My first shot of NGC 7000

[Bhm2344]

Hi all I spent part of bank holiday Monday building a better place to mount the 4SE so I could get better views of the sky. I had a go at imaging last night. I took this shot as my last one of the night of NGC 7000. It is a single 5 min shot, unguided using my EOS 350D with no live view so I had to guess how much the stars were in focus. The lens is a sigma 70-300mm at f4.5 and ISO 800 using RAW. I edited in photoshop to remove the blue from the CLS filter. I'm happy with it, I know I can stack images, tweak in photoshop etc but I just wanted to see what the mount, old camera and a long exposure could do. Kinda push the limits and see type of thing I want to try it again tonight, I'm soo excited! Last night I was ready to pack it all in and put my telescope on Ebay, this morning I want to get imaging lol.

[rwilkey]

Looks good to my untrained eye, a good basis for real progress, keep it up and good luck!

[Bhm2344]

Thank you

[Adamar98]

That's good for a 5min unguided sub. Doesn't seem to be any star trailing. When I had the 350d I used to focus on a far off street light. Seemed to do the trick. Keep it up. Don't throw in the towel just yet. It'll get easier once you get into a routine of setting up. Good luck for tonight.

Adam

[Bhm2344]

Thank you for the tips, I shall try that. The focus screen is quite dark probably due to age, I notice when I have been playing with new cameras how bright they are! I tried to focus on Deneb to get a close approximate of the surrounding stars

[Adamar98]

The street light trick seems to work. Just remember to turn the auto focus off after you focus. If you have another go tonight I would put Deneb a bit further up the image. You'll get the pelican nebula in shot too then! You just caught the top of it in your last image. Hope you get some clear dark skies tonight.

Adam

[Bhm2344]

I'll have a go at that, but tonight is cloudy here Yes turning off autofocus is a must! I caught the switch with my finger the other night and turned it back on, I wondered why the camera couldn't take photos lol

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice start. I couldn't resist doing a quick contrast stretch to see what is in there and this was the result

OK, so this shows up some noise, but for a single shot, without flats or darks, it is not bad at all.

[mikehab]

As a fellow 4SE owner I'm intrigued by this ;-) This a single 5 min shot with the ESO 350D with a 70-300mm lens, mounted on the original 4SE tracking mount.... so you're just using the original 4SE mount as a tracking mount for the DSLR yes? Was the lens set at (roughly) the 70mm or the 300mm end? Was the mount set in Alt-Az traking mode or were you in EQ Align / tracking mode using the wedge?

Thanks,

Mike

[Bhm2344]

Thank you, I can go to iso 1600 max. I kinda guessed it would be pushing the camera's signal to noise ratio. I will have to play around with different settings as time and weather allow

[Bhm2344]

Hi Mike, I got the camera mounted on a Celestron piggyback mount that is attached where the RDF is. The RDF is then mounted above it (see pic) The Lens would be about the 70mm side, as the lens goes past the 200mm mark it jumps to f5.6. I did a polar align, the new sight in my garden allows me to see Polaris much clearer. So I did a normal ALT 3 star align then asked the mount to find Polaris. I have blue tape on the "front" leg so I know where the hinge is, and I had done a North align using a compass, and also levelled the mount before putting on the OTA and mount. Once I Polaris in sight, I powered down the scope, moved the OTA to point up, and then tilted the hinge to get a close alignment. I also moved the tripod a bit until the RDF "hit" Polaris, and it was centred as a donut in my 17mm Hyperon (forgot to swap to the 25mm that came with the scope) I then did my 2 star alignment and then told the mount to look for the Andromeda galaxy, Deneb, and a few other stars so I knew I was aligned. I told the mount to look at NGC 7000, and just " let rip" and had a go. Camera settings are: AF ai focus (but the lens was set to manual focus) Metering Spot Colour is sRGB and parameters was parameter 2. I know the 60D will have different settings but it will give you a rough guide. Clear sky's to you

[RogerTheDodger]

I had a little fiddle with it in PI

[Bhm2344]

Thank you, I'll have to look into that software too