Imaging with the 130pds

[Astro_by_sona]

Thanks @alacant I have ordered a 20mm spacer! Hope it works🤞🏻 
now that I own the 130PDS can’t change it for 130P😞 

the images shared so help, hopefully it should resolve my issue.

clear Skies!

[Stuf1978]

11 hours ago, Jamgood said:

I read this thread from start to finish when I made up my mind to get the 130PDS, while waiting and after owning one. (It took a while to get through)

For Flats, I use an old Tablet sat on the top of the scope. It has worked well for me with DSLR and Dedicated. (It a TV Tablet, slightly larger than the average) You can use what you have at hand though. Laptop/Computer Screen, Light Box, a brightly lit wall, morning sky, etc.

I've rarely had issues with Dew. I have a dew shield on the end and where I position my scope, I have a wall and some bushes around me that seem to help isolate my gear. Once or twice when it has been really cold my old DSLR the CC would dew over a little in the early hours.

Image Framing is down to personal choice I suppose. You could leave the camera attached permanently and do mosaics or rotate. I mostly rotate mine and use Stellarium for the field of view and orientation.

Welcome to the club! 👍

Thanks that's all good info. Really looking forward to giving the scope a try. I'm sure I'll run into problems at some point so this thread is the first place I'll refer to 😄

[Skyline]

On 02/11/2020 at 23:28, kaelig said:

This evening, I have used for the first time the Bathinov 3D mask (model found on this post)

Images are attached, I am happy, it is better than old one I have got. 

Many thanks to the person who have made this 3D model & the person who share it on this post.

 

 

Your welcome.

[Stuf1978]

My 130PDS turned up today, very quick turnaround by FLO 👍

Anyway I'm looking into ways of attaching my 50ED guidescope so I'm going to add a dovetail to the top of the clamps. Does anyone know what size this screw is as I need another?

[alacant]

12 minutes ago, Stuf1978 said:

what size this screw i

1/4" 20 UNC

Or just drill off the thread and use m6.

HTH

 

[Stuf1978]

1 minute ago, alacant said:

1/4" 20 UNC

Or just drill off the thread and use m6.

HTH

 

Great stuff, thanks 👍

[Stuf1978]

Productive day today, managed to get the guidescope attached and the scope collimated (I think). The primary was way off and the secondary needed a little tweaking. First time I've collimated a reflector and have to admit the secondary was a faff. I'm sure it'll get slicker over time though. Does this look OK? (Picture isn't great but it looked better visually)

Also is there any adaptors available so that I can have everything threaded (i.e.  CC to the focuser)

Another thing I noticed is the amount of light entering the bottom of the tube at the edge of the primary. Is it advisable to make a cover to stop as much light entering?

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by Stuf1978

[alacant]

Hi everyone

A visitor wanted us to setup his 130, but having travelled as checked-in baggage with Jet2, we feared the worst. However, a 30s tweak of the primary adjusters was all that was needed.

Moral of the story: reflectors travel well.

Here are ngc884 and ngc869 in Perseo with an astro modified eos700d taken using said.

eos700d, ~2h, iso800

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by alacant

[Maho]

This is no way as good as most of the images put on here but this is my first ever picture after processing in GIMP. I could only take 29x30sec subs from my Bortle 8 location. I also took flats, bias and darks too. Taken on a CEM25P

For some reason, top left of the frame is a lot darker than the right. The stacked image had no differences in lighting and only happened as I tried processing it in GIMP.

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Maho

[alacant]

On 05/09/2021 at 18:27, Stuf1978 said:

Does this look OK

Hi

It looks OK, but beyond that, it's difficult to say whether it's optimum for imaging e.g. we don't know the orientation of the image; where is the focuser?

Another good ruthless test (which many fear!) is to take a guided shot of a star field. ATM, anywhere in Cygnus is good for this.

Cheers

[Jamgood]

It was nice to get back out imaging over the last two nights. I'd barely seen a star in the sky since July! This is the longest I've spent on any target and going forward from here, I can see that more time is needed to be spent on each target. (I've been too guilty of hopping around grabbing an hour here and there but, I'm still a newbie!)

NGC 281 - Pacman Nebula 10hrs integration.

60x300s Light Frames (5hrs) 
30x600s Light Frames (5hrs) 
80 Darks
40 Flats
40 Dark Flats

Sky Watcher 130PDS
HEQ5 Pro with Rowan Belt Mod
ZWO ASI294MC Pro - Cooled -10°
TS-Optics GPU Superflat Coma Corrector
Optolong L-Enhance
Orion 50mm Guide Scope & Orion Star Shoot Auto Guider
Pegasus Powerbox Advance
Astro Photography Tools & PHD2
Astro Pixel Processor, Photoshop & Starnet++
Bortle 8 Skies!

[Stuf1978]

3 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

It looks OK, but beyond that, it's difficult to say whether it's optimum for imaging e.g. we don't know the orientation of the image; where is the focuser?

Another good ruthless test (which many fear!) is to take a guided shot of a star field. ATM, anywhere in Cygnus is good for this.

Cheers

Thanks, I've actually gone back and tweaked it a bit and I'm much happier. I'm still awaiting delivery of a Bahtinov mask, so I'll definitely try it in the field so to speak when I have the means to nail the focus down  

[alacant]

..

Edited September 8, 2021 by alacant

[Jamgood]

Same data as my last post, this time trying out the Hubble palette. Just seeing what I can likely achieve from my OSC camera with a little processing manipulation. I'm very impressed. Astro Pixel Processor was definitely a worthy purchase. Seeing these images come to life though has given me the itch to go mono a lot sooner than I planned. It will happen in the near future.

A side by side comparison.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Jamgood

[Stuf1978]

13 hours ago, Jamgood said:

Same data as my last post, this time trying out the Hubble palette. Just seeing what I can likely achieve from my OSC camera with a little processing manipulation. I'm very impressed. Astro Pixel Processor was definitely a worthy purchase. Seeing these images come to life though has given me the itch to go mono a lot sooner than I planned. It will happen in the near future.

 

Looks great, I've been trying to replicate this colour palette with my OSC data within Phostoshop without much luck. I have tried the trial version of APP a while back so may have to bite the bullet and buy it.  Are there any good tutorials out there on how to do this in APP?

[Jamgood]

1 minute ago, Stuf1978 said:

Looks great, I've been trying to replicate this colour palette with my OSC data within Phostoshop without much luck. I have tried the trial version of APP a while back so may have to bite the bullet and buy it.  Are there any good tutorials out there on how to do this in APP?

Thank you. I used @AstroBloke's tutorial on youtube.

Easy to follow and very well explained.

👍

[Stuf1978]

7 minutes ago, Jamgood said:

Thank you. I used @AstroBloke's tutorial on youtube.

Easy to follow and very well explained.

👍

Brilliant, thanks  

[BrendanC]

The Cocoon Nebula, IC 5146

* 5:27 hours of integration at ISO800 from 28x240s + 43x300s subs
* Bortle 4 sky, Moon 1% phase, 45° height
* Calibration: 25 flats, 25 dark flats, 50 darks
* Hardware: Sky-Watcher 130PDS scope with primary mirror baffle, Sky-Watcher NEQ6 mount with Rowan belt, Canon EOS1000D DSLR camera minus IR filter, Sky-Watcher 0.9x coma corrector, Datyson T7C guide camera, Angel Eyes 50mm guide scope
* Software: Polar alignment with SharpCap Pro, guiding with PHD2, capture with Astrophotography Tool (APT), stacking with Deep Sky Stacker (DSS), post-processing with StarTools and Topaz Denoise AI

[D33P]

My first image since picking up a 130pds. No a scratch on some of the images here, but I'm so happy with my new little photon collector. Looking forward to the next few months

 

[Simon Dunsmore]

Nice image!

What equipment other than the 130pds are you using?

[D33P]

130pds sat on an NEQ6. Unmodded 450d. QHY5L-II guide cam (with QHY's Mini guide scope). Processed in Startools.

(20x 60s lights, 20x 120s lights, 20x darks, 20x flats captured after the event (I forgot about the flats! Schoolboy error)

It was captured in a moonlit sky, so I'm sure the setup can do much better. I'm going to need a lot of practice though 🙂

[bottletopburly]

9 hours ago, D33P said:

Processed in Startools.

Did you sample stars for colour? Core showing Green try sampling a selection of the core for colour then press sample  m31 works quite well this way and use the rgb sample to see if green channel is dominant then knock green channel down until you see green almost disappear  that a nice image well done .

[cuivenion]

On 05/09/2021 at 17:27, Stuf1978 said:

Productive day today, managed to get the guidescope attached and the scope collimated (I think). The primary was way off and the secondary needed a little tweaking. First time I've collimated a reflector and have to admit the secondary was a faff. I'm sure it'll get slicker over time though. Does this look OK? (Picture isn't great but it looked better visually)

Also is there any adaptors available so that I can have everything threaded (i.e.  CC to the focuser)

Another thing I noticed is the amount of light entering the bottom of the tube at the edge of the primary. Is it advisable to make a cover to stop as much light entering?

 

 

Hi, you can use a shower cap stop to the light leak at the primary. I use this one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333526609970

[Jamgood]

46 minutes ago, cuivenion said:

Hi, you can use a shower cap stop to the light leak at the primary. I use this one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333526609970

I use a black shower cap on the back of my scope. Works well and easily removable. Before that I used a black t-shirt and an elastic band. Did the same job. 👍

[Stuf1978]

7 hours ago, cuivenion said:

Hi, you can use a shower cap stop to the light leak at the primary. I use this one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333526609970

Nice one, simple solution. 👍