First Attempts

[8633Brown]

Well after having my scope for nearly 3 years years now and using it now and again iv had my first attempt at a wide field view of the Milky Way.

With a couple of lads eager for a look through my scope and hopeful to see a few bright perseids we headed up to Kielder forest for a nights observing. I managed to get very lucky with the weather, it had been cloudy (as usual) all weekend, come the morning of Tuesday the 14th of August the first thing I checked was the weather and unbelievably it was planned clear skies right through the night for once.

We managed to get to Kielder and set up about an hour before sun set, to show them my kit and just as the midges were starting to perk up. stupidly none of us thought to bring repellent. so being eaten alive we got a good couple hours observing and seen some very bright meteors which was the main reason we went.

With my camera piggybacked on my tube rings i was asked to take a picture directly upwards to show how many stars we couldn't see with our eyes while keeping away from the little light pollution on the horizon, which we suspected was from Halifax.

and this is what i managed to come up with so far...

I had a go at processing the image and this is the best i could do. maybe someone with more experience will be able to give me some tips.

[Ewan]

Hi Brown :-), really nice shots mate, them Halifax banks causing all that LP eh lol, i see you managed 106s exp, really makes a difference obviously, i could only manage 20 sec @ f3.5 iso 1600 @ 18mm with my 18-55 kit lense, now my piggy back mount turned up yesterday so im looking for some good skies this weekend to grab something like yours.

Really rewarding when you put the effort in & you certainly did that, midgies & all well done.

[JamesF]

Ideally you need to take multiple images. Twenty or thirty, say, and then take another ten or so with the lens cap on (so you just get a black image). You can then combine them using something such as Deep Sky Stacker to reduce the effect of noise.

There's a lot of colour and detail there, though. At the top right is Altair and the top of Aquila, Delphinus a bit further down the Milky Way and obviously Cygnus. The Coathanger is in the body of the Milk Way around the top right corner, too, and there are hints of a few clusters.

James

[8633Brown]

I was originally planning on heading up to galloway dark sky park and set up in clatteringshaws carpark but I wasn't sure if I would get a similar effect from Dumfries to the south.

At the time I was just piggy backing using the 1/4" screw thread on the tube rings, but what I didn't realise was that I must have cross threaded the camera on it so it was only holding on a few threads when I took it of, I was lucky it never fell off. So iv decided to order a 323 monfrotto quick release and another dovetail bar to help speed up and hopefully secure the set up process. Lol

And thanks for the advice James. I realise you get better results from stacking but being new to it I was hoping for a decent result quickly to help me get goin. Iv just finished reading 'make every photon count' which was a brilliant read and gave me a lot of help in understanding how stacking works with the different types of frames. Hopefully next time I'm out il put more planning into what I'm going to image and what shots I need. And thanks for the information on which part of the sky it is. With the amount of stars in the image I was struggling to figure out what was what. Haha

Good luck with any imaging you do this weekend too ewan clear skies hopefully! Il be lookin forward to seeing what you come up with :-). Hopefully you won't have to put up with the midgies I did.

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[ronaldo999]

Nice shots, i was planning a trip to keilder in the future, what are the facilities and access like for the site??? any advice, apart from insect repellant

[8633Brown]

I'm unsure what the facilities are like round the campsite or caravan parks or anything as its only a 2 hour drive for me which I'm happy to make every now and again so iv never had to use them, looking at earlier threads tho a lot of members have had plenty star parties around the area I'm sure they would be more help than me ronaldo.

I was just at the elf kirk view point which has a car park less than 50 metres or so from it. The best spot iv found around the kielder area in my opinion. It looks over kielder water and is a perfect dark site compared to my back garden lol.

Iv only drove up to the observatory once but I havnt ventured inside yet but if does look impressive on the outside. I'm planning to go to on of the regular public nights they have.

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