Cygnus & Lyra widefield

[Dave Smith]

Cygnus and Lyra taken at my club's Astro camp September 2013.

Canon 40D modified mounted on an Astrotrac. 12 x 5 min subs at iso 800 through a 24-105 lens set at 24mm. I did also try 12 x 2 min and 12 x 10 min but they didn't come out so well.

A mouse-over image can be seen at

http://astrosnaps.co.uk/Cygnus.html

Dave

[JB80]

Beautiful Dave.

I love it.

Did you take flats too?

[Dave Smith]

Thanks Jarrod. No I didn't use darks or flats on this one. It didn't seem to need it.

Dave

[jammo]

Thats beautiful, nice bit of colour in there as well, perfect focus

[wookie1965]

That is absolutely fabulous im just looking at it and wondering when i get to a dark sky im used to light polluted skies i wont be able pick out the constellations.

[Dave Smith]

Thats beautiful, nice bit of colour in there as well, perfect focus

Thanks Jammo. The focus is due to APT which has a fully automated focus routine with Canon lenses. I see you have the same lens - it seems to work well on widefield.

Dave

[Dave Smith]

That is absolutely fabulous im just looking at it and wondering when i get to a dark sky im used to light polluted skies i wont be able pick out the constellations.

The brighter stars are far more obvious to the naked eye than on the pics above so you should have no problem. Thanks for the comment.

Dave

[foundaplanet]

Stunning and if you don't mind me saying perfectly framed.

Totally makes me realise how much I need to get a modded dslr..

[Stargazer33]

Amazing! I'm glad you did the second, anotated image as I just couldn't pick out Cygnus with all those background stars. Lyra was only obvious once I had looked at the second image!

[Dave Smith]

Thank you southerndiver and Bryan. I had to use a star map to find the parallelogram part of Lyra. Vega is obvious.

Dave

[andrew63]

Lovely shot Dave - the North American Nebulae stand out really well.

andrew

[Dave Smith]

Thanks Andrew.

Dave

[Psychobilly]

Cracking shot Dave..

Plenty of colour in there and nice tight stars with APT in control

Nice to see what  the 24-105 can do... 

Peter...

[JB80]

Thanks Jarrod. No I didn't use darks or flats on this one. It didn't seem to need it.

Dave

No, you're right. I don't think it does need it hence why I thought you may have used them.

[Dave Smith]

Thanks Peter.

@Jarrod - I have been reading views lately that darks can cause more noise as it is difficult to properly match the temperature, So this is my first experiment at not using darks, just bias - and it seems to have paid off. As there don't seem to be any dust bunnies I could do flats at any time but I'm not sure that there is any significant vignetting so haven't bothered.

Dave

[wxsatuser]

Sweet. :icon_salut:

[WaveSoarer]

That's a lovely image and pulls out the nebulae in the Cygnus area. Thanks also for the labeling the image. It provides a great reference.

[JB80]

Thanks Peter.

@Jarrod - I have been reading views lately that darks can cause more noise as it is difficult to properly match the temperature, So this is my first experiment at not using darks, just bias - and it seems to have paid off. As there don't seem to be any dust bunnies I could do flats at any time but I'm not sure that there is any significant vignetting so haven't bothered.

Dave

That would make sense in theory I suppose so there is certainly no harm in putting it to the test  and the result is definitely a positive one.

Can you point us to any discussions, I wouldn't mind giving it a read.

I have to deal with temps at or above 20°C at night until winter kicks in so taking darks seems like a neccessity.

[Dave Smith]

Sorry Jarrod, I cannot remember. It could be on here,SGL, or UKAI or Astronomy Shed, forums that I regularly read/post.

Thank you Mike and WaveSoarer for your comments. Much appreciated.

Dave

[laser_jock99]

Nice- can't beat a dark sky for widefield work!

[kirkster501]

Astonishing capture Dave.  Very nice indeed.

[Superdavo]

Wow! There's a lot of stars!

David

[Dave Smith]

Thanks Kirkster and David. Appreciated.

Dave

[tdmodels]

Nice one Dave

[Dave Smith]

Thanks Tim. See you at Kelling soon

Dave