M13 - The Beginners Choice

[Christopher Davenport]

I would, but that means buying a webcam and a new lap-top. I can't use my scope at home (living in a flat is a mare for that) so have to go out. That means no mains powered kit and my lap-top is too old and knackered to last more than about 20 mins on its battery.

All good things come to those who wait however and, although I'm investing in visual observing upgrades as soon as I can afford them, I have enough patience to wait till I've saved enough to do things properly before I spend on imaging gear. Getting some nice shots of the planets and the moon would be nice, but I'm ultimately aiming at DSO. My plan (subject to change/budget etc) is to get an HEQ5 or AVX mount, power supply and modded DSLR all together when the budget allows. In the mean time I have some time to experiment with my compact and a mates DSLR (and my Baader 2.25x barlow with t-thread) to get eye in for the big investment. As there's only so much I can save each month anyway, it'll be a while whatever I do!

I admire your determination.

Some suggested accelerators:

Buy everything on the used market, most astronomers are very kind to their kit.

Astro buy sell is a great site.

Nice thing about used kit to learn with is that you can usually upgrade it with minimal losses.

Modding a DSLR can be done at home and is a nice to have once you get into nebula, most targets don't need it. A 1000d can be pick up for nothing second hand.

A webcam is only £20 and can be used for guiding later on a finder guider. Although I must say I would personally rather dedicated used cam like a qhy2.

A 130pds or 80ED will easily sit on a eq3pro or eq5pro for field work.

(A heq5 is a heavy beast in comparison, I would not want to hike any distance with it.)

Only buy filters once you need them.

Oh and the laptop, get a old business laptop like a lenovo x200 on eBay for less than a £100.

You don't really want to leave a £500 laptop lieing outside while you take a snooze in the car

Just some food for thought really, especially if you are on a budget.

[Pete Presland]

good choice of target and well imaged! personally i liked the 1st image, the 2nd looks like the data has been pushed a little too far.

[Christopher Davenport]

good choice of target and well imaged! personally i liked the 1st image, the 2nd looks like the data has been pushed a little too far.

Thanks, I completely agree the more I look at them, the more I like the first.

It is much more natural looking.

The second was my first attempt at drizzle, which is why I posted it.

[Christopher Davenport]

Hello all,

So thought I would update those that where following this thread earlier this month.

Thanks to some advice from this forum, plus a bit of research on why my stars where elongating I have decided to retry this target.

My  Sky Watcher 80ED is F7.5 which is very slow for DSLR imaging, so on hot summer nights I faced serious problems with noise.

Anyway I thought I would kill both problems with one stone and I purchased a 0.6 Reducer flattener.

I did look at the official one from Skywatcher, but it is double the price of this and it does not reduce the focal ratio as much.

Now I was skeptical on how much it would help, so I thought I would redo this image and see the result and I am well pleased.

If you compare this image with my first, you will notice that the stars are well cleaner.

Edit: Hope this helps others when they are considering how to combat these problems.

[tingting44]

its awsome how much CC/FF/FR makes to an image isnt it!

cant wait to see more 

[Pete Presland]

it has certainly improved the star shapes, so well done on your investment. the colour overall still looks a bit too blue though.

[Christopher Davenport]

it has certainly improved the star shapes, so well done on your investment. the colour overall still looks a bit too blue though.

Hmmm, interesting I was not paying any attention to the colour, this is purely 20% increase in Saturation and similar amount on Vibrancy. 

Thing is my camera in not modded, so I think it is not picking up a lot of the red channel.

I could increase the red channel abit to try to balance it out.

[wxsatuser]

Thanks for the replys. I did notice the small galaxy next to the herc, thanks for pointing out the name.

I tried to keep the colours natural.

Has anybody else got experience use half iso or multiples of 160? I did this at iso 1250 instead of 1600 as it produces less noise on a hot night.

This seems to have reduced the noise although I have reduced the exposure times as well.

Any thoughts?

Thats interesting about the flattner, nice one.

I was under the impression it was'nt a good idea to use those inbetween isos but if it works, why not.

If you go up in iso it is not a good idea to reduce the total exposure, so if it's 30mins at iso 800 it's still 30mins at iso 1600.

[Christopher Davenport]

Thats interesting about the flattner, nice one.

I was under the impression it was'nt a good idea to use those inbetween isos but if it works, why not.

If you go up in iso it is not a good idea to reduce the total exposure, so if it's 30mins at iso 800 it's still 30mins at iso 1600.

Thanks for the advice the total time! I tend to grab as many images as I can on the night.

(Not very scientific, but you never know if you have to throw stuff away!)

Must say now that my Frac is running at F4.5, ISO 800 is working really well for me.

On my Mak at F7.5, ISO800 just does not cut it for me, so I often use ISO1600.

In terms of the inbetween ones, I read some where that the actual ISO step up happens on the multiple. (i.e 1250) 

Thus 1600 is 1250 + a analogue stretch up to 1600. So it is better to use the multiple for long exposure to reduce noise.

Must say I have not really noticed any marked improvement since using this.

I think my camera's natural ISO limit is at 1600 as 3200 introduces artificial noise / banding on long exposures.

Apparently the 6D has a natural limit at 3200, but the 600/650/60 the sensor max's at 1600.

Interestingly, from what I know the 350/1000/ etc series all max out at 800.

The information that I can find on this on the internet is sketchy at best, so trial and error is best to find the sweet spot.