase and it will be here tomorrow, and apparently clear skies! Touch wood.

Haha I editted out that tampered bit out, sorry! It must of been whilst you were still typing the reply! I realised what I said was stupid, after thinking about it, its just a little mod from samyang to make it more suitable for cine, even though its not a true cine lens. I guess thats why they call it a VDSLR lens?

I think the proper cine 135mm from Samyang is that Xeen one, and I've seen the prices 😱.

Thanks again!

Grant

On 01/06/2021 at 21:40, Astro Noodles said:

I have not calibrated my polar scope. 😳

Neither have I! 🥶 My Skyguider starts to trail on my ZS61 at about 60-70 seconds, I didnt know if this was normal without guiding, or possibly poor polar allignment. I will be interested to know how to caliberate the scope to see if I can improve! 😆

3 hours ago, nephilim said:

I personally dont know enough about this lens but its more suited to filming, its also for full frame sensors. 

 

Might be a stupid question, Never done any sort of DSLR photography before entering astrophotography, but would it still be good on an 800D? As its a crop sensor.

2 hours ago, symmetal said:

By the price it appears to be the standard lens but fitted with geared focus and aperture rings. True cine lenses are much more expensive than their standard counterparts as they are made to higher standards, being sharp to the corners with much reduced chromatic aberration, and no barrel distortion, vignetting or focus breathing.

Having the geared focus ring would be handy if you wanted to automate the focus as it's a standard pitch gear. The aperture ring is continuous with no click stops and is calibrated in transmission T stops rather than the normal F stops.

Alan

By what you've said and what I've previously read, it sounds like the only thing that its bad for is if you try to replicate a previous image because you wouldnt be able to get the exact same aperture, (Or it would atleast be very hard since you haven't got the click stops).

So would this still be perfectly fine for astrophotography compared to a F2 version? I don't want to compromise just because I've seen one at a good price, and they seem to be quite hard to find unless your willing to pay £400-450+.

I've seen this one at a reputable company that I do believe offer a 6 month warranty on purchases for £300, second-hand but 'as new' condition, (I would definitely return it if it doesn't look as new).

Thanks for both replys!

Edit: Ive just seen also you mentioned 'by the price', so I assume you've seen the one I'm looking at? Also I think I've been confused on your reply. What your saying is this isnt a cine lens I'm looking at, its something thats been fitted to make it more 'cine-like'. So new question! Would you buy this given the choice?

Whats peoples opinions on the T2.2 cine lens version? Can only find this at a reasonable price at the moment! Not too sure whether to buy it.

Grant

Mars is only really good at and around opposition. At the moment its very far away therefore very small. Even when its close you still need perfect conditions to see detail. I'm no expert, but what I've found from other peoples advice, no matter how silly it sounds - you need to concentrate when observing this, and other things that are hard to observe like a lot of DSOs. Your eyes will pick up more the longer you sit there and study the subject.

Mars in my opinion, probably isn't worth observing at the moment! Too low on the horizon and too far away! Like M40 said above, split some stars, wait for the moons next phase. And also try some bright DSOs such as M13, M92, M57, and if you want to challenge your eyes, M51! All of these are in good positions at the moment! Although you will have to wait until past midnight for it to get dark (Even though its still not perfect darkness being close to summer solstice.

I am all new to this myself also, but this is what I've learnt from my experience and advice off others!

Grant

Personally, whether its observing or imaging. I just do simple things like check stellarium, see how high they will be by the time its dark, where they will be to make sure they're not being blocked by my house for example. Also check out what other people are doing on this forum and reddit to get some ideas!

15 hours ago, CloudMagnet said:

In terms of why DSS has only stacked 9 out of the lot, this is likely down to DSS not finding enough stars to use as reference points in the image. Try turning down the star detection threshold to increase the number that it can find. I aim for at least 30-40 stars detected.

 

Thanks for the advice! And sorry but just to confirm - it was an extra 5 darks from a different night but a similar temperature that wouldn't stack, is this effected by the stars from the lights? (Very much a noob to this, sorry!)

Hello everyone!

Did a quick one on the iris nebula (Did this before I read that Iris nebula is definitely not good for a quick-one! As you need hours upon hours to get them dark dust clouds!) Please ignore the non round stars near the edges, I am still waiting on my flattener but don't want to waste clear nights waiting! It is quite cropped anyhow as using a ZS61, so the iris it quite small through that.

However, its no good to let the data go to waste so I processed it anyway! I think I picked up a decent amount of nebulosity to say its only 33x60s worth of lights. I used 9 Dark frames, tried to use some dark frames from a different night with a similar temperature, couple of degrees difference but for some reason DSS would only register the 9 from the same night, even if I put the other 5 in a different group, Maybe someone could answer the question as to why? I also took 20 bias on the night, and added a further 20 from another night with a similar temperature (I added from the other night because in my original stack it was still quite noisey, this is why I experimented with a second stack with added extra caliberation frames, I think it helped).

Watched a nice simple but very informative guide on youtube whilst processing it with GIMP. First time I've used noise reduction and a star mask!

Shot with the usual equipment, being ZS61 EOS 800D and iOptron skyguider pro, in my bortle 5 back garden.

Couple of questions also!

1. Does DSS Reduce star trails? I noticed I had very slight trailing (Different to the ones round the edges caused by me not owning a flattener yet), once I stacked they were gone! (Need to perfect my polar alignment, I know)

2. I want to shoot something next more to suit my ZS61, rather than having to crop loads, I was thinking North American Nebula. Is this worth shooting in an unmodded DSLR?

Anyhow, heres my image.. Hammer me with plenty of constructive criticism!

Grant

8 hours ago, RoloFanatic said:

Thats an amazing image! I didn't know you could get such a detailed image from only 60 second exposures

8 hours ago, callisto said:

Just what I was going to say....well done 

 

Mark

Haha thank you both! I wanna push the boundries on my exposures but I think ill wait until my field flattener arrives, that way I know for sure whether I'm getting much star trailing, rather than wondering if the slightly stretch stars are because I havent got a flattener.

8 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

If you are going down the PC route there are lots of options - but it does get more complicated. Astrophotography Tool (APT) has an option to mark stars in the images so you can go back and re-frame your target. If you can get close with a widefield it does help with repeatability. As you do not have 'goto' you will still have to find targets yourself though. I used this before I had got to grips with plate solving (but I did have goto which made it much easier). You could still plate solve images just to calculate where you are in the sky and the relative error to your target.

To be honest your M51 is pretty good given it is the summer. If you can get a slightly longer session on targets you could still get some great images with the kit you have. Unfortunately as everyone on the forum will tell you, AP is a slippery and expensive slope - but you can still get good results on a budget.

Ill have a look at APT thank you!

Woah! I am impressed you got 4 minutes out of a zs73! Using the same mount here on a zs61, sometimes thinking I see trails after about 90 seconds, maybe I just need more time polar aligning!

Nice images also!

7 hours ago, Jay6879 said:

 

Have you thought about getting an Asiair Pro? It has elevated the whole game for me. I've got a Star Adventurer so same schtick, no goto and a pain in the ass to find objects. With the asiair pro I would find the whirlpool galaxy in an app like stellarium, get the dec and RA coordinates. I'd point the camera in the general direction and take a short 2 second exposure and then plate solve. It then gives me the coordinates of where the camera is pointed, I compare it to the objects coordinates and adjust.

I can get the object in frame in five minutes or so most of the time. And when you are close enough you can then use the annotate feature, it'll put a nice green circle around any objects in frame, even if you can actually see it in the preview. It has made imaging so much smoother, less time messing around with thirty second exposures looking for a faint blob iand more time imaging. Honestly I was getting very frustrated by the whole ordeal before I picked one of those up.

 

This allowed me, for the first time, to properly image across multiple nights. And yeah you can stack multiple exposure lengths, and for many objects it is recommended. Especially for HDR imaging. Just make sure that each night has its own set of calibration frames.

 

As for reframing on different nights without an asiair pro? It's brutal, I honestly have no tips, I couldn't figure out a way to do it efficiently and consistently. Maybe others will chime in with help on that?

That seems like a great idea! Although I would like to leave it for a while before making another big purchase. But after reading up on everything it does, I think its definitely one to put on the list to buy!

40 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

If you can get quite close most of the stacking software will adjust the position to stack the images. You will get some overlap at the edges but it should not be a problem. Are you using any data capture software? Most of these have some form of assistance in finding targets. If you are just manually locating the target and using an intervalometer you will find it tough.

Sadly yes I am just using a intervalometer, and a spotting scope to find targets. What data capture software would you recommend?

Hello again everyone!

Was doing 60 second exposures unguided on M51 yesterday, come to stacking and editting it today. I can bring out the real colors (I think) but it seems very, translucent (not too sure on the right term when it comes to astrophotography). I got about 45 minutes of lights, did some darks and bias etc.

Without going into too much detail about the current picture, just wondering without a goto system, how do I go about gathering more data tonight, and making sure I can still stack them with my data from last night? I've never tried it, I just assume I might be struggling to stack if the frames are a little off?

Also would it negatively effect the image anyway if I attempted 90 second exposures and stack them with the 60 second exposures?

Ill share an image of the current edit just for those who may be interested! The scope is a ZS61 so its quite cropped, using a Canon EOS 800d.

I understand Ill have to start the editting process all over again, but I'm ok with that, the more practice, the better!

Thanks everyone!

Grant

Hello everyone!

Not sure if this is the right section, didnt know if to post it in the sticky, but that seemed like it was for more experienced photographers posting their first.

Anyhow, was taken last night before the moon was up. Its a mix and match of different exposures of lights, since I was trying to work out how to use my shutter release cable whilst manually doing 30s Exposures (Amatuer remember? 😆) - Im not sure if this has effected it.

Since I would've been manually touching for the first few it some frames are different, I think its given the illusion of some of the stars being binarys, as a lot have a more dull companion below them, which shouldnt be there. But I've worked out how to set it now, and I might push the exposure lengths also as there doesnt seem to be any obvious star trailing that I can see, so Ill try 60 Seconds next time!

Equipment:

Canon Eos 800d

William Optics ZS61 (No flattener (yet))

IOptron Skyguider Pro (no guide camera).

Frames:

Lights 30s x 3  45s x 12  35s x 14 (Next time I will make them all the same on my Shutter release cable)

Darks 45s x 5

Bias 20 @ 1/4000 Shutter speed

Editted in GIMP - Won't be paying for any photo processing software until I get better at this.

Bonus moon pic taken a week or so before, first decent picture with the ZS61. (EDIT - Dont know why the moon picture is so dark until you click on it)

Both pictures a rather heavily cropped, as most of you can probably work that out yourselves.

ALL constructive feedback is welcome! 😃

Thank you!

Grant

9 hours ago, Felias said:

Yes, the 48 mm is just the camera adapter, I don't need any extra extension to focus. Here is the first light of my setup, I believe it's properly focused; I know the moon isn't an ideal target for the Z61, but we haven't had ideal weather in the past few months, so I have only been out three times,

I have never tried without the flattener, but you can search images here or in google, I saw a few when I researched about the telescope before buying it last November, and I decided to purchase the flattener based on those.

 

Thank you for the information! 

Very nice image also.. you answered another question I wasn't originally going to ask also haha, I was wondering how well it would image the moon! The answer is very well 👌🙂

Grant

2 hours ago, Felias said:

I have the Z61 and an EOS 77D, which I believe is similar to the 800D. I use the WO field flattener and 48 mm T-mount, and I can focus without any other additions, if that helps.

I believe it does help, if that 48mm isn't an extension, as far as I understand that means the WO flattener is enough extension to achieve focus.

May I ask what do your images look like without the flattener? If you have ever tried it. I heard you just have to crop it to 85%, as its only the outer parts of the image thats effected if a flattener isn't used.

Thank you!

Just gave it a test, no focus achieved! Only just out. Now begs the question, buy an extension or suck it up and get the field flattener. That is if the field flattener will even give it enough extension?

Thanks for the reply's!

I will try it tomorrow in the daytime to see if it can achieve focus (funnily enough I never thought of that, I just imagined myself getting my tripod level, polar aligning the tracker, getting the settings on the camera right then realising I cant focus it😆)

If I can then its all good, if not then I know where I can buy one! 👌

Grant

Cheers for that,

After a Google about I can find a lot of 40mm ones. Is this gonna be 40mm+10mm from the adapter?

Hello all!

I've had the 800d for general use for a while but decided to give it a go in the astrophotography world. So after extensive research I've paired it with the ZS61, without the flattener as I understand for now I'll just have to crop it to 85%. Eventually the flattener will be purchased. 

My question is will I need any extension in it to achieve focus? I understand I'll find out when I first come to use it - just hoping anyone out there with experience of this before I set up and realise I can't achieve focus!

I purchased the baader t ring adapter with a clear filter just for extra protection from dust for the camera, but I don't believe this has any significant extension.

Hope there's someone out there who has the answer!

Thanks for your help,

Grant

On 28/02/2021 at 20:03, vocalis said:

I'm considering a Skywatcher  250PX Flex Tube SynScan GOTO Dobsonian. To start with just for observation but eventually for astrophotography.

I can vouch for the 10 Inch Skywatcher Flextube on DSO observing - I have the model without GOTO.

Had it since November and can find very some nice dull DSO's from my back garden in a Bortle 5 area. Yet to take it to dark skies but will definitely be venturing out soon enough!

Can't give any advice on the imaging side as I've never tried it!

11 hours ago, alacant said:

I think however it is more important that after your 1 minute tweak, the collimation holds at any telescope angle though the session

I do regularly check throughout the session on bright stars, it always holds during the session, never had any issues with that!

So happy with all the advice being posted in here, its very helpful and reassuring to know my equipment is fine and I seem to be on the right track. Too many to reply to everyone! 

But just to say, I'm happy to collimate every time, like everyone says its a 1 minute job, hardly any hassle - just wanted to make sure everything I'm doing is normal.

Thanks again!

4 hours ago, Ricochet said:

I always used to have to collimate my dob at the start of my session, but the last time I collimated the telescope I tightened the collimation/lock screws more tightly. Since that time I've not had to recollimate my telescope. I took a photo of the collimation at the time and recently I wanted to post that photo. When I had scrolled back far enough to find it, I discovered it was taken in something like April 2019. So my advice of you are collimating at every session is to tighten everything up more securely and see if that helps the telescope hold collimation. 

Now that I know I can't pinch my mirror by doing this, I'll try it next time! 

Cheers!