GazK

Thanks! Yes I'll try 60secs next, I want that running man! Only ever glimpsed it once visually, after staring at it for an hour through a 12" dob.

OK, thanks. I'm not a patient man, so ditching darks is absolutely fine by me!

Thanks! I've now twigged that the 80D is ISO invariant, so I get dropping the ISO. What is the logic behind dropping the darks?

Thanks Stuart, that's great to hear! Yes, I did wonder about focus. I have a basic TS bahtinov, but the diffraction spikes come through very small in live view. Good point about the black as well, I did pull the black point up at the end. Will try undoing that. How are the colours? I wondered if the stars are a bit cold / monotone.

I'd like to get constructive criticism on my first tracked image. I know there's plenty wrong with it, but what should I focus on first? Other than better framing of course 🙂 92 x 15second subs (being cautious) @ISO1600, 23mins total. Darks, bias and flats also used, flats were a bit iffy as zoom kept shifting. Canon 80D, 70-300 lens @ 150mm f5.6, on a Star Adventurer on a video tripod. Edit: stacked in DSS, post in photoshop with a sprinkling of lightroom at the end. Thanks in advance - Garry

thanks! will do

As per the title; apologies if this is answered somewhere in an FAQ, I couldn't find it. I'd like to get constructive criticism on my extremely-not-great first attempt at tracked imaging. Is that a Thing here? Garry

argh, I meant to type 200mm f4. The Canon L one goes for around £400 second hand.

Thanks very much, that very reassuring. Yes, I clocked the Samyang - maybe one to look at down the line.

Thank you everyone - it's clearly an open and shut case! Star tracker it is.

I'm getting back into stargazing after a long time away, and into astroimaging for the first time, M31, M42 and other similar size objects. Current equipment was bought, and is used, for daytime photography, but don't have infinite money so I want to learn while mostly using what I already have. Which is: Canon 80d, Canon 70-300mm f4-5.6, an adapted Nikon 105mm f2.5, intervalometer, and a couple of *very* solid tripods. I've followed Nico Carver's excellent tutorial on untracked imaging, and had a moderately successul first stab at M31 with 1 second subs, which has given me The Bug. However the 105mm is a bit wide for this kind of target, while the 70-300 will suffer from usual zoom lens issues and is also bit slow above 100mm. Obviously the short exposure time and poorish noise performance of a crop sensor camera are going to limit what I can do with either lens. I'm happy to spend up to £400 to improve this rig and then spend some serious time getting good at it. With that budget, which would offer the biggest bang: getting a tracked mount such as the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Pro Pack, or getting a good fast prime lens such as the Canon 200mm f4 to increase detail, and stay untracked? I've added a poll but would obviously also like to hear people's thoughts.