Casseopia

[peteftm]

Just getting back into imaging after two years and bought a vixen polarie to carry my 1000D.

Here is a single 3 minute exposure with a canon 17-85mm lens set at 50mm. There's slight trailing but the mount was only crudely polar aligned via the peep hole. I'm very pleased with it's tracking up to now .

[jambouk]

Very nice. Is that Caldwell 14 at the bottom left too?

James

[peteftm]

Thanks NGC 884 and 869 , double cluster it seems according to stellarium.

[JamesF]

From memory there's the double cluster and the heart and soul nebulae over that way.

James

[jambouk]

Yes, 869 and 864 is Caldwell 14. Nicely captured.

It would be nice to build up a gallery of constellations taken by oneself.

Another thing to put on the vast list of things to do

James

[iksose7]

Thats a nice image Peter, let us know what you think of the Polarie once you have used it for a month or two.

I agree with James, i too am hoping to build up a gallery of constellations. Got a couple so far.

[JamesF]

It would be nice to build up a gallery of constellations taken by oneself.

Something I'd very much like to do. I have made a bit of a start, albeit not getting that far. Here's my Cassiopeia:

James

[jambouk]

Show off, lol

That is lovely though. What settings / kit did you use to take that?

James

[JamesF]

It's from an unmodded Canon 450D on my EQ3-2, with the 50mm f/1.8 "nifty fifty" lens. Can't recall the exposure time off the top of my head, but probably in the two to three minutes range. I'd stopped it down a little too, as the distortion at the edges of the field becomes fairly hairy wide open.

I'm quite pleased with it as an image, but I really don't think something similar should be beyond anyone with a DSLR and an EQ mount. I've not done a huge amount of wide field imaging so I can't claim to be an expert at all The one advantage I do have is very low light pollution, but even that can be controlled to a fair extent with either a clip-in filter or standard 2" filter on a step-down ring.

James

[jambouk]

James, where do you put / or get, a light pollution filter when using just a dslr and a dslr lens (no telescope)?

James

[JamesF]

For Canon cameras using EF lenses only (not EF-S lenses) it is possible to buy a clip-in filter that fits in the camera body behind the lens. They're not exactly cheap however.

What I have (though I rarely use it) is a standard 2" astro LP filter which has a 48mm thread, and a step-down ring that fits to the filter thread of my lens on one side and takes the LP filter on the other. In theory this would work for any camera and lens. Mine came from Bristol Cameras.

James

[jambouk]

Ok, i'll see what screw threads my lenses have and investigate that option.

Do you know a brand name for the clip in filters to help to look at them?

James

[JamesF]

These are the ones that spring to mind for me:

http://www.astronomi...ter-system.html

There may well be others, but I'm unaware of them.

One of the reasons I chose the external filter/step-down ring was because they're not suitable for EF-S lenses such as the kit 18-55mm lens that comes with many of the Canon DSLRs. It's not a lens that has set the world on fire, but if you work within its limitations it's still possible to get some fair images with it. This is one of my first wide field images, taken with the kit lens, for example:

This was taken before I had an LP filter and a little has crept into the top-right corner I think.

(Apologies to the OP for the thread drift. I genuinely offer these images by way of encouragement. I see no reason why people just starting out imaging this way shouldn't be able to get close or even better them.)

James

[jambouk]

Yes. Apologies to the original poster, but your great image has inspired me hence all the follow up questions.

It seems those clips would work in my camera: it's just confusing which clip i'd need as there appears to be 20 different ones!!!!!!

[JamesF]

It seems those clips would work in my camera: it's just confusing which clip i'd need as there appears to be 20 different ones!!!!!!

That is something I cannot help with, I'm afraid. I think they're sold by Modern Astronomy and Bernd certainly has a reputation for being very helpful, so he might well be the person to ask if no-one here can help.

James

[jambouk]

I think i've got it sussed (with some help); i need the CLS-CCD one.

Thanks

James