First Deep Sky attempt

[Stratis]

Hi all,

Took advantage of that precious clear night and set out to image for the first time on Deep Sky.

There is something of a story of woe behind this image, however:

• No polar alignment (big house is in the way of Polaris)
• No guiding or PEC (don't have the bits)
• No filters

I did succeed in grabbing 10x10sec exposures before star trailing and/or LP started ruining the subs, so we have 100secs@ISO400 of half-decent data here.

The frames were stacked with DSS and the result levels-adjusted. Mostly fumbling in the dark with the software at the moment but I'll keep trying

[hobsey]

With no polar alignment or guiding, thats a cracking effort.

I would be happy with that.

[ScottS]

Nice one!

[Stratis]

Thanks for the feedback Here's the setup in action, looks downright primitive compared to most of the people on here 

There's a lot to sort out.... does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap-as-chips guidecam? I have a Philips SPC900NC but I don't think it's sensitive enough.

[frugal]

That is a nice shot, especially given the constraints you say you are working under. 

[glowingturnip]

There's a lot to sort out.... does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap-as-chips guidecam? I have a Philips SPC900NC but I don't think it's sensitive enough.

Meade LPI works fine for me, with PHD.

Nice photo for 10s exposures.  Looks a little over-sharpened though, halos round some of the stars in the nebulosity ?

[smudgeball]

Thanks for the feedback Here's the setup in action, looks downright primitive compared to most of the people on here 

There's a lot to sort out.... does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap-as-chips guidecam? I have a Philips SPC900NC but I don't think it's sensitive enough.

Hi

Nowt shabby about your setup !

You're using it, that's the main thing.

Round stars. no trailing and the centre of the nebula is not blown out, that's a great image for the exposure time

There are other ways of polar aligning if you can't actually see polaris.

Can't tell if you are just using handset or have moved to something like eqmod for connection?

If so you could try alignmaster which uses bright stars to polar align.

Like everything else with this hobby there will be "yay sayers" and "nay sayers" but it works for me.

I can get 3 min un-guided no problem and past 5 mins guided ( but I'm still doing that part of my dark side apprenticeship )

And looking through the polarscope after running alignmaster proves that polaris is where it should be.

Something to look at, but again well done on the image

Regards

Neil

[wxsatuser]

That is a nice shot, especially given the constraints you say you are working under. 

Agreed!

Fine for such short exposures.

[Pete Presland]

10 out 10 fabulous image, just shows what can be acheived! well done

[Stratis]

I've posted an ad on ABS looking for a low-end CCD, maybe somebody will bite

The star halos were there after the stacking process, I tried changing the algorithm but couldn't get rid of them. I'm thinking about going back through the subs (when I get in from the pub ) and seeing if one of them is misaligned or adding erroneous data. I haven't applied any geometric processing to the data, just levels, luminance and a couple of stacking layers.

I have to say I'm pleased with how it turned out, eager to get a guiding setup in the mix as quick as possible. I'd like to be on the NEQ-6 everyone recommends but I have to cart everything down a narrow staircase and round a treacherous alley to get in position and the HEQ-5 is the only one that I can heft around the corner.

Looking at a side-by-side bar with ST80 as a guider, unless I can get away with one of those tiny 50mm guidescopes?

[edjrgibbs]

Finder guider is a great option. 9x50 finder, adapter from Bern at Modern Astronomy and your SPC900 will do the job.