a full moon and a t-mount

[nickdud]

so for the first time in ages the sky cleared tonight in south leic and i pointed my scope in the direction of up. my mission for the night was to try my camera on the scope.

things i learned tonight, 1.my camera makes my scope unbalanced, had to hang a large weight at the other end to counterbalance. 2.i NEED live view, i cant focus thru the viewfinder on the camera. 3.you cant see red lense locator dots with a red light.

all was not lost tho, i have a load of pictures of the moon, some are not too bad really(no where near the mega standard of most on this site but i'm happy for a first go).

i tried plaiedes as it rose over the fence, loads of stunning blue colour in the stars but trouble with focus and the speed of (earth) movement made most of my attempts into bright blue star trails.

i took 1 picture of the sky thru my 55mm standard canon lense, i cant decide if the smudges are noise or blurred stars tho but i quite like the pic anyway.

my final attempt at jupitor was cut short by a dead battery but i can still clearly see the four moons even tho the planet was a total wash out.

i have a lot to learn of course, but a fun night all the same.

[nickdud]

the big guy is up, just got a peek at m42 thru the bathroom window,cant wait to get the camera on that one(yea yea, me and every one else haha)

[nickdud]

messin with the gimp...

[Welrod50]

It can be addictive

I have dabbled with a Pentax Kx mounted onto my zoom EP but have done very little this summer what with work and terrible weather etc. and very much need to get back out.

Kx is useful as it has live view but what I quickly found was that trying to take static photographs is quite achieveable, but always runs the risk of incorrect exposure, image/tripod/OTA/camera shake of verious degrees and I found that using the video function gave better overall results. There are lots of folks here who use webcams and the like to capture moving footage then use software to take a single frame from the footage, thus giving a static 'photo'. Or better yet, using something like Registax to stack numerous frames and give an even better single frame with less iamge noise.

The Kx suits me for what I can do, but I do know from reading posts here that most of the more serious users prefer webcams. Have a search on the forums and you will find some very valuable advice and opinion. It helped me no end when I started playing with AP.

Good luck

Scott.

[nickdud]

last nights moon

[JamesF]

Are these moon images stacked or just single shots?

James

[nickdud]

all just single shots. tweeked slightly in gimp to adjust light levels but nothing too serious. I find when I resize them to about 75% they sharpen up quite nicely. I'm new to this ap game so really only messing around with shutter speeds and aperture settings at the moment.

I am living proof that anyone can have a go with not too much equipment and cost lol.

[JamesF]

I'd definitely have a go at stacking some if you can take a few dozen at the same time.

James

[nickdud]

its next on my list of things to learn;)

[perkil8r]

The last one of the 3 original pics I believe is Ursa Major, definately stars not noise

[nickdud]

last nights view in what is becoming my moon blog lol

this raw image was tweeked in gimp with the ufraw add on, i knocked the temp slider tho and made it a little too red tbh.

(not having much luck with registax6, with 3 images it freezes out, should i process my images first and resize them or just leave it running for hours then find a chopped up image?)

[JamesF]

If you tweaked the histogram a bit I'm sure you could re-balance the colours. Looks like a good image without the "blackcurrant" flavouring

Just working on my own from last night at the moment...

James

[nickdud]

less blackcurrant in this one...

[JamesF]

Much better

James