Hello from new member with first go at imaging...

[tyranniux]

Hello all,

been a lurker for a while and with the dark nights now fully upon us I had a go at some amateur imaging this Saturday night just gone.

Kit is only a Nikon D5100 with a Manfrotto tripod (so short subs are the only possibility!) but I had some pleasing results by stacking 16 1 second subs of M42 and to a lesser extent M31. After reading another thread regarding andromeda I think I may have been pushing the focal length a little too much at 300mm so Ill have another go next new moon if I get chance at a lower power.

I am sure Ill end up splashing out on a guided mount at some point but until then Ill have to make do with short subs and high ISO's!

Just wanted to say Hi anyways and post a few pics of my first attempts. Critique welcome.

Edit: not sure why the attachments have posted so small, may be a forum thing but they are obviously much better at the resolution I attempted to upload at (and they were less than 1Mb so not sure whats going on there....)

Thanks and regards

Dan

[Ewan]

Hi Dan, very nice 1st tries there were they shot in RAW ?, 1 second subs is very fast tbh, you should be able to do 20 second subs unguided, ISO 800 / 1600 gets results, take some darks at least as well, don't forget to turn off any in camera processing off, i got some fairly good detail using my 55-250 IS lens, after bying a piggy back mount i was able to do 5 minute subs on top of the C8, you are correct you probably will end up buying a guided mount & the 300mm Newt or C14 that goes with it :-)

[tyranniux]

Hi Ewan, yea I did an equal number of darks and flats too, which I'm sure shows even further my lack of skill on ps and how light the skies are!

I was finding that anything over a second was producing distinct star trails at 300mm (450 effective) and to be honest are even visible in the pics as they are!

kind regards

[kaybee]

Hi Dan, out of interest what lens did you use?

~Kb

[tyranniux]

Hi Dan, out of interest what lens did you use?

~Kb

hi kaybee, its the Nikon 70-300 vr ed, makes a good go at bird watching, prob best lens I have for optical quality possibly with exception of my 35mm prime

[kaybee]

Is that f/4.5? Nice results. I've stuck with lunar imaging so far, but I'm feeling fairly inspired to have a crack at M42!

[boabsta]

Just so you know, your attachments arent small, you just need to click on them for them go large

Also well done on what you have achieved with standard kit

[tyranniux]

Just so you know, your attachments arent small, you just need to click on them for them go large

Also well done on what you have achieved with standard kit

haha thanks for the tip, i discovered this after I had edited!

Kaybee, its F4.5-F5.6 so at the focal length I took (300mm) it was F5.6.

The lens is considerably sharper at F8 as most lenses but stopped down that far with 1 sec subs wouldnt have got anywhere the light I managed.... now to save for a guiding rig.....

regards

[ollypenrice]

On a fixed mount there is no single value for how long a sub can be. It depends on its Declination. M42 is close to the celestial equator so it moves a long way in a fixed time. On the other hand Polaris moves far less, as we see by looking at the sky. Pick northern targets!

One thing that would help would be balancing the colours to get a neutral sky colour.

You're doing really well, though, and all that you are learning will feed into guided imaging.

Olly