Jupiter & Pleiades Wide shot

[Ewan]

7 subs iso 800 @ 40 secs, 10 darks, 10 flats, patchy cloud all night just testing the Asahi lens, hope you like it.

[DrNeb]

I love it!

[Ewan]

Getting soooooooooo cheesed off with blankets of cloud just wanted (needed) to get out & shoot something...........anything, glad you like it.

Just added a Image not availablePhotos not available for this variationPentax 55mm F/1.8 Super-Takumar Lens with Extras to my collection from a well known bidding site which i should have by Monday..........so dont bother getting your scopes out :-(

[Stephen Green]

It's great

Stephen

[Mooney501]

Nice photo.

[majorkuts]

real nice mate

[OutThereSomewhere]

Very imaginitive shot. I think I'll have a go myself, and not be put off by the clouds as much as I have been.

Well done!

[Nightfly]

Clouds produced a nice effect here. Looks great.

[oogle.dee]

Hi there that is a pretty cool pic.

[Ewan]

Cheers everyone, just because its a little cloudy it shouldn't stop us enjoying our hobby(to an extent), i am enjoying widefield more & more now.

The Likes of Gina & Jim Cormier enspire me to try more & varied techniques so a big thanks to people like you :-)

Clouds produced a nice effect here. Looks great.

Thanks Jim, i just bought a new lens today, well new to me anyway, A Pentax 55mm F/1.8 Super-Takumar Lens with Extras, comes with the adapter, leather case, original caps & Hoya Filter £51.00, hoping it's a keeper.

Been out tonight for 6+ hours, all widefield, Jupiter again no clouds, Orion widefield 50mm f2 Asahi lens, 194mm (don't ask lol) Canon 55-250, Capella area including (i hope) M36, M37 & M38 50mm & some of the Plough as i couldn't fit it all in.

Got to decorate our young lad's bedroom soon & he would like one of my widefield star shots turned into wallpaper & put on the ceiling, the wife found a place on line that can do just that so another thing to look forward to.

Anyway now at least i have got some processing time tomorrow & hope to get a few decent stacked images from that lot, all in all an enjoyable night.

Here is a few single image demo's from tonight which i hope to process tomorrow.

Now i got to get some shut eye & thanks again for the kind comments really is appreciated, night night all :-)

[majorkuts]

you gotta tell me how you stack images to get em looking like that 2nd shot!

[jammo]

Looks great, the clouds make the shot different, nice one

[Ewan]

Thanks again for comments it's very kind.

I'll be honest with you though, i couldn't actually see too well where the cloud would be i'm just lucky DSS decided to stack like it did i think, didnt really expect DSS to like cloudy shots.

you gotta tell me how you stack images to get em looking like that 2nd shot!

Hi Major, do you mean the 192mm above of Orion ?

Sorry i havn't stacked those yet, i just got up i'm knackered.

I thought i would just post them as a preview of what my target's & composition would be last night, i did put the 3 subs above into PS mainly to use Levels, Crop & save as PNG to get them on here as each sub is 22.0 mb.

I will just use DSS to stack them & as they are shot using the canon piggy backed, tracking allowing i will probably use 95% of them, i only did 41 subs of that 1 & they are very pinky, i guess combination of haze, moon & distant lighting.

Right firing up DSS now & gonna get some of them at least stacked, lots of T now i think :-)

[Ewan]

Hi, ok just processed my first batch, Jupiter & Pleiades again but the batch from last night, the 3rd demo sub from last night is what i started with & here's the finished shot.

Stacked in DSS, 18 subs - ISO 400 @ 60 secs, 10 darks 20 flats.

I know it is not the norm but i adjusted this quite a bit in DSS by aligning the RGB channels as best i could & tweaking high / low lights.

PixInsight Dynamic Extraction done as i had bad LP in bottom right hand corner (as you can see in the demo shot), fantastic bit of software worked a treat so much so i will post the before & after shot.

PS tweaks were Levels, Hue & Saturation, Brightness & Contrast, High Pass Overlay @ 4.0 then High Pass Soft Light @ 2.0, HLVG PS filter (thanks Olly for posting the info it's great) then saved as PNG.

Hope you like it.

[tingting44]

Lovely images buddy!! great work! that new lens seems to be up to the job

what were these exposure times mate? also M42 single sub looks decent, hopefully will be nice when you stack it.....also how to you find your focus at night with the dslr? i was trying some wifefields with Ursa Major last night with my 18-55 kit (with no focus screen) and its hard i tell you, i did focus on the furthest away street lamp possible yet my focus was still out, i dont have problems when the moon is out as i focus on that but with no moon from my garden view its hard lol

Martin

[Ewan]

Lens is great but it seems better stopped down to f2.8 - f4, maybe haze or just general conditions last night but i'm happy with it so far.

I have the 18-55mm as well Martin, the standard kit lens, yeah i found the focus ring is a tad wobbly tbh but as long as you double check, as you should, the focus when slewing to another object it does perform ok, it's great at 18-25 though.

Focusing here's what i do now, bear in mind though the 2 canon lenses i have both suffer from very 'twitchy' focusing, one minute your in then it's out, a real pain sometimes, i use EOS Utilities for this btw, i get the brightest star of my target matter in the frame on Live view & EOS utility, on EOS use the Live Preview window & then the 200% zoom option then tighten the focus from that point & you should be good to go.

Martin i would recommend getting a similar lens to my Asahi Pentax as these are a lot better build quality & just the right amount of focus stiffness to stay put, really suprised by them tbh & wish i bought some sooner.

Glad you like the piccy above just processing the Orion 50mm now but food is calling & a program i want to watch but ill stick it up as a seperate Topic later if it works out.

Get back to me Martin if you need any more info.

[majorkuts]

Lens is great but it seems better stopped down to f2.8 - f4, maybe haze or just general conditions last night but i'm happy with it so far.

I have the 18-55mm as well Martin, the standard kit lens, yeah i found the focus ring is a tad wobbly tbh but as long as you double check, as you should, the focus when slewing to another object it does perform ok, it's great at 18-25 though.

Focusing here's what i do now, bear in mind though the 2 canon lenses i have both suffer from very 'twitchy' focusing, one minute your in then it's out, a real pain sometimes, i use EOS Utilities for this btw, i get the brightest star of my target matter in the frame on Live view & EOS utility, on EOS use the Live Preview window & then the 200% zoom option then tighten the focus from that point & you should be good to go.

Martin i would recommend getting a similar lens to my Asahi Pentax as these are a lot better build quality & just the right amount of focus stiffness to stay put, really suprised by them tbh & wish i bought some sooner.

Glad you like the piccy above just processing the Orion 50mm now but food is calling & a program i want to watch but ill stick it up as a seperate Topic later if it works out.

Get back to me Martin if you need any more info.

thanks for the info. yeah im shooting with a 50mm 20mm and 35mm so very interested in your results

[tingting44]

Nice Ewan sounds like a lovely lens, i cant wait till im able to upgrade from the kit len's, my nifty fifty is nice but id love a decent bit of glass lol

thanks going through your method of gaining focus mate, your method works veryy well which show's in your results here so great job

how much did you pick up your lens for mate? not heard of Asahi before? but will defo be checking them out thats for sure

ill keep a look out for your Orion topic bud

Thanks a lot

Clear skies

Martin

[Special K]

Hi Ewan, that is some good stuff and there are a lot of other interesting things in this shot: I can make out the clusters 1647 and 1746! Hyades look great. I agree the clouds add a lot ot the image and it looks like a huge patch of nebulosity in space!

[Ewan]

Nice Ewan sounds like a lovely lens, i cant wait till im able to upgrade from the kit len's, my nifty fifty is nice but id love a decent bit of glass lol

thanks going through your method of gaining focus mate, your method works veryy well which show's in your results here so great job

how much did you pick up your lens for mate? not heard of Asahi before? but will defo be checking them out thats for sure

ill keep a look out for your Orion topic bud

Thanks a lot

Clear skies

Martin

Thanks Martin, it is easier to focus when the lens is a bit 'meatier' if that makes sense, there are loads of Asahi on a well known bid site, at the moment mine is f2 & Jim Cormier placed favour with the f1.7, he does a lot of widefield work you have to check his out mate they are stunning.

Like i say i have an Asahi F1.8 55mm coming tomorrow i hope & i'm after the PENTAX SMC PENTAX-M 100mm MACRO at the moment as i like taking close ups (not of planets btw but insects) also.

That focusing thing man it can be a real pain, i can see why people like Gina go with electric controlled focus it's got to be way smoother, literaly just touch some of the Canon's & their focus is in & out like my wages in the bank, i am really understanding how focus is so critical & i may be wrong but it seems slightly harder when doing wide work (someone may correct me).

The K mount to EOS adapter cost £7 i think, it's brass coated in siler of some kind but it's good build & works a treat.

Hi Ewan, that is some good stuff and there are a lot of other interesting things in this shot: I can make out the clusters 1647 and 1746! Hyades look great. I agree the clouds add a lot ot the image and it looks like a huge patch of nebulosity in space!

Thanks SpecialK i guess there is more data than i took notice of, when processing if i made it really light a lot of stuff appears but i don't want to use them like that tbh, i have done the 50mm Orion shot but i have to look at how i setup as the 600 was piggy backed it's not an adjustable bracket & i couldn't fit Betelgeuse or Bellatrix in the fov, i think there's a menu option to rotate the image but is that before or after the shot ?, the Orion 194mm hasn't turned out too bad & ill post as promised, just going to start to process the Capella, M36, M37 & M38 wide one but since last night i have had 2 hours sleep & i am pooped.

Thanks for the positive response so far.

Clear skies all

[drummermandan02]

Nice work, really sharp images

[Axeldude]

Hey man, great shots!

[Ewan]

Thanks everyone for the comments, still trying out the lens & the new one i bought, 55mm f1.8, i think it's not as good as my f2 50mm though which did the Jupiter widefield, the lens has a yellowish tinge to it.

I found this article about some Asahi lenses 'There are a significant number of lenses produced from the 1940s through the 1970s that are measurably radioactive. Main source of radioactivity is the use of thorium oxide (up to 30% by weight) as a component of the glass used in the lens elements. Thorium oxide has a crystalline structural similar to calcium fluoride (fluorite). Like fluorite, its optical properties of high refractivity and low dispersion allows lens designers to minimize chromatic aberration and utilize lenses of lower curvature, which are less expensive to produce. Contrary to often seen statements to the otherwise, lenses containing lanthanum are not appreciably radioactive - lanthanum is only 1/10,000th as radioactive as thorium. Radioactivity in lanthanum containing lenses is due to the intentional inclusion of thorium in the optical glass mix. The presence of thorium can sometimes, depending on the mixture of other elements in the lens, cause moderate to severe browning of the lens element(s).'

The 55mm does have a yellowish tinge to it but i am hopeful it shouldn't effect performance.