EntropyTango

Finally managed to capture the star clouds around Antares.

The weather where I live has been terrible, so nice to get a clear night without Moon for a change

Pentax K3, Old Thorium coated Pentax 55mm F1.8 @ F2.8, Star Adventurer Pro 2

187 x 30 secs, DSS & Ps 21.28

Got my dates wrong as I started imaging before midnight. So it was all the 1st of may anyway.

Just the old ED80 for the closeup. Victoria, Australia, Pentax K3, SMC 24mm F2.8 for the wide field image

One day before or the morning of the 30th

Well all my scopes get used. But generally the Astro-Physics Star12 ED gets the most time.

Reasons: Image quality, Very light weight for its size, Focal length of 1000mm

Amazing image and I love your colours

It's hard to do both visual and AP on a limited budget.

My personal opinion is that you should do some visual astronomy before you do imaging.

Dobs are great visually but limited in AP terms without some equatorial platform.

So if you have your heart set on AP and don't mind the travel and setup time

it's probably best to invest in a decent equatorial mount.

Then you can get a small refractor for your AP and something like and an 8" F4/5 newtonian for visual work. (good for AP too)

As Clarkey mentioned AP can be a rabbithole in terms of money, especially if you are a perfectionist

If you have a DSLR already this can be a great starting point before buying a dedicated astro-cam

That would leave more money for the mount and scope

Good luck and clear skies

(just a note about the RC8, they are great scopes but a pain to collimate and the long FL amplifies tracking errors,

I would suggest a decent quality small refractor instead)

...mmmm...It might be time for a Nikon service centre

You could try and disassemble it yourself for a quicker and cheaper fix, but so much could go wrong

I have a Pentax ME that I left out in the rain with the lens off.

And discovered it in the morning, I took the battery out and the film was just soaked.

It still works today (well not much film work recently)

So there is always hope

I recommend silicone grease for rack and pinion focusers

Drifter wrote: "a comet with a core lump that creates a natural nuclear explosion at it’s high velocity...."

Unfortunately even fast travelling comets do not create the temperatures or pressures to create a nuclear explosion (especially Fusion)

I would go with the Russian rather than the Italian report.

Not long ago Italian scientists claimed to have measured neutrino's travelling faster than light!

And quite simply a cometary nucleus would leave little debis to be found, especially as it was some time between the event

and the expedition. It just sounds like revisionist scientific history to me.

I use a QHY5-III-224C for planetary and Solar.

It's a bit old now but works well for me.

I'm sure these would be pretty cheap on the secondary market

Not a bad start, 47 Tuc is a target few northerners get to see.

Maybe consider shorter exposures and a stacking program.

Deep Sky Stacker is a free program that will help

Welcome, there are even Dutchies in Australia

The weather is generally better but not in the last few months

On 29/05/2021 at 01:13, badhex said:

Given that 2" EPs don't exist really below a certain FL because after that there's no point having the larger diameter, 

I have a few of the ES 100 degree EP's up to 9mm.

ES does do a 5.5mm in 2" so in theory you could go 2" all the way. (some TV's below this too I think)

I have a very nice Astro-Physics 2" barlow that gets a bit of use in imaging sometimes.

Being the lazy kind, I prefer just to reach for the right focal lengths straight off the tray

But a lot depends on your telescopes, budget, style of observing, eye relief etc.

Barlowed 2" EP's can give you better eye relief I believe than their native counterparts

I only use 1.25" for 6.7, 5.5 and 4.7mm which is easy,  as these are only planetary targets for me

A fantastic start, well done

What equipment did you use?

How about a quality EP between your 24 and 40mm

There are some great quality ultra wide angles around 30/31mm

They are a curse

I took an image a few months ago with 5 trails in it

And it going to get worse

Look at light pollution, streetlights point everywhere except downwards

Nothing much has happened there

Next there are going to be a dozen other companies doing the same

Finally the moon will be defaced by mining ventures

The camera is 1.25" and goes straight into a 1.25" focuser, so remove the EP, barlow etc

You can't use an eyepiece with this setup. (eyepiece projection is another thing)

So remove your eyepiece and replace it with the camera, don't unscrew any of your EP's

Below is an image of the camera attached to a newtonian

What telescope are you using?

8" works well on my ED80, even with DSLR, flattener and filters

But maybe the 12" is more versatile assuming it clears your focuser and lens hood.                                                                           

Very nicely done, keep it up

Colour composition is up to you, unless you are going to write a scientific paper on it

Looking forward to seeing more of your imaging

Greetings and Welcome

Good luck with your C9.25

Lots of helpful youtube videos out there.

Ed Ting has great videos and I can recommend his channel Especially

He is a long time experienced observer and knows his telescopes

Amazing Images and inspiring to get my setup finished

Thanks

I use a cheap Chinese intervalometer and it works fine for me

Other than having to take the battery out to turn it off!

I suspect it might be your camera battery

A very helpful video

I have the 9 and 14mm versions and I love them

However at the current price I wouldn't class them as beginners EP's

You could buy a decent small refractor for the same price!

The image looks very good to me

Any background star colours you are unhappy with, could simply be due to your refractor/flattener

rather than any imaging or processing issues. But really there are so many factors to consider.

Maybe a good comparison could be if you try imaging through an RC telescope as

this optical design should produce a flat and colour free image.

A direct comparison should show if it's your refractor or something else.

I have started using an RC6 for my imaging and found it free of false colours

Maybe you have a friend nearby who will let you borrow theirs and try it out

5 minutes ago, irtuk said:

If you are stacking you need to start building up a library of calibration images, which are flats, darks, flat darks and bias frames I think .. I am not entirely sure of the precise difference between a flat dark and a bias frame yet, I am quite early in my astrophotography adventure myself!

With most DSLR's and lenses I found dark frames and bias frames to be most important. Flat frames less so

So when starting out just go for light, dark and bias. Most DSLR lenses cover their frames quite well

Generally you settle for ISO speed which is a compromise between noise, colour and gathering those precious photons

I find I use ISO 1600 mainly