Ring Nebula - Yey

[gooseholla]

I love the ring. However, I don't think it looks lonely. I think within the surrounding vista it makes a wonderful shot, as it is framed in amongst stars that seem to radiate out from and spiral around it, getting gradually brighter.

Perhaps just my over-romanticised view of the heavens?

[Richardisgreat]

I'd not know where you are Richard but its cloudy here and I strong breeze. Got the bug now I've captured the ring nebular, I want to get more....

Yeh the cloud rolled in here too, which was depressing as it looked clear up until it started getting dark., and like you say it was a bit breezy. never mind we will have to see what the weekend is like.

[Andy P]

It's not looking good here again tonight..

[Neil1978]

I saw it for the first time tonight it looked like a fuzzy little polo mint through my 5" reflector

[Richardisgreat]

Yeh it was very clear here a couple of nights ago. I attached my new eyepiece adaptor to my dobsonian and attached my digital camera to it and took some video of M57 but it was way too faint and didnt show up at all. I also tried the same thing with M13 but again nothing showed up. I took a cool shot of the moon a while ago (check my gallery) i was very pleased with that. I think the adaptor will be only used for moon/planetary imaging.

[Cath]

I think you'll find

Yeh it was very clear here a couple of nights ago. I attached my new eyepiece adaptor to my dobsonian and attached my digital camera to it and took some video of M57 but it was way too faint and didnt show up at all. I also tried the same thing with M13 but again nothing showed up. I took a cool shot of the moon a while ago (check my gallery) i was very pleased with that. I think the adaptor will be only used for moon/planetary imaging.

I think you'll find theirs no point trying to record video on deep sky objects, they are just too faint. You need to use longer single image exposure times (which you don't get in video mode).

[Richardisgreat]

Thanks Cath, i have just explored the settings on my digital camera and maximum single shots it can do is only 3 seconds, you can set the F rating maximum is 8 and minimum in 2.6

Do exposures on dsos have to be minuets long or do you think i could stack lots of 3 second exoposures? also im guessing i want to set the F rating to 2.6 to get maximum aperture from the camera? I am a real noobie to this whole thing and when i bought my scope i knew that a dob was no good for photography, it was a trade off between the cost of goto versus eq5 with no goto. I went for the dob with goto Im just testing it out "anyway" at the moment to see if i can do anything. I very happy with just observing but it would be super cool if i could get a photo even if it was a bit rubbish. Im hoping i can get some nice shots of Jupiter and Saturn when they are around next time.

I expect at some point in the future i may invest in a webcam and explore that route, i have an old laptop which i could take into the field but am a bit reluctant because of damp getting into the laptop.

[Josh Wilson]

Lots of 3 second exposures will show the same thing over and over. Lots of 1 minute or 5 minute exposures will show things completely differently. This is why most astrophotographers use a combo of both long and short exposures, darks, flats and bias shots. Darks remove noise, flats remove vignetting, and I have no idea what biases do.