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Imaging with the 130pds


Russe

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Finally my newly acquired 130pds sees its first light and I took my first DSO pic ever. 

A single light taken at iso 1600 n 180s exposure (couldn’t stack my 10 lights at all in DeepSkyStacker, but saving that question for another forum/thread)

C1D3B698-7C34-4638-8F13-95C5A300C718.jpeg

FD7D618B-27EC-4ADC-945A-9D5F8200F591.jpeg

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6 hours ago, lnlarxg said:

Finally my newly acquired 130pds sees its first light and I took my first DSO pic ever. 

A single light taken at iso 1600 n 180s exposure (couldn’t stack my 10 lights at all in DeepSkyStacker, but saving that question for another forum/thread)

C1D3B698-7C34-4638-8F13-95C5A300C718.jpeg

FD7D618B-27EC-4ADC-945A-9D5F8200F591.jpeg

That's excellent! Looks like a nice big solid mount there - EQ5 Heavy?

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3 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Quick question for those of you who use a DSLR for imaging. How many of you use dark frames in your images? I have heard a lot about how dark frames might actually hurt the images more than help them.

Large dither and no darks. :thumbsup:

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Yes, I don't use mount control I use a handset. 

I used to dither with APT when I used my DSLR camera.  APT (Astrophotography Tool) also supports CCD cameras.

Very cheap and good support.  It talks to PHD so it knows when you are taking a shot and dithers in between shots.

Carole 

Edited by carastro
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33 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

dither without a mount control software

Yes. At the end of each exposure, nudge the mount a tiny random amount in a random direction using the arrow keys on your hand controller. To help the mount settle again, set a 30s pause between snaps. HTH.

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Quote

Yes. At the end of each exposure, nudge the mount a tiny random amount in a random direction using the arrow keys on your hand controller. To help the mount settle again, set a 30s pause between snaps. HTH.

See my previous post, can be done automatically with APT - no need for mount control or doing it manually. 

Carole 

Edited by carastro
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The moon restricted me to 4 1/2 minute snaps, but enough excuses. Inspired by another post here, I centred similarly. It's gonna need another session but with the moon tonight, I'm guessing I'd be down to 3 minutes. Time to go for clusters again instead...

52-2.thumb.jpg.9529974167197ee6ad78b97fbf7d5b66.jpg

 

Edited by alacant
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17 hours ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Quick question for those of you who use a DSLR for imaging. How many of you use dark frames in your images? I have heard a lot about how dark frames might actually hurt the images more than help them.

I do use darks, which dates back to my old hybrid E-PM1 camera having strong and regular (from shot to shot) thermal noise. YMMV, as the correction brought by darks varies heavily from cam to cam : IIRC most Canon owners here don't do darks. My new E-PL6 has very low thermal and read noise, so I'm in the process of testing the replacement of darks by flats+bias.

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29 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

How does it automatically dither

Hi. To be able to dither, APT needs to be connected to the mount and thus be able to issue commands to control it. 

Sorry if I've misunderstood. I thought you were after a manual solution.

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12 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi. To be able to dither, APT needs to be connected to the mount and thus be able to issue commands to control it. 

Sorry if I've misunderstood. I thought you were after a manual solution.

Thank you.

No you did not misunderstand. My mount only has the basic R.A motors, therefore it doesn't have the ability to connect to a computer. I was only asking because I thought that it might have something to do with the camera itself. 

Edited by Galen Gilmore
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Right, not sure if you can do this with only an RA motor.  But APT talks to PHD and tells it to dither between subs, I don't know how it works but all I know is I have done it when I only used a handset.  The APT/PHD commands somehow tell the mount to dither, the same as PHD tells the mount to make guiding corrections.

Carole 

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41 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

My mount only has the basic R.A motors

Hi. OK, even easier. Simply stop the motor for a random number of seconds -try around 5- in between each frame. Don't forget to take bias and flat frames. Then stack with median or Sigma-clip. HTH.

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56 minutes ago, Galen Gilmore said:

Thank you.

No you did not misunderstand. My mount only has the basic R.A motors, therefore it doesn't have the ability to connect to a computer. I was only asking because I thought that it might have something to do with the camera itself. 

Hi

Yeah, without a computer interface then you can't control the mount via computer but you can still take images via APT. In principal you could switch off your mount for a second or two in order to manual dither but I'm not sure how well that would work in practice. It's not the end of the world if you can't dither. Lots of people don't bother even though they could/should!

Louise

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I have in the past before I got dithering working stopped the imaging for a few secs and put the slewing onto the slowest speed and pressed the button for a second or two to move the mount slightly, it seemed to work.  

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7 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

It's not the end of the world if you can't dither. 

True. But that then makes darks necessary? I couldn't be bothering with all that nonsense! 

For the small outlay to get the mount controlled by pc so dithering is possible/easy it's well worth it in time/hassle saved. :icon_biggrin:

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7 minutes ago, carastro said:

I have in the past before I got dithering working stopped the imaging for a few secs and put the slewing onto the slowest speed and pressed the button for a second or two to move the mount slightly, it seemed to work.  

Worth a try, I guess! :)

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