A not so bad M109

[Quatermass]

After my first attempt at this rather cool galaxy in Ursa Major plauged by neighbours lights and street lights my fortunes changed. After I had packed my gear away at 12 midnight last night suddenly all the street lights switched off

The council had at long last put in place the energy saving plans and all the lights in my street now go off at midnight HOORAY for that!. What a difference it makes, so I could not resist going out again to see what I could do with out the pesky street lights on and was very pleased with my results compared to my first attempts that night. In order of the night the first one and the second one with no street lights on.

WITH STREET LIGHTS ALL ON...

WITH STREET LIGHTS ALL OFF...

Think we can agree it makes a big difference

[JohnC64]

now if east cambs council would only turn off the streen lights!! It certainly make a difference.

Cheers John

[Quatermass]

Lets hope they do such a waste of energy lighting up the night sky for no good reason other then to miff off all those astrophotographers out there.. heres a second process less harsh..

[Sierra Golf Mike]

Cracking image, what kit were you using, exposures etc? Was it done with your single axis motor. just trying to get my kit ready for some imaging and can't wait to get going.

Cheers

[Quatermass]

Hi Steve

Cheers, I was using a skywatcher 200p unguided with single axis Ra motor and a canon 350D. Took about 38 subs ranging from 40 50 and 1minute and 1 minute 25 seconds darks flats and bias as normal. This was taken at 2am but the moon is much brighter tonight so may not be so good. Had to wait till the wind died down a bit though as it was knocking the tracking out early on. I run a power cable out to my RA motor with an adapter as I find the battery pack too unreliable. Hoping to get a guided set up soon which will be much better for faint fuzzys like this one.

[Tinker1947]

The last time i was out early December after IC 374, took 20 X 2 minute subs @ 1600 iso, so all i got was a really bad cold, just starting to recede now, looking in Stellirum all my stars were good just the place IC 374 should have been were blank, well i flocked the scope today, stripped the reflector down to do it, will have another go when the WX is better and i have tested my Collimation, if you have a urge to find something try IC 374, its a mag 16 so pretty dim...

[RikM]

That's turned out as a very nice image. Dark skies really do make a tremendous difference.

[NickK]

Superb

[Quatermass]

Thanks chaps, its getting hard to decide what to go for M94 possibly or as you suggest IC374 not sure where that one is though.. of course it all depends on the sky clearing tonight for us. My be have another go at m51 as I wasnt too chuffed with my last attempt at it and its now in a better postion. Like a kid in a galaxy sweet shop at the moment

[Chris]

Definately worth staying up late for, lovely pic!

[Tinker1947]

Well its raining in Norfolk so no flock testing, only went for IC 374 so i could get a idea what subs it would take to get a Mag 16

[Quatermass]

Thick cloud covering the sky at the moment boo hoo oh well time for a coffee and a read through the astronomy books till it clears at 2am, I will be ready I have a telescope and Im not afraid to use it..

[RikM]

Good luck. It's pretty miserable here.

[pixueto]

Well done! Actually, I was already impressed with your first picture in light polluted skies! Do you use any software for polar/drift alignment?

[Quatermass]

Well done! Actually, I was already impressed with your first picture in light polluted skies! Do you use any software for polar/drift alignment?

Thanks very much,I tend to keep things simple when Im outside cant be doing with laptops and wires everywhere so just put the scope down and do a quick polar alignment by lining the north star up in the little circle and using the image of the dipper to line it up that works pretty well for me. But going to get my auto guiding system working soon as I need longer exposure times to get more data out of those faint objects. Much of what is done is down to processing the data in deep sky stacker and Photoshop. There is a set of Photoshop tutorials on my blog that I put together easy to follow,covering pretty much all I do at the moment if you want to take a peek.

[Quatermass]

nearly midnight and thick cloud has taken over the sky sigh oh well never mind he said kicking the shed..

[Chris]

Hi Quatermass, what do you think of Skywatchers synguider (218 pounds) verses the LCI that you've mentioned you intend to use, as the synguider seems to be quite a bit cheaper, any reason you know of?

regards,

Chris

[Quatermass]

I really cant help on that one Chris I have no exsperince with that guider and I have not used my LVI yet as I dont have the dual axis motor kit and st4 modd yet. But I did look at it and it seems to be a reasonable guider, Im sure that if you post that question in the equipment section some one who has one will give you the right answer though. Its time to get guiding though I have gone as far as I want to go know with unguided images, took me a long time to be convinced though I must say.

[Chris]

Thanks, I will repost in the equipment section I see your in Suffolk, any dealings with Orwell Astronomy club, Ipswich?

[Quatermass]

Not been to Orwell Astronomy club as I live about 30 miles away from there but I did join the Norwich astronomical society a year ago which was fun. However now moved again so dont go there any more. To be honest if your imaging its too much hassle to go to a club or society when you get a good dark night so I didnt go that much any way. But it was good to meet others and the talks they had were interesting.

[pixueto]

Thanks very much,I tend to keep things simple when Im outside cant be doing with laptops and wires everywhere so just put the scope down and do a quick polar alignment by lining the north star up in the little circle and using the image of the dipper to line it up that works pretty well for me. But going to get my auto guiding system working soon as I need longer exposure times to get more data out of those faint objects. Much of what is done is down to processing the data in deep sky stacker and Photoshop. There is a set of Photoshop tutorials on my blog that I put together easy to follow,covering pretty much all I do at the moment if you want to take a peek.

Really? So you don't do a drift alignment? I'm about to star imaging DSO's with a similir kit. What type of subs would you suggest I should do? I'd love to image M51. Is it an easy target?

Thank you for your help.

[Quatermass]

Hi Pxueto

No I dont do drift alignment, but I did make sure my polar scope was configured properly so my polar alignment were accurate. If you read my blog you will find a lot of stuff on there that will help you its a record of the last year and a bit when I first started getting into all this.

M51 is not that easy its hard to find and will be best done on a good dark night with no wind but it is fun to find it I suggest using a note book once you have found it to note where the stars are to find it again. I suggest starting with the Orion Nebula first if you have not got started yet its big and bright and you will have a lot of fun with it.

As for subs, all my stuff so far has been done with an unguided set up and I tend to work with subs at an ISO of 800 and 1600 most common is the subs at an ISO of 800 30 seconds 50 seconds 60 seconds and 80 seconds work pretty well. But you also must take your darks flats and bias offset shots and use a Bahtinov Mask for accurate focusing, None of what I do is hard apart from being out side till gone 3am some nights with the bats and owls but even that is good fun.

[pixueto]

Brilliant! The thing about the whirlpool galaxy is that is has always fascinated me since I was a child and I would love to have a go. To find the stuff I normally use stellarium and try memorising the star fields with a low power eyepiece simulation.

I know you are thinking about upgrading your tracking. I recently installed a dual axis motor in my EQ5 and I must tell you that last week I couldn’t use the polar scope properly at 5:00 am as the declination motor was on the way when I wanted to turn the RA axis. I did a rough polar alignment ut it was OK as I only wanted to image Saturn and Mars.

[Quatermass]

I found M51 last month it was pretty dire condtions but will be having another go at it soon very cool galaxy. So you got the dual axis kit fitted hey, how did that mess up your polar alignment then? shouldnt be a problem. If you modd it with the st4 port you can do guided shots which will help with m51 as you can then do longer subs well worth it i think

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[pixueto]

To be honest, I wander if it’s me being dumb as I am fairly new to all this but when I wanted to turn the RA axis so the date and the time circles could get to the right place, the declination motor was in the way and I didn’t see a way round it at the time. Buy the way, getting the dual axis motor was a bit of an ordeal as they have been sold out all over the UK. FLO gave me a refund as they said they couldn’t tell when they’ll get some more. I couldn’t wait and I ordered them from Spain (paying nearly twice as much partly because they had to be shipped!). As for guiding, I would like to do manual guiding first. I don’t want to get bogged down trying to get the computer to work with the mount. I can see that as a source of frustration if don’t have any kind of results first.