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Showing results for tags 'imaging'.
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Hi All, I'm looking for some advice about how to keep my subject in frame when imaging the moon. I'm using a 1200mm f6 Newtonian on a HEQ5 Rowan with a 3x Televue Barlow, so 3600mm focal length ,and an ASI 224MC camera. I am polar aligning with an iPolar which does seem to have issues with camera centering so I re-align when I'm at my target so polar alignment should be good. When imaging at this focal length with an IR pass filter, which gives the best results, I'm only getting 25fps so to get 15000 frames takes 10 minutes. The problem is, in this time, the image shifts and I lose some of the things I want to image. The stacking takes care of this but I do lose some of my image, or at least the quality of the area at the edges of the image (I stack with ASI Studio which I find the best but I'm not sure how it deals with a shifting image) . I can't use guiding as far as I know as obviously the moon is moving faster than the stars. I can, and do, manually re-center the image during capture but this isn't ideal for several reasons. So my questions: I s some drift to be expected with this mount/focal length or do I have a problem with the mount? If drift is to be expected, what do i do about it? Obviously I can lower the focal length or just crop the image but that isn't fixing things, its just putting up with them. I'd be grateful to hear what others are doing. Cheers Andy
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Hi all, New to astrophotography and have recently started imaging the Orion nebula (see attached photo) My setup is Cannon 450D and a Celestron C8 super with byers drive for tracking. The main issue I'm facing is "vertical drift" in my images/tracking which limits my exposure times to 30s at the very most and i cant for the life of me figure out which part of my alignment is causing this. Any help or advice would be much appreciated
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Having started AP a few years ago when I was introduced to it by a friend (probably around 2015/2016), unbeknown to me and oblivious to the possibility of achieving such wonderous images, I began my pursuit with nothing more than an advanced digital camera (Canon G16) and a photo tripod. The first true session at a dark site with this equipment revealed the wonder of the milky way and the best image of the night (full of chromatic abberation and false colour of course) was of an arm of the milky way with a faint Andromeda visible and to top it off a meteor streaking across the image. Since then I have been building up equipment, selling off things which didn't quite work for me and waiting to visit the dark skies again. Commitments, bad weather etc got in the way of course until I thought why don't I try from my light polluted back garden? Low and behold, things were possible to be imaged (hence why I image more than do visual), and imaged better than I thought was ever possible. So I have been eagerly trying new things, different setups, different challenges, I don't think I'm comfortable unless I'm tinkering with something or trying something new. I started this in 2021 so i've only been doing it just over a year approx. Having had an interest in many things cosmology I thought it an interesting thing to pursue. DSO's are what primarily interest me, but generally I believe anyone can get a sense of wonder from seeing anything beyond our atmosphere. Earlier this year I started my first full length project, NGC7023 the Iris Nebula, a difficult target but is always visible in the sky so a good one to do. Having spent 24+ hours gathering LRGB data via mono, I was happy I got some sort of result but a bit discouraged that it took so long (10+ sesssions. I've seen many people with a lot more dedication to targets). I know this hobby isn't for the impatient but lack of opportunity to image does make one wonder. So I thought about my options. I had initially tried a 0.65x reducer with my refractor to test the faster f ratio waters. Still wanted more. Then I tried the venerable Samyang 135mm, and it's a wonder to use. But I still wanted more. RASA piqued my interest but I'd need a larger mount plus the associated costs to get the rig running. Was there anything out there that I could potentially still use with my most used mount (AZGTI?, I do have another heavier duty mount also). Enter the Celestron C6 OTA. Then there was Starizona's Hyperstar. I have truly felt the need, the need for speed... It's taken me a few weeks to get this working to a degree, I'm still not quite there yet as there are a few issues I still have which you can see in the following image, but managed to test out imaging on three targets in one night. I understand they won't be the best quality but I'm glad I managed to get something in a fraction of the time I would normally, I couldn't quite put a figure on it yet, a lot also depends on post processing skill but I still do this manually at the moment. An easy first target (technically the second) as it's relatively bright, a bit too bright at F2 so I imaged it at 1s and 10s subs, total time, 10 minutes, M42 The Great Orion Nebula (will add more data at some point, definitely better than my attempt a year ago): So I've started this thread for any other speed runners out there running faster than "normal" setups, and also a place to discuss potential issues and solutions. There is already an excellently large Samyang 135mm thread by @Uranium235 so users of this lens please continue to post in the "Imaging with the Samyang 135mm f2" topic.
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I am a complete newbie at planetary imaging and taking "pretty pictures", though I have been doing photometry and astrometry for years. So I know the basics of imaging and filter usage. Recently I was given a OSC planetary imaging camera. The friendly manual suggested that it works best with a UVIR cut-out filter in place. One was not supplied; neither do I own one. I do, however, have a LRGB filter set which is never used. As I understand it, the L filter removes infra-red and passes the visible. Is this correct? If so, in what way does it differ from the cut-out filter? Does it not remove the UV perhaps? I could just suck it and see what happens, but an authoritative explanation would be much appreciated. Thanks, Paul -
Please answer these questions to help me with content and research for my website. Every reply is appreciated! -
From the album: WPF Observatory Images
The Heart & Soul Nebulae, Sh 2-190 & Sh 2-199 Telescope Equipment: Mount – Celestron CGEM DX, Hypertuned Telescope – TS-115 APO Triplet Guider- Orion StarShoot Autoguider Imaging System: ZWO ASI533MC Pro – Gain 100, Offset 70, Temp -15°C Filter – Optolong L-eXtreme Image Details: Light: 144x300s Dark: 50x300s Flat: 50×9.15625s (27,520 ADU ±5%) Dark-Flat: 50×9.15625s Software: Image Capture – Astro Photography Tools (APT) – PhD2 Pre-Processing, Stacking, Stretching – SiriL, Starnet ++, Photoshop CC Image Taken: October 28, November 8, 9 & 10, 2022 Photographed from the When Pigs Fly Observatory© © 2022 - David Aylsworth - WPF Observatory - Earth
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Hello everyone, as a result of my mirrorless camera dying on me, I have decided to purchase a dedicated monochrome camera, ZWO ASI294MM Pro, a filter wheel, and an lrgb filter set. While the camera has not been delivered yet, I'd like to start asking some questions, so I can set everything up quicker when it does finally get here. 1- Gain and offset: I have read a bit about how gain and offset work, so I was wondering if I got it right. What I plan to do is to set my gain at unity (175) and keep my offset as low as possible. If I can, I will just take longer frames to avoid having to raise the offset above 0, provided I can manage that wothout light pollution getting in the way. 2- Binning: I read that binning is not as important on CMOS sensors than it is on CCD, so I should just leave it at 1x1. Does this sound correct? 3- Temperature: What temperature should I set my camera to? I've read that -15 C° is a good temperature, but can I just set it to reach 15 at all times, regardless of the atmospheric conditions and outdoors temperature? 4- Sensor tilt: I've read that some cameras have sensor tilt problems. How would I go about diagnosing this, and is this even something I should be worried about? 5- Filter and imaging order: Suppose I'd like to image a target over multiple nights, would it be better to shoot with all 4 filters on every night, or would it be better to just do maybe l + r on one night, and g + b on the next? I think I may have other questions, but at the moment these are all the ones that come to mind. Thanks in advance for your replies! -
I'm doing a uni astrophotography project and we were given a very simple Canon Powershot 490. I attached pictures we took last night (with just the camera). Camera settings - ISO:1600, f/3.0, Shutter Speed: 15s. I noticed that there seems to be a lot of grain/noise in these photos and that they are not very sharp. Is there any way to minimize this problem? From what I researched, I think I need to try reducing the shutter speed and stack multiple photos with something like deep sky stacker. I just want to know whether I'm heading in the right direction.
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Hi, been trying a few times to image with a Coronado PST and cannot get focus. With the ZWO 224MC I tried printing a "low profile nosepiece" found on the internet and that didn't work - the camera looks like it needs to go further into the eyepiece holder - some people have managed to get it to work I don't know how. So I modelled another low profile nosepiece which has a 4mm depth groove around the bottom of the nosepiece face so it can sink into the Coronado eyepiece holder 4mm more - nope still no focus. People have suggested unscrewing the lens part of a barlow out and using that with the camera nosepiece, tried a 2x Meade telenegative and a generic 5x - nope makes it worse. So today I tried a DSLR connected to a t nosepiece extension tube and ran into the same issues. I don't know how people are managing to image with this scope - I know it's not designed to be imaged with but it is something I wish to do considering others have managed it. On another note, how clear is surface detail visually on a PST, I can manage to see sunspots but no light/dark granular structure, with the focus ring dialled all the way to the left I can see prominances, sunspots with the ring dialled more to the right though most of the time its all a red blur - checked the ITF and that's clear (it's the newer type PST).
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130PdS users! Show me your best planetary images! list cameras etc, feel free to talk about technique too. This is Jupiter from Friday night: Philips SPC900NC, deluxe 2x Barlow. stacked in AS!3, wavelets in Registax 6. not my best, but I had a very narrow window before Jupiter went into the trees… basically, I feel like I’m due a camera upgrade 😉
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astrophotography Prime focus with skywatcher 130p
Pincs posted a topic in Getting Started With Imaging
Hi I'm thinking about buying a SKYWATCHER EXPLORER 130P SYNSCAN AZ GOTO TELESCOPE for astrophotography but I've heard that prime focus is not possible without modifications. Could I use an extention tube with my DSLR to fix this? Thanks. Pincs -
From the album: astrography_MC's Creations
Equipments Used: Explore Scientific ED 127 mm APO Triplet Sony a6400 SVBony UV/IR CUT filter, Optolong CLS filter ZWO ASI 290 MM Guidecam 30x240” for UV/Ircut 15x240" for CLS ( total 3 hrs of integration time ) 30 Darks 25 Flats Bortle 4 Zone© astrography_MC
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From the album: Solar System Objects
There was a (near) total lunar eclipse last week and I happened to be lucky enough to be on the right side of the planet to see it in it's entirety.... These images were taken with a stock Canon 7D DSLR attached to my 14" Skywatcher GOTO Dobsonian and I had my 8" SCT setup to observe it along with the binoculars... what a fantastic night. I'll tell you that the eclipsed moon viewed through the C8 with the TV 31mm Nagler Type 5 eyepiece is a amazing sight... the full disc of the rusty moon, some stars sprinkled around it and witnessing a star being occulted by the red moon was something else.© Mariusz Goralski
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Hi, I am not sure where to post this so apologies if this should be somewhere else. when I use the jackery 500 power supply connected to the Pegasus Astro power box advance , it shows the voltage supplied to the devices as 13.3 volts. on the power box console, when connected from mains power to the power box the voltage is about 12.5 to 13 volts. I am not sure if it makes any difference that I am using the Pegasus unity platform to manage the devices? so far I have not seen any issues, but is this voltage of 13.3 volts going to damage the camera and other devices connected to the power box or is this acceptable?
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From the album: CCD venture
A h-alpha shot of the pelican nebula in Cygnus. 2 x panel mosaic. 10 min subs. 9 x 10m + 9x10m stacks stitched together in ms ICE. ED80 - ATK16HR - Ha clip filter - EQ6 - finderguider 9x50mm PhD2 - photoshop - DSS. -
From the album: The next step.
Was really chuffed to catch this comet, especially with the two tails. This i believe is the 5th comet i've caught 'on film' as it were. Along with Panstarrs - ISON - Jacques, and Lovejoy (forgot the numerical names). Equipment: ED80 - / 350D -/ EQ6 -/ CLS clip -
This blog describes Installing 3rd Party Drivers into a Raspberry Pi having installed Ubuntu MATE and followed the instructions to run the AstroPi3 script to install INDI and other astro related software. SSH has been enabled so that now the RPi can be accessed remotely from Terminal. eg. ssh gina@rpi where gina is my user name and rpi is the computer name as set up during the Ubuntu MATE installation. This set up process is detailed in my blog :- Setting up a Raspberry Pi for Astro Imaging and Control - Updated Feb 2020 for RPi 3B & RPi 3B+
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From the album: 2013/2014 planetary
First light with the ZWO ASI120MC planetary camera. -
Before I took the filter out Jupiter was a white blob but with no stars visible. Now the sky is full of hundreds of multicoloured dots that looks like noise of some kind - yet plate solving seems to recognise stars (which I cannot see on the screen) when it didn't before. Unfortunately Jupiter wasn't visible (hidden by cloud) so couldn't try that. I'm using Stellarmate OS on a RPi4 and EKOS for target tracking and T7c photography. a) Have I done good or messed it up the camera? b) Should I screw an IRbypass filter on the nose to help reduce these dots? c) Is it just the wrong camera settings? d) Can I expect better results using a SV305 Pro? Any help much appreciated. -
Anyone used the Optolong 2" LRGB filters for using with a mono camera? Thought as their L series filters are so good that the LRGB set would not have any issues, they're one of the cheapest set also. There's the Baader ones but I've read about the halos they create, the newer CCD ones released this year also seem to have the same issues. Looking for recommendations.
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Equipment: EQ6R-Pro; Explore Scientific 80ED Triplet; ZWO ASI120MC guide camera; Canon 250D imaging camera; OVL field flattener. Software: NINA; PHD2 (multistar). I cannot solve this issue with the stars in my images. It started some weeks ago, and basically I am not able to image at all. Image 1 shows a 10sec exposure on the star Sirius, with the teardrop shaped stars around. Image 2 shows 120sec exposure on NGC7522, same night, same setup, again teardrop stars. On both images you can see the tracking is lower than 1, and on a windy night. Both images here show the exact same type of distortion to the stars. I did try a 240sec exposure and that was the same. Image 3 shows PHD2 on Sirius, changing any of the settings doesn't work. This was after a new calibration was carried out, which was very good (see image 4). Any ideas please? Tony
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Hi, does anyone know what these faint red blue and green 'L' shaped lines in the attached image are? And more importantly how to get rid of them. They are a uniform shape and size and all across the frame. I don't seem to get these lines on single images, at least I can't see them. I have tried stacking through both Deep Sky Stacker and Sequator, and even used a different laptop but with the same result. The pictures were taken on a Canon EOS 450D through a Skywatcher 200P mounted on a EQ5 Pro. The mirrors seem ok and I don't have any issues when visually observing. Any help and advise gratefully received. Thanks
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A couple of weeks from now the Moon is going to occult M105: And that got me thinking about what are some of the techniques that one could employ to image this phenomenon? Clearly a single camera can't handle the fact that the Moon is just going to drown everything out. But what about having a lunar rig (Mak + planetary camera) do the Moon imaging while a DSO rig (Refractor + cooled DSO camera) chips away at M105 as it clears the Moon? Could one then combine the two resulting images to [sort of] match reality? Would even the best lunar glow / light pollution filters be able to cope with imaging a mag. 9 galaxy like M105 so close to the Moon? Curious if anyone's tried anything like this before with and especially without success. 🤔
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Hi After a break of some years, and having sold my equipment, I am being drawn back into doing some deep sky imaging. The thing that stopped me before was the long cold nights with usb connections meaning I had to be near the scope. I have been looking at wifi control and the ASIAIR system looks really good but it is expensive (on top of re-equipping with scope and camera etc.) and nobody seems to have stock. So I am trying to find out about the Skywatcher synscan wifi adapter. However, I cannot see a way of connecting a guide camera without a usb cable to the laptop, which rather defeats the object. I do not really want to leave a laptop out and connect via TeamViewer. On the FLO site it says that the wifi adapter supports ASCOM guiding. How does the camera connect? Thanks in advance and apologies for the ramble! Barry
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So, I have gone and got myself a Skywatcher Star Discovery 150p, which has so far proved to be a very good little scope and I've had some very good results. I have now got the bug for imaging and have gone out and got myself a second hand Nikon D5100 and verious other equipment needed to do this, only to now find I can't get Prime Focus!!!!!!!! So the only way I can image is using a barlow x2 which obviously changes the F ratio from F5.5 to F11 slowing everything x2 this isn't to bad for planetary imaging but for DSO images not so good!!! After searching through lots of videos on to do this all I can find is...... I can either butcher the standard rack and pinion focuser that's fitted on it by cutting it down and rethreading it or by moving the primary up by 20-25mm, which seems a shame to do a brand new scope still under warranty! The only other option I have come up with is changing the focuser to a Skywatcher Low Profile Dual Speed Focuser For Newtonian Reflectors. Could anyone out there shed any light on this before I spend another £130 on the new focuser. Thanks
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