M13 with a Dob!

[jdg600]

Ok, its out of focus and there is a LOT of trailing but I'm really quite pleased with my first attempt at deep sky imaging with a dob.

[red dwalf]

well done with a dob, it must be quite tricky to do,

have you done any processing to bring it out alittle ?

[Schorhr]

Well done!

[Chris]

Well its definately there well done

[happy-kat]

Fab :-)

How many seconds each exposure was it 10?

Did you use a webcam?

[jdg600]

Thanks for the replies. I had my dob on a equatorial platform which allowed me to keep it in the field of view for extended periods of time but which doesn't track very accurately hence all the trailing. I used 30s exposures at 1600iso on my Canon EOS D1100. The image is a single jpeg. I did try to stack about four such images but Deep Sky Stacker wouldn't do it - I assume because it couldn't identify individual stars because of the trailing. I haven't tried processing the image in any way but am not sure it would add anything.

John

[andyo]

Goodv start,cant be easy with a dob.Certainly worth a little stretch with levels

[happy-kat]

Did you build the platform yourself?

[Quatermass]

I love it when people give it a go and have fun doing it not an easy task with a dob but well worth it. How about trying a webcam with the dob as well.

[jdg600]

Hi Happy-Kat. Yes, I built the platform myself. Its a bit rough and ready but it definitely works. I have a few ideas for future improvements which may help improve the tracking.

As you say Quatermass, it really is fun just trying things out. I was really thrilled just to get any sort of image. I don't have a webcam set up for imaging at the moment, I may try it in the future but it seems a bit of a faff as my laptop wont run off the battery so it means running extension leads for power, still I may give it a go.

[happy-kat]

One future day I want to build one :-) would you share a picture of yours please?

[Philk_80]

That's a great pic from a dob.

What eyepieces are you using?

[jdg600]

I really enjoyed building my equatorial platform and would recommend it to anyone.  Picture of platform attached.

Hi Philk_80. I didn't use an eyepiece, just attached my DSLR directly to the Dob.

[happy-kat]

Excellent. :-)

How big a motor do you use to power the base the dob is on?

I see you use batteries I think.

I am not ready to build one way too much learning still to do.

[Coco]

slippery slope....

Stop whist you have a chance.... ;

[jdg600]

Hi Happy-Kat, I power the base with a little 12v motor-gearbox I bought on Ebay for about £10. Power comes from small 12v battery which I also use to run the cooling fan. I got the design from the Stellafane links page: http://stellafane.org/misc/links.html which used to have lots of good resources including a spreadsheet for calculating the various dimensions for the platform based on the dimensions of your telescope. Unfortunately I think a lot of these links now no longer work.

I think it may already be too late Coco. I'm already thinking about selling the dob in favour of a 200mm Newt on an EQ mount.

[happy-kat]

Thank you.