Colour

[kev533]

Hi, I have a 200p and canon 5d on an eq5 with synscan, I have been trying to find andromeda, whirlpool etc to photograph, but I'm unsure of what I should be seeing. If I put my equipment into stellarium it shows me what I should see but with 20mm and 10mm eyepieces all I see is blackness with stars. Stellarium shows coloured galaxies etc. Should I be able to see/photograph colour or do I need a filter? Any help much appreciated thanks.

[Jessun]

The camera will pick up colour just fine as it is. The only problem is that it takes ages for some objects. M31 like you mentioned is really quite faint and images you see of it often have ten hours total exposure time or more!

Something like M42 the Orion nebula will look better a lot quicker.

Some use a light pollution filter with their cameras - some don't. It's not essential. What is though is the use of a few pieces of software to make the images come to life.

EDIT: For visual observing I'm not the right person to answer since I don't very often do that. I believe that a few people claim to see a hint of pink in the Orion nebula, but that is about it. All else appear like white or grey smudges, apart from stars and planets which will have some hue to them.

/Jesper

[lensman57]

Hi, I have a 200p and canon 5d on an eq5 with synscan, I have been trying to find andromeda, whirlpool etc to photograph, but I'm unsure of what I should be seeing. If I put my equipment into stellarium it shows me what I should see but with 20mm and 10mm eyepieces all I see is blackness with stars. Stellarium shows coloured galaxies etc. Should I be able to see/photograph colour or do I need a filter? Any help much appreciated thanks.

Hi Mate,

Lets get specific here. Your eyes no matter how good will not see any colour in the DIM DSOs, specially in the Light Polluted skies of the UK . We can see colour in ultra  brght stars such as the Albiero and its companion double.  Not being able to see the DSOs in colour is one of the main reasons that a lot of people put up their DOBS and NEWTS for sale aftera short while. Point No2, your scope is already on the outer margine of the EQ5 PRO for stability,  not only because of its weigth but because it is bulky and long with a lot of inertia for the little mount to overcome. You can certainly use your 5D ( I have one too and will not give it up ) to capture some  of the  brighter DSOs in short bursts but they need to be super bright ones such as M42, you need lots of subs to satck and build the signal to noise ratio, maybe up to 100 if you use 30s exposure.. If your mount is not guided which  I think it is not then considering the load it is carrying then you are restricted to about 30s exposures unguided before Star trail spoils every thing, even if the mount was under active guiding then you have two factors working against you, one as mentioned is the mass of the scope that is not going to yeild itself easily to guiding on an EQ5, the other is the focal length of the scope. At 1000 mm it needs at least an HEQ5 or probably an NEQ6 Pro and serious and accurate guiding . Andromeda  apperars to be bright but that is only the core, the outer regions where the interesing dust lanes are located are very dim, it is also huge, if we could see it as we can see the full Moon it would be at least 8 times the angular size a full moon. You can image the entire galaxy and fit it inside the giant chip of the 5D but with the short exposures you will probably just get the core and some of the surronding halo and I can tell you that there won't be much color to see in Andromeda, perhaps some in the surronding stars if your processing is up to it. You should  certainly go ahaed and give it a go but you need to keep expectations in check. M42 will be in a favourable position to image in a few short weeks and it will offer a more colourful targe target  to image at least in the begining. If you have a look around the DSO imaging of the forum you will notice that most folks use short focus APOs or EDs  on HEQ5s or NEQ6s with multiple long exposures to image, that is for good reason. I hope that I have not put you off , that was not my intention but it is better if you knew what you were dealing with.  

Regards,

A.G

[ronin]

They are all grey, some may be light grey some a darker grey but grey.

Look up "hubble pallet" that will explain the "rules" that are applied to a standard hubble image, meaning I suppose that initial hubble images are not in colour either. Certainly a mono camera is better for imaging. There are other pallets to colour images.

Look for Chandra and Spitzer images, they are all in colour but actually image in the X-ray and IR region so "colour" is not applicable, what colour is an x-ray ?

If you go the something like google images and enter M42  (Orion Nebula) then take a look at the results. M42 is present in many different colours, When the images are processed the imager can add the colours they want. They may follow a "rule" as in Red = Hot, Blue = Cold, or that image looks nice in Mauve. One of the nicest images I have seen of M42 was in a pale mauve.

[kev533]

Thanks very much for all the advice. Far from putting me off, it has spurred me on to try and get it right, even with my less than fit for purpose equipment. Maybe when I save up I'll look at a different scope and will be asking for more advice. Regarding guiding I have a QHY 5iil that I haven't tried to use yet (only just got the laptop and stellarium to work). Just a question about the video, I have connected it up in the house and presssed record on the computer - am I supposed to be able to see anything inside, or will it just work outside, as inside all I get is a fuzzy screen?

[lensman57]

Thanks very much for all the advice. Far from putting me off, it has spurred me on to try and get it right, even with my less than fit for purpose equipment. Maybe when I save up I'll look at a different scope and will be asking for more advice. Regarding guiding I have a QHY 5iil that I haven't tried to use yet (only just got the laptop and stellarium to work). Just a question about the video, I have connected it up in the house and presssed record on the computer - am I supposed to be able to see anything inside, or will it just work outside, as inside all I get is a fuzzy screen?

Hi,

I am glad that you are still with us after my less than enthusiastic reply.  Your EQ5 mount is more than capable of being guided for imaging but not with an SW 200p.  QHY 5ii  is quite sensitive and will be more than adequate for guiding but you need a guide scope of some sort for it. To start your 50 mm finder will do but you'd need an adapter such as the one from Modern Astronomy to mount the the QHY on it. You also need an interface between the mount and the guiding software. Depending on which route you take, either PHD guiding or the EQ MOD platform the hardware requirement is different. It is best to ask again once you have decided on which way to go. BTW with the QHY and a focused lens you should be able to pick out some detail but as the chip is very sensitive try and do this in a darkened room or at night.

A.G

A.G

[kev533]

I am glad that you are still with us after my less than enthusiastic reply.

Well, I'm here to learn, so any advice is welcome.

Yes, the scope did come with a small finder. I have an adapter to attach the QHY to it, but I haven't tried it yet. Is there a software package that is recommendd for this? The lead from the QHY will go into the port on the synscan named 'guider' I guess. If I'm wasting my time with the 200p for dso's please tell me and I'll concentrate on planets etc until I can get a more suitable one.

[lensman57]

Well, I'm here to learn, so any advice is welcome.

Yes, the scope did come with a small finder. I have an adapter to attach the QHY to it, but I haven't tried it yet. Is there a software package that is recommendd for this? The lead from the QHY will go into the port on the synscan named 'guider' I guess. If I'm wasting my time with the 200p for dso's please tell me and I'll concentrate on planets etc until I can get a more suitable one.

Hi ,

Ycu could either use PHD guiding ( free StarkLabs ) and an interface like GPUSB ( not free abou £70.00 ) or go for EQMOD platform ( free from EQMOD project ) and special usb ST4 interface, fLO sell these for about £30.00 which connects the mount to the usb poert of your laptop. In both cases once the guiding starts the handset is bypassed and the guider keeps the guide star within an specific drift tolerance about 0.1 ~ 0.5 of a pixel if everything is going right. Another option for guiding a long FL scope is to use a guide camera and an off axis guider that is installed ithe light path to your imaging camera. This has some advantages such as lack of differential flexure, a nasty culprit in ruining guiding, not needing a separate guide scope, and could result in better and more accurate guidingit also has some disadvantages such as the attenuation othe light reaching your imaging camera due to the filters being in the path and  restriction to the guide stars that are in your scopes FOV only and these maynot be bright enough depending whpart of the sky you are imaging therefore you'd need very sensitive guide camera such as StarLight Xpress Loestar or evn a QHY IMGOH bith arothe £400.00 mark. I know a lot of folks use the EQMOD platform which is excellent and can also be used to control other bits and pieces such as filter wheel etc through the ASCOM platform. I use GPUSB , it is just easier for me.  You also need a capture software depending on your imaging camera, if it is a Canon DSLR you have a few choices, Backyard EOS is popular but not free  I use a full licensed version of APT it is free but fully  functional in the evaluation mode and the full version license is about £10.00, money well spent I think.. If you have or going to buy a Cooled CCD then these do come with their own capture sofware, some are better than the others depending on the type of the camera, you also have the option of Nebulasity ( about $80.00 from Starklabs ) which is a good universal capture software with some image processing capability and is compatible with qhy guide camera . Then you have to think about the image processing software, PS can do it but you need to know the PS well and it could be time consuming then you have the big guys, Maxim DL, Pisinsight , or even StarTools. For stacking the free DSS  is a nice piece of software. Hope this helps.

A.G