Let's see your 1st DSOs

[Phil Stancer]

This is my first DSO.  Single image M51 taken 20/7/20.  Evostar 120 and a Canon 600d.  I managed to get about 10 images but it was still early and with a streetlight less than 10m away there was loads of light polution.  Unfortunately I have been clouded in for over 2 months now so not able to do anything at all and now M51 is behind my house so this target will have to wait.  I most definitely have 'all the gear and no idea' now as managed to pickup an Evostar ED80, Evoguide 50, Altair 183c and IMX224 to go with my HEQ5 that the wife bought me for my birthday.  Just waiting for the clouds to clear (if ever) and I'll be plaguing you guys with questions as I try to work out how to use it, lol 

[jorgenp]

My first DSO, M31 photographed last night when if finally was clear skies for a long time. Captured with a Canon 7D and a Samyang 135mm F2. Using a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Pro. 40x  1 minute exposures with ISO 1000 at F/2.8, stacked in DSS and then processed in Photoshop and StarNet++.

 

[Martthebass]

The ubiquitous M13, first go at imaging. Using WO GT71 with ZWO ASI 385MC with assistance from ASIAIR pro. 30 x 60 second subs and no darks. No post processing.

[raf2020]

Hello folks,

Below is my very first attempt on DSO. M31 - material taken on 30-11-2020:

 

Here is my 2nd attempt, 05-12-2020:

 

Here I have raised an thread where I have asked for tips and advises as I am not rly happy with result. Many thanks for any input there.

Cheers,

Raf

[Kiwi_Brad]

Evening everybody. Just finished up as best I can processing these two which are my first images with actual time on target. 
 

Any tips to get better much appreciated. I’m pushing my mount pretty hard. I modified my Nikon D5600 the Carina Nebula is Ha only. I have a Explore Scientific iExos-100 PMC-eight. Very happy with it just working it pretty loaded with a Skywatcher PDS 130 and the Dslr. Cheap 50mm guide scope and ZWO asi120mm guide camera. 
 

Plenty of light pollution on the Orion Nebula from my back yard with no filter and possibly my focus is a touch off or that could just be the tracking errors cause the slight blur? 
 

cheers

[Erling G-P]

6 hours ago, Kiwi_Brad said:

Evening everybody. Just finished up as best I can processing these two which are my first images with actual time on target. 
 

Any tips to get better much appreciated. I’m pushing my mount pretty hard. I modified my Nikon D5600 the Carina Nebula is Ha only. I have a Explore Scientific iExos-100 PMC-eight. Very happy with it just working it pretty loaded with a Skywatcher PDS 130 and the Dslr. Cheap 50mm guide scope and ZWO asi120mm guide camera. 
 

Plenty of light pollution on the Orion Nebula from my back yard with no filter and possibly my focus is a touch off or that could just be the tracking errors cause the slight blur? 
 

cheers

Those are truly impressive, if they're your first real images - especially the Carina Nebula looks like something from a seasoned imager!

Won't haphazard a guess at the Orion blur, as there's probably several possible explanations.

[Kiwi_Brad]

1 hour ago, Erling G-P said:

Those are truly impressive, if they're your first real images - especially the Carina Nebula looks like something from a seasoned imager!

Won't haphazard a guess at the Orion blur, as there's probably several possible explanations.

Yeah they are. I have had a go at Carina before but without a filter and it wasn’t a great result. I used the Optolong Duo band Ha and SII I think it is. It’s also perfectly positioned for me.  
 

I have taken a decent photo of the lagoon and trifid before but only a few frames. These have got about an hour on each. How the hell people get ten hours on one image I have no idea! 

If any one wants to have a go at processing the Carina data let me know because I truly have no idea what I’m doing in that department  

Thanks  for your feedback. 

[Erling G-P]

1 hour ago, Kiwi_Brad said:

Yeah they are. I have had a go at Carina before but without a filter and it wasn’t a great result. I used the Optolong Duo band Ha and SII I think it is. It’s also perfectly positioned for me.  
 

I have taken a decent photo of the lagoon and trifid before but only a few frames. These have got about an hour on each. How the hell people get ten hours on one image I have no idea! 

If any one wants to have a go at processing the Carina data let me know because I truly have no idea what I’m doing in that department  

Thanks  for your feedback. 

Even more impressed upon learning that you could get these with only 1 hour on data on each!   Really wish the Carina Nebula was visible from my location - based on your user name, I expect you're in New Zealand?

I've done both a 10-hours image and a 16-hours one on the Cave Nebula. 10 hours was 2 evenings/nights combined, while the 16-hours one was 3 evenings/nights combined, including 3 manually performed Meridian flips - that was a lot of work and dedication put into one image, not least considering the scarcity of clear nights here.

[Kiwi_Brad]

9 hours ago, Erling G-P said:

Even more impressed upon learning that you could get these with only 1 hour on data on each!   Really wish the Carina Nebula was visible from my location - based on your user name, I expect you're in New Zealand?

I've done both a 10-hours image and a 16-hours one on the Cave Nebula. 10 hours was 2 evenings/nights combined, while the 16-hours one was 3 evenings/nights combined, including 3 manually performed Meridian flips - that was a lot of work and dedication put into one image, not least considering the scarcity of clear nights here.

Yes it’s not a lot of time compared to those sorts of hours I just don’t know that they would get much better with more of the same data? I guess that’s the point. 
 

I think my biggest issue is sorting focus and possibly getting a bigger mount for better tracking.

Some great viewing and easy to get to dark skies here but not so many galaxy’s this time of year.  
 

Thanks for your comments. 

[Erling G-P]

4 hours ago, Kiwi_Brad said:

Yes it’s not a lot of time compared to those sorts of hours I just don’t know that they would get much better with more of the same data? I guess that’s the point. 
 

I think my biggest issue is sorting focus and possibly getting a bigger mount for better tracking.

Some great viewing and easy to get to dark skies here but not so many galaxy’s this time of year.  
 

Thanks for your comments. 

If you haven't got one already, I would recommend a Bahtinov mask for focusing. They're cheaply available in many different sizes, or you can make your own.  Makes it very easy to achieve perfect focus and is for me an indispensable tool.

Most targets benefit from as much exposure time as possible, but with the brighter ones, like Orion Nebula and apparently also Carina, you can get something useful without a lot.  The Cave Nebula area I mentioned is very faint, so with that you really need a lot of hours to get a decent image - the 16 & 10 hours I poured into it, was with F5 Newtons, of 130mm & 200mm aperture respectively (130PDS & 200PDS), so even with a fair amount of light gathering ability, a lot of integration time was required.

[raf2020]

My first attempts on TGON and Pleiades. Actually I am rly happy after struggles with Andromeda. 

 

 

[raf2020]

My first attempt on Horsehead Nebula (isn't any good one but I am still happy I was able to capture it - next one will be better )

 

And this is actually my 3rd or 4th attempt on Andromeda. First one that I am pretty happy with. Andromeda isn't an easy object on highly light polluted sky.

[raf2020]

My 1st attempt on Rosette.

[AstroVagabond]

Canon 6D unmodded w/Astronomik CLS Canon EOS XL Full Frame Clip Filter. 124 x 30 seconds light (flats, dark flats, darks, bias) HEQ5 unguided,  William Optics Zenithstar 61 w/Z61 adjustable field flattener .

Not fully processed using Astro Pixel Processor

https://www.flickr.com/photos/billpoplawski/50860415181/in/dateposted-public/

As a newbie not sure how to add the image directly to my post. Sorry for the link!

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by AstroVagabond

[Coriorda]

My first attempt, well at anything really- after countless hours researching on YouTube it was time to give it a go. Orion was handily placed right outside .. 

[Jamgood]

This was my first attempt at imaging when I got my scope. It was something like 2hrs of 30s images. Darks and Bias.  (I didn't know how to do Flats then) 130PDS on a EQ3Pro, Unguided. Canon EOS200D.

I was just amazed I could capture anything! Blew me away.

[Ags]

@Jamgood superb!

[Stub Mandrel]

On 23/01/2021 at 00:50, Jamgood said:

I was just amazed I could capture anything! Blew me away.

I bet that did 🙂

[The Lazy Astronomer]

I'll add to the likely hundreds of M42 images in here. Not my very first image, but my first proper attempt. 1 hour each of RGB, and approx. 2.5 hours of L (all 60s subs), plus a set of shorter exposures for the core, so first HDR image too. 

 

Edited January 26, 2021 by The Lazy Astronomer

[LandyJon]

I've recently posted it in the welcome thread, but I'll post my 1st DSO here for posterity.

Just 5x 3min subs with 3x darks kindly processed by a more experienced friend since I'm just getting started on this next learning curve 🙄

 

[scotty38]

My first and apologies I created a separate thread before spotting this one..

I totally guessed at exposure and I am still learning the hardware and all the software as I've only had it a couple of weeks.

20 x 5 minute light

20 x 5 minute dark

10 x bias

 

[Snoani]

I cam across this while backing up my images today.  It is the earliest DSO attempt that I can find.

It was taken in January 2014 using a stock Nikon 7100 mounted on a Meade ETX 80 Go-To scope. The image is made up of 30 x 1.3 second subs, which I have very quickly reprossessed with editing techniques that I have picked up over the last year.  

All in all, it has turned out far better than I remember, especially considering there is only 39 seconds of data.  I have just restacked it to double check the autosave from DSS did relate to the raw data.  

 

[Robny]

This is my first EVER deep sky image from 2017, taken I believe with a Sony A7r, to look at my most recent it is quite a difference.  The improvements seem to sneak up on you without fully noticing until you look back.

Rob

[Will_does_astro]

My first ever DSO taken this evening, no plans to take any subs at all, just to check backfocus and make sure everything was ok for when my Star Adventurer arrives, so got everything set up, focussed and thought job done, then saw Orion as I started packing away and thought, why not, nothing to lose, 188 subs of varying length and gain, 87 of those somewhere close to usable so stacked them and a little processing and here is the result.

Subs - 87 subs of varying exposures and gain, no filters.
Telescope - Meade ETX 80 OTA taken off a broken Alt/Az mount
Mount - Standard tripod (Giottos silk road carbon with pan/tilt head)
Camera - ZWO ASI462MC

Just a bit chuffed 🙂

[Laurieast]

First DSO on a proper mount, through a brief hole in the clouds, 30x60sec at ISO 400, Skywatcher Startravel 80, Canon EOS 500D, AVX mount. HUGE amount of coma top left.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Laurieast