complete beginner in widefield. tips?

[chemtom24]

hi all,

I am an absolute novice with the dslr imaging. Last night i tried to take a long exposure of the night sky but all i eneded up with was a reddish image and a couple of blurred stars.

Nothing like what i hoped for, ie a nice black background with lots and lots of stars like i see in most widefield shots.

Also, the stars were not a nice bright blue like i have seen in others.

so, has anyone got any tips for me? exposure settings, aperture, iso, ANYTHING that will help?

I have a 400d. I will be able to mount it to an eq5 mount, and have a seperate mount coming solely for the camera.

Thanks for any help

tom

[JB80]

This is a really good tutorial to get a bit of an idea.

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-tips-tricks-techniques/73737-basic-widefield-camera-tripod.html

It depends on what camera lens you are using as to the exposure length, a rough guide is a 50mm lens should give you 8 seconds before the stars will blur.

[chemtom24]

thanks pibbles will have a look. i have a 50mm prime and the 18-55mm kit lens.

[JB80]

If you use the 18-55mm down at the 18mm mark you can take longer exposures up to about 30 seconds before rotation is an issue, but the longer the exposure the more evident the red/orange glow is from light pollution. You can combat that a bit afterwards in photoshop, gimp or whichever processing software you use. Try ISO 800 at first but then try some others so you can compare which seems better.

Just have a play around with different settings and see what suits your location best.

[chemtom24]

thanks. this may sound silly but is there a particular direction to aim for in the sky to get more stars in the image?

[JB80]

It's not silly at all, I would say(but I'm no expert) to try and look for the darkest patch of the sky you can maybe an area that has less lighting on the ground or away from any light that might be shining in your yard, if it all seems the same then maybe try straight up. It's a tough time of year at the moment because twighlight lasts so long now so if you can try as late as possible midnight or later.

[Digz]

If you can mount your camera on your HEQ5 then you should be able to get exposures of up 2-3 minutes with good polar alignment.

You said you had trouble in your opening post - can you explain what you were doing so we can see where we can help.

BTW the post and advice given by Pibbles is spot on to get you started with a fixed tripod