Astro Waves

I read through all this about 3 time just trying to take it all in! Those are some pretty big distances from everyone! I bloody love space, well I do now. It used to really freak me out thinking how big it is and could only watch space programs for about 10 minutes before going into my own internal void os despair......but I got over that and now can't get enough of learning about it. Whats the best way to analyse an image to see what you have in it apart from the target you're actually amazing for?

Just curious on this one as I've currently got my camera going on NGC 4631 - Whale Nebula. And it literally blew my tiny mind that it was 30 Mly away from us. I actually took a quick video on me phone of the computer screen and sent it to a few friends even though it was just the first single image I captured of it that was badly edited and looked like a small smudge, but it still blew my mind! Because of the moon phase I've got some shorter exposures going (80 secs) but its been going for at leat an 2 hours and I'll stay up an wait as well to see what happens!

I'm not gonna lie, when I saw that title and it wasn't about actual doughnuts I was pretty disappointed. Glad everyone else can help though 😎

Been playing around with ASTAP all day and trying to watch tutorials.....I literally I have no idea how it works, its so confusing. Various places and forums state that its great which is good but I feel at such a loss with it. Even the guidance on the actual site doesn't help at all. I'm guess that it will hopefully come with time.

Hi Alan, I'm unable to use Astro Photgrpahy Tool as I'm a Mac user, but might end up getting a cheaper windows computer so I can leave it out with the setup whilst its shooting. I've had a look into ASTAP and download it as well as the star database but I feel it will take me some time to figure out what's actually going on, as I can't say I'm the most tech savvy person but wanting to give it a go. I've had a look not higher cost mounts but due to moving about a lot and work being intermittent I'm quite reluctant to get a bigger mount until I end up being some where for a longer period of time. I'm assuming you can hook the DSLR up to ASTAP for a live feed so to speak rather than having to take a shot then get the memory card out and downloading the data etc.? I don't mind having to do things manually at all and actually quite like that aspect of it. Thanks for your help.

Hiya, So first clear(ish) night this month for me. Still new to the whole AP so just raring to go when ever I can. Been looking at easy targets as I'm also shooting on a Redcat with a canon 750D so probably got about 380mm-ish on it which is nice combined with a iOptron SKyguider Pro (shooting unguided) with a tripod but having no problem getting good 180 second subs. So I thought I'd have ago at the Leo Triplet, managed to get about 30/40 minutes of data. Had a quick go at processing but, no idea if I was even in the right place. I spent a while taking test shots and trying to line up also kinda by sight where I thought I was. I guess the main take away thing I'm asking is how do you really know if you're in the right place when framing up a target? I spent a while looking at other pictures and stellarium to try and match some star patterns with it but I'm just finding it difficult to know if I'm even getting any where remotely close and that kinda goes for other targets as well as a lot of the time you have to wait till the processing part to really stretch the data, I'd love to have a go at the heart and soul nebula but literally wouldn't have any idea if I would even be framing it up. Is a lot of this just something that comes with time and getting to understand the night sky more? Probably helps when its properly clear as well but any advice is more than welcome.

Went out just to have a look the sky last night as it was far too windy to shoot and saw a row of 4! Good guy Elon Musk isn't it 😑 It actually annoys me that there is noting that can be done about the amount of satellites in the sky and even more so that when they are not needed any more nothing happens to them and they just float around.

Nice. Turns out its clear all night!!!......currently 35mph winds till tomorrow morning. Sadly it shall have to wait for its debut another day.

Its just £74.75 for everything, that includes the postage back so its pretty good for that price.

Just got my camera back today! only took a week and that was including postage time both ways, bloody great that. Luckily the weather has been rubbish over the past week, just need it to clear up now so I can give it a whirl! I'm also happy about having the extra focal length on the a crop DSLR as well as the mod.

That already looks pretty dam good to me!

Well then, you're definitely not messing around with this image are you. Its just bloody lovely, the colour palette is gorgeous! Can't wait to see more of the Southern Hemisphere targets.

Luckily I'm already in Bortle 4/3 site so I'm always under the stars any time I can do but as for the closest dark site I'm not 100% on that so should probably look it up. Its definitly nice being able to go to a friends house down the road where there are about 6 houses in a couple mile radius.

Hahaha, easily best comment, Kinda annoyed I didn't make it.

well then, thats a bit of alright isn't it.

Hiya, The place based in Norfolk is £260 minimum but I'm guessing thats a fun spectrum mod and a 6-8 week turn around time where as Juan at cheap astro photography does the IR filter removal at £74 and.....and he said it'll take him roughly 3 days. I've already sent a camera off to him, he seems very on it with emails. The price list is on his website and you just need to contact him first. Kinda glad I got it off now as the weather looks terrible for me for the next week or so, so should have it back in time for some clear skies!

thats so coooool. Definitely on my hit list at some point, even just to see it with the naked eye and not photographing it would be enough for me.......kinda.....not really.

Yeah course, I've also emailed another place based in Norfolk as well but they don't have a price list so I've had to email them but I'll let you know on that as well.

They were on my list and I've popped them an email to see what the turn around time currently is. Wasn't sure to get the Baader filter put in it as well, might just go for the cheaper option.

Hello, I'm wanting to get a canon DSLR Astro modified and was wandering if anyone know any good places to get it done? I've found a couple but wasn't sure which one to go with. Any help is much appreciated. Cheers

Thanks for the input form every. I'll stick with CF cards for now any way as the weather is getting better so not too worried. Ccccchhhheeerrrsss

Yeah bending the pins would not be good. Think I might get a few SD cards and try them out and also see if they feel cold to the touch on when I take it out the camera as the CF card last night was freezing but seen as how its the first time that's ever happened can't say I'm too worried.

Hello, To all the DSLR users out there I wanted to see what your thoughts were on this. I've been a photographer for many years and alway used CF cards for storage in camera, when shooting through out the day and sometimes night shoots and never had any problems with them what so ever but.....I've recently start shooting astro and tonight the temp dropped quite a bit and I had a problem looking back through the images on the camera which I've never once had before but I've never situated my camera to sitting in constant cold temperatures before. Although the images had trouble playing back (meaning they didn't on camera) and it couldn't read them they were all there when I went to transfer them to laptop but I don't want to risk a corrupt card when shooting a nights session and lose the data. Has anyone found if using SD cards are much more stable for night time shooting due to the temperature of the camera? Cheers

Totally agree on this. I use Affinity Photo, there's also some super great tutorials on astro editing by James Ritson specifically for Affinity Photo. Anything that is subscription based paying like Photoshop really not a fan off but that's mainly on principle. You get the free updates and its a one off payment. I haven't moved onto the guiding stage of things yet so can't really comment on how easy or difficult that is but hopefully soon!

Thanks I'm also starting out on this awesome journey that blows my mind! I'm always comparing what I've done to other people, which is good so you can see what can be done but also can sometimes feel a bit disheartening but personally I feel half the battle is definitely the editing side of things, which I'm still getting used to. I'll try various tutorials from different people to see what works on what image, its just as time consuming as the actually photography itself. Are you using a tracking mount? If not then you'll just have to take a lot a lot of shorter exposures and stack them.