Amateur needs guiding in right direction

[Fordos Moon]

Really disappointed with my latest images.

I am using my ED80, HEQ5 unguided with Canon 1100d and Astronomik filter.

Both about 23 x 2min lights with darks (no bias or flats).

Should I risk star trailing with longer unguided subs? More subs doesnt seem to help much as each one doesnt appear to pick up enough detail?

Do I accept I need to start guiding with longer exposures for things like the crab nebula, pinwheel etc as I feel I had moderate success with these next two using the same kit and exposure length?:

I'm wondering if switching this screen to disable will help?

Any advice appreciated!

[algady]

Hi,

I'm not an expert at all but as far as I know guiding WILL make you imaging MUCH easier and MUCH better results at any given situation.

[Gina]

Yes, guiding is practically essential for DSO imaging. And yes, you should turn off noise reduction in the camera. All it does is take a dark exposure of the same length as the light and then subtract it. There are two problems with this 1. it doubles the time required to get your data and 2. it can overdo it and lose the fainter parts of the image - something you very much don't want!

[Fordos Moon]

Thank you Gina :-)

[sgazer]

I think it's the long exposure noise reduction that takes the extra 'dark' image, the high ISO NR just reduces the noise (and potentially loses detail), so should be off.

I found guiding to be really great when it worked, exposures up to 5 or even 10 mins with a 750mm fl scope on a HEQ5 were easy, even without polar aligning each night, ie. set up once, mark the spot on the ground where the tripod legs go, then use the same position each night. So the extra time to set up guiding cancels out the time to accurately polar align each night. Of course if you polar align too, the guiding won't need to work so much, but I've also heard it can help to have it out by a little bit to keep the guiding working constantly in the same direction.

Either way, with marks on the floor, I always got 5 mins easy guided.