Imaging with the 130pds

[Spaced Out]

Hi all

This is the thread that encouraged me to buy a 130 PDS as my first telescope. I used it for the first time a couple of nights ago and this is my first ever image from it.

I had a real hassle setting up because I’m a total newbie and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Took me hours to polar align my mount but got there in the end, then had hassles getting anywhere near focused, then tried using DSS which has a lot of settings to give you a headache !

Anyway, I got something in the end. It is far from perfect but I am reasonably happy with this as a first time effort, it has given me enough encouragement to start learning more about astrophotography.

Thanks to everyone on here who’s 130 PDS images have inspired me to get involved !

 

[wimvb]

Great first image. Just keep doing what you are doing, and things will get easier after a while. Once you have the data, you can always reprocess as you learn the software.

To get focus right, I recommend a Bahtinov mask. It's cheap, easy to use and speeds up this part a lot.

For polar alignment you can use the routines in the HEQ5 Pro hand controller (Synscan). Roughly polar align your mount (level, set alt to your latitude and use compass to point az to north)

Then do a 2-star alignment. Use a barlow and a short fl eyepiece for accuracy. Then do the synscan polar alignment routine. (Just watch carefully in what direction the stars move when the mount wanders off.) Then repeat the 2-star alignment. Repeat until satisfied. I find this routine gets me close enough for photography.

Good luck

[Susaron]

Yesterday evening we went out to the frosty lands south from Madrid to make a photo session with the SW130PDS Moonlite tuned.

Polar alligment almost perfect (down 19'' in both axes), but the -2ºC made imposible the usb conexión between the netbook and the camera so I did short 30 secs frames by hand at high ISO (12800), this let me to make a lot of short pictures of the messiers around Auriga, Gemini and Taurus.

Here some small jpg examples.

Best Regards.

 

M45

M35 and NGC2158

M36

M37

M38

Edited December 31, 2016 by Susaron

[Adam J]

This is a reprocess of my first ever Narrow Band image, a bi color or the eastern veil taken with a cooled Canon 1000D.

8 x 20 min Ha ISO 800

8 x 20 min OIII ISO 800

Its very highly cropped for various reasons so not too great if you zoom in. Its no CCD image but I was quite pleased with it at the time and I think that I got more out of it now that my processing skills have improved.

 

Edited January 1, 2017 by Adam J

[al-alami]

On 12/30/2016 at 17:58, Adam J said:

And now with some OIII

8 x 900s ISO 1600 OIII - Blue

16 x 600s ISO 800 Ha - Red

Did not bother with any calibration frames.

Posted in imaging section too but I like to share with my fellow 130PDS users

Beautiful

[Spaced Out]

On 31/12/2016 at 15:34, wimvb said:

Great first image. Just keep doing what you are doing, and things will get easier after a while. Once you have the data, you can always reprocess as you learn the software.

To get focus right, I recommend a Bahtinov mask. It's cheap, easy to use and speeds up this part a lot.

For polar alignment you can use the routines in the HEQ5 Pro hand controller (Synscan). Roughly polar align your mount (level, set alt to your latitude and use compass to point az to north)

Then do a 2-star alignment. Use a barlow and a short fl eyepiece for accuracy. Then do the synscan polar alignment routine. (Just watch carefully in what direction the stars move when the mount wanders off.) Then repeat the 2-star alignment. Repeat until satisfied. I find this routine gets me close enough for photography.

Good luck

Thanks for the advice, was thinking about getting a Bahtinov mask next, they seem well recommended.

Still finding my way around the Skyscan bizness, tbh honest I find it harder to align that than polar aligning the mount itself. Just getting the scope locked onto the correct star takes me ages ! Sure it'll come with more practice and learning some more stars.

Next job is to read up more about methods and processing, got a very basic grasp on things, enough to chuck my dslr on there and get some frames, but feel I need to have a much better understanding in order to improve my images.

[wimvb]

If you find it difficult to get a staralignment, try this.

Go behind the scope and look along it. If the star is far from aligned either disengage the clutches or set the slewspeed to high (5 - 7 on the synscan) When the star seems aligned, switch to viewing through the finder scope. When aligned here, switch to viewing through your longest focal length eyepiece (usually 25 mm). Once the star is centered in the eyepiece, switch back to the finder scope, and use the small screws to align this properly. Having a properly aligned finder scope makes things a lot easier. It took me a long time as well in the beginning, but with time you'll get there.

Good luck, and happy viewing/imaging

[dyfiastro]

The Cone Nebula from last night
12 x 600s Lights @ISO800 , 40 x Bias, 15 x Flats  but no darks. Used Dithering for the first time and found I was getting more noise and strange banding when using dark frames (something I have not come across before now)

 

 

[Adam J]

On 02/01/2017 at 18:55, dyfiastro said:

The Cone Nebula from last night
12 x 600s Lights @ISO800 , 40 x Bias, 15 x Flats  but no darks. Used Dithering for the first time and found I was getting more noise and strange banding when using dark frames (something I have not come across before now)

 

 

Looks really nice, but perhaps a touch purple? I think that means you need to add a tiny little bit of green to the balance...or is it reduce blue. 

[Adam J]

On 31/12/2016 at 14:47, Spaced Out said:

Hi all

This is the thread that encouraged me to buy a 130 PDS as my first telescope. I used it for the first time a couple of nights ago and this is my first ever image from it.

I had a real hassle setting up because I’m a total newbie and didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Took me hours to polar align my mount but got there in the end, then had hassles getting anywhere near focused, then tried using DSS which has a lot of settings to give you a headache !

Anyway, I got something in the end. It is far from perfect but I am reasonably happy with this as a first time effort, it has given me enough encouragement to start learning more about astrophotography.

Thanks to everyone on here who’s 130 PDS images have inspired me to get involved !

 

If this is your first ever image that is really very very good going.

[StamosP]

Hello!

I finally decided to reprocess my first astrophoto (and the 130pds' first light). After a year i believe my processing skills got a lot better, and i managed to find a 20x20s stack to "save" the core.

The first edition following just the basic steps is here.

The collimation wasn't good enough (i was a rookie) and the ca coming from the SW CC is rather obvious. But i think the final result is good...

[Spaced Out]

18 hours ago, Adam J said:

If this is your first ever image that is really very very good going.

Thanks very much !

Yeah it was my first attempt. Read up a bit of background beforehand and have done a bit of landscape stylee astrophotography before (milky way etc) so not a complete novice with a camera. However, I am a complete novice with a telescope and mount and DSS software.

Really enjoyed getting this first image, I learnt a lot from it and it has spurred me on to read up more and try to improve at this (and probably get better equipped too)

Some of my landscapey astro stuff is here....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/132427272@N04/

I hope to be adding some more DSO stuff to this soon !

[mak90fan]

So for light work, just some casual astrophotography, probably imaging brightest of the dso"s, using short subs (& darks) with a Canon 450d, then stacked in Registax. Would this ota be suitable for a SW AZ  Synscan mount, replacing the stock 130p ota? 

[DorsetBlue]

12 hours ago, mak90fan said:

So for light work, just some casual astrophotography, probably imaging brightest of the dso"s, using short subs (& darks) with a Canon 450d, then stacked in Registax. Would this ota be suitable for a SW AZ  Synscan mount, replacing the stock 130p ota? 

Yes. Although to be honest, and being in a similar situation to you, I would probably customise my existing 130p for prime focusing with the DSLR if you are going to use it purely on a AZ Synscan. I assume it is the 650mmFL 130 and not the 900mm FL?

[rotatux]

15 hours ago, mak90fan said:

So for light work, just some casual astrophotography, probably imaging brightest of the dso"s, using short subs (& darks) with a Canon 450d, then stacked in Registax. Would this ota be suitable for a SW AZ  Synscan mount, replacing the stock 130p ota? 

Yes I guess it would do. You may try prime focus on your existing 130p though as told by DorsetBlue, but it's focuser is not great and depending on your camera and adapters you may have difficulty to reach focus (which would be too close to the tube for the focuser).  Given the cost of a "short" focuser and the burden of replacement on your OTA, the 130PDS is a good option and already has a quite good focuser from the start.

As to what is doable with a synscan az + short newton or frac, check what's possible on the thread named "noeq dso challenge". Especially search for Nigel G's posts as I seem to remember he has the same setup as yours, and did modifications for prime focus.

Edited January 11, 2017 by rotatux
spelling + link to Nige

[richyrich_one]

2 minutes ago, rotatux said:

Yes I guess it would do. You may try prime focus on your existing 130p though as told by DorsetBlue, but it's focuser is not great and depending on your camera and adapters you mey have difficulty to reach focus (which would be too close to the tube for the focuser).  Given the cost of a "short" focuser and the burden of replacement on your OTA, the 130PDS is a good option and already has a quite good focuser from the start.

As to what is doable with a synscan az + short newton or frac, check what's possible on the thread named "noeq dso challenge". Especially search for Nigel G's posts as I seem to remember he has the same setup as yours, and did modifications for prime focus.

As has been said prime focus will not be possible without modification.

This may prove useful. Not the same scope but the principle is the same and some of us have used it to modify the 130P-DS to stop focuser intrusion.

 

[Nova2000]

now im confused on what to buy after reading this forum

130pds or evostar 80ed

[wimvb]

Do you like or hate diffraction spikes? 130pds has them, and the 80ed lacks them.

[Nova2000]

i hate them and also like them actually.

depends of what type of object im shooting. like clusters, i hate spikes.

[wimvb]

Then the 80ed may be the one. There is a difference in fl and speed (f-ratio), but with coma correctors, field flatteners and focal reducers, this different may not be so much.

[Adam J]

55 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Then the 80ed may be the one. There is a difference in fl and speed (f-ratio), but with coma correctors, field flatteners and focal reducers, this different may not be so much.

In my opinion you get better results with a DSLR with the 130PDS just because of the faster optics.

[Uranium235]

Nice to see the 130pds threadzilla still rumbing on after all this time. Keep those images coming!

Congrats to all for your efforts!

[al-alami]

Hi all,

Tonight was the first time I had the scope on a properly functioning mount. I was only able to get 10 X 360s Ha exposures before I got too cold.  I guess I need to work a bit on my focus, but for some reason I'm happy with it.

PS First time I shoot Ha

Fakhri

[Adam J]

15 hours ago, al-alami said:

Hi all,

Tonight was the first time I had the scope on a properly functioning mount. I was only able to get 10 X 360s Ha exposures before I got too cold.  I guess I need to work a bit on my focus, but for some reason I'm happy with it.

PS First time I shoot Ha

Fakhri

Looking good, but i think that there is much much more to be teased out of that data, it could probably stand another couple of stretches on curves as a minimum? Your background is very black, if you look at some other pictures of M42 the entire area is full of dust and hydrogen. Assuming that this is a DSLR then did you remove the blue and green channels prior to stacking? When you use a h-a filter on a OSC camera only the red channel has data the other two only introduce noise to the image.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Adam J

[al-alami]

7 hours ago, Adam J said:

Looking good, but i think that there is much much more to be teased out of that data, it could probably stand another couple of stretches on curves as a minimum? Your background is very black, if you look at some other pictures of M42 the entire area is full of dust and hydrogen. Assuming that this is a DSLR then did you remove the blue and green channels prior to stacking? When you use a h-a filter on a OSC camera only the red channel has data the other two only introduce noise to the image.

Thanks.  It is a DSLR, but I'm stacking directly from the raw images.  Is there another way to do it?