First attempt at M33

[Quatermass]

Boy was this a difficult one to find I must have sat there for an hour looking at it before I realized it was actually there! Much work needed with this one but was pleased to have found it and made a start. Hunting down galaxy's gives me a back ach neck ach and makes my eyes go googly but its a lot of fun. This is about 74 shots at 800 iso for most at 50 seconds with a mix of 30 second shots at iso of 1600 on my old lumix camera. Still having trouble focusing with the canon and dont want to drag a laptop out there.

Practise practise practise

[bigal1]

Great first attempt well done , i know what you mean about it being tricky i also had my first attempt lastnight .

[Quatermass]

Its a very big but very faint galaxy it took me ages to see it. I often revert to snapping away with my camera to find things if my eyes are tired

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[jkwhinfrey]

Too right, as a visual observer this one defeated me for ages! I managed to find it just after it entered my "Nemesis" class of objects

Finding it's hard enough, but this is great. Who'd have guessed it's got spiral arms

[Quatermass]

I have to admit at one point last night I was about to give up, I took the camera off and put the eyepiece on again to trace a path to it and try to remember where it was. That done I put the camera on and just kept turning the focus and taking a shot until it started to get in focus. As it began to come into focus the faint spiral was showing on the pictures so I thought Hoora! and carried on.

Got my timer in the post the other day so was able to set that going and run inside to switch the hairdryer on and warm my feet with it. Having had to go out and blow the dew of the scope an hour before. Decided to stay up till past 1am as it was such a lovely clear night and admire Orion. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm mad but I love it

[jkwhinfrey]

I can see that, you've got some lovely stuff on you're website

It was good last night, but I didn't have the time to set up the scope and mount. Managed to get out with the binoculars though, and I noticed that I'm picking off the sights - even fainter DSOs - much more easily than a few months ago. I think knowing what I expect to see makes it jump out when it enters my view.

[Quatermass]

I can see that, you've got some lovely stuff on you're website

It was good last night, but I didn't have the time to set up the scope and mount. Managed to get out with the binoculars though, and I noticed that I'm picking off the sights - even fainter DSOs - much more easily than a few months ago. I think knowing what I expect to see makes it jump out when it enters my view.

Cheers James

I think your right that half the battle knowing what your going to see or at least having a good idea. When I first started last year it was ten times more difficult as your kind of expecting a monster galaxy to pop into the eye piece but all you actually see is a very faint gray blob in most cases. But using a camera has really helped me to see things in more detail as it picks up stuff the human eye just cant pick out. I tend to use it almost like a second telescope and often take a picture of the area to see if I can pick out what I'm looking for. In fact I'm getting to the point where I would really like another telescope just for observing and let my camera and 200p set up get on with the imaging while I observe. Sigh if only money grew on trees.

[jkwhinfrey]

Funny, I was thinking how sweet a setup like that would be last night.

[todd8137]

nice