Let's see your 1st DSOs

[Haggis]

My very first DSO photo ever. Taken a few days ago with a Canon 1000D at ISO1600. I had to hurry because of approaching overcast. Way out of focus, very rough polaralignment (I could see polaris in the polarscope but it was nowhere near the reticule), guiding equipment not connected. I hope I'll do better in the future but actually, I'm very happy with this shot already! The past few days I must have viewed it a 100 times!

Can't wait till the sky finally gets clear and my mount gets a permanent position. I want to start taking pictures again.

[russ.will]

To be honest, I wasn't even going to take pictures on the night this was taken and had only done a cursory two star alignment. It was the first time I'd seen M42, other than through binos, as I've only had my scope since June. Upon seeing it, I thought what the hell and bunged the wife's Olympus EP-1 (My Canon T mount hadn't arrived) on the scope, prime focus. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed she'd been doing Ebay pics and the resolution was set to 1280x960 (Grrr!), but all the same, I was quite pleased. Single shot, 60secs at ISO 400 and cleaned up a little in GIMP.

[lunar-chaser-1973]

My first efforts. Taken while I was waiting for the axis motor to arrive for my Explorer 200P. Used my Nikon D40 attached to my EQ5.

1st Image - Point and Shoot, 29/11/2011

Camera pointed straight up.

32.96 deg E of N.

18 x 20s exposures.

Results from the blind astrometry solver:

The star Mirfak (αPer)

The star Mirach (βAnd)

The star Algol (βPer)

The star Schedar (αCas)

The star Almach (γ1And)

The star γCas

The star Ruchbah (δCas)

The star εPer

The star γPer

The star βTri

NGC 224 / Great Nebula in Andromeda / M 31

NGC 598 / M 33 / Triangulum galaxy

NGC 752

IC 1805

IC 1848

2nd Image - Orion 01/12/2011

Pointed south as Orion ascended into view.

171.19 deg E of N.

40 x 20s exposures

Results from the blind astrometry solver:

The star Rigel (βOri)

The star Betelgeuse (αOri)

The star Aldebaran (αTau)

The star Bellatrix (γOri)

The star Alnilam (εOri)

The star Mirzam (βCMa)

The star Alnitak (ζOri)

The star Saiph (κOri)

The star Mintaka (δOri)

The star Arneb (αLep)

NGC 1647

IC 2118 / Witch Head nebula

NGC 1976 / Great Nebula in Orion / M 42

NGC 1990

IC 434 / Horsehead nebula

NGC 2174

IC 443

[Dark Infinity]

My first was actually completely by accident I bought a camera and was doing wide field shots because I love the night sky and live in an area fairly clear of light pollution, and saw something odd pop up in a few images. A little fuzzy spot. Some posting and a few questions later I find out, that's M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy.

So I got a little closer and played around with the DSS (once someone was kind enough to point it out to me.) And I got a little better image of it.

And this was all with my Nikon D3100 out of the box, so the first one is 18mm and the close up is 55mm stacked and zoomed in.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Dark Infinity

[iturner2]

This is my first go at a DSO - m42 The photo was taken with a Canon 450D, a pentax 300mm lens (m42 fitting) and 3x teleconverter. The camera was mounted on my old tasco tripod and a celestron motor.

I couldn't stack as the motor is a bit flaky and keeps changing speed so getting tracking is a bit of pain and a 1 minute exposure was the longest possible.

[SamAndrew]

My first was actually completely by accident I bought a camera and was doing wide field shots because I love the night sky and live in an area fairly clear of light pollution, and saw something odd pop up in a few images. A little fuzzy spot. Some posting and a few questions later I find out, that's M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy.

So I got a little closer and played around with the DSS (once someone was kind enough to point it out to me.) And I got a little better image of it.

And this was all with my Nikon D3100 out of the box, so the first one is 18mm and the close up is 55mm stacked and zoomed in.

Thumbs up for the nikon d3100 as well. I got one as my first SLR and pointed it up at the night sky out of interest, and the results are what got me into astrophotography. My sky is much more light polluted than your nice dark one, so I didn't capture any DSOs

[Walky]

I wish I could see the pics!

[Astroegg]

Advised to post this here, my first DSO shows a nice view of the Trapezium in Orion and was snapped with a Nikon D40 attached to the Baader Hyperion Zoom eyepiece on my Celestron CPC1100.

Had some problems with ice forming on the optics, and I could not see sufficiently through the tiny (iced up) viewfinder of the D40 to focus, despite having a Bahtinov mask for the purpose.

Unguided, no filters or effects applied. Single 30 second exposure, ISO 1600, image horizontally flipped.

Could really get into this!

[robin-m]

As a first attempt at guiding / imaging I decided on something easy i.e. M31. Conditions weren't good and all but one of my 10 minute subs was ruined by either mist or wind rocking the mount slightly. So this is 1 10 minute sub With 5 10 minute darks stacked in DSS. I'm just beginning to learn PI and at the moment the only processing done was ABE and STF applied to the histogram. I'll be working through Harry's tutorials to see if I can improve particularly the background noise.

Overall not a great image but as a first attempt I'm reasonably pleased with it.

[Walky]

My first DSO is actually my best so far by a long way. Taken of the Orion Nebula about a year ago.

Telescope - Stellarvue SV105

Camera - Self modded Canon 350D

Exposure - ~85 minutes total (12 x 5 min, 12 x 2 min and 10 x 10 sec)

Mount - Skywatcher EQ6 (with EQMOD)

Guider - Orion starshoot (with PHD)

Guide scope - Stellarvue SV80ED

Very nice!

[Walky]

Here's mine. Im still fairly new to this. Taken this September.

The focusing leaves a bit to be desired but it looks OK after a few beers!!

I'm still astonished at how much more the camera picks up compared to the eye.

This was a set of 6 3 min subs and similar dark frames.

HEQ5 pro mount

Canon 300d unmodified with a very cheap M42 Telephoto 500mm bought for £15 from a local camera shop.

The camera is mounted to the mount by means of a bit of MDF with an old dovetail fixed underneath. Very DIY.

I would Iike to see how one can mount a camera on a good sturdy mount with auto tracking. EQ5, EQ6, etc or wwhich could be best for that. Scope for the future, not now.

[digitaltre515]

Well, here's another M42. I went with this because I haven't yet received my autoguider, it's nice and bright, and relatively easy for a first-timer. I realized that I probably didn't set the camera for enough light after I had already packed up and came inside, but all-in-all, I think it's okay for my first DSO.

Taken with a Celestron C8-SGT XLT using a modified Canon EOS 1000D controlled with BackyardEOS. 20x30 second subs @ 800 ISO /w 10 darks. Stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop CS 5 with Annie's Astro Actions.

Edited January 29, 2012 by digitaltre515

[Gina]

That's more than OK - it's brilliant!! Well done

[digitaltre515]

Thanks! Even though I'm critical of myself every time I start learning something new I turned out happy with this shot.

---

I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.288111,-81.207278

[Penguin]

I thought deep-sky was beyond my reach as my TAL-1's gearbox has never worked. But last night I thought I would have a go. Did a rough visual polar alignment, put a borrowed Canon 350D on the counterweight bar, pointed at M42 and attempted to keep the center in the low-power eyepiece crosshairs through 6 30 second exposures. Then I did a single identical exposure with the lens cap on for a dark frame.

I put the results through Deep Sky Stacker using all the defaults (I took high-quality jpegs instead of raw), then adjusted the levels in Paint.net and ended up with this:

[edit]AARRGGHH!! I've tried to embed the picture directly using the lik given to me by the share option on my Dropbox folder, I've uploaded it to Flickr and pasted flickr's Share link here, all it does is show me a 'broken page' icon! How do other people embed their images in their posts? The tiff file is below, and here's the link to the Flickr page: http://flic.kr/p/bntQiv[/edit]

I am really pleased with it but I know I probably did lots wrong and could do much better. Any advice on improving the technique?

• Would using Raw format give much benefit?
  
• How to polar align with no polar alignment scope?
  
• Would a higher-power eyepiece help with my manual tracking?
  
• Do multiple dark frames help?
  
• Is it worth making some flat frames? Do I have to do flats every time or can I make one set and re-use them?
  
• I don't have a remote shutter release so a 30-second exposure is my maximum. Would a longer exposure help and is there any advice on how to do it?
  
• I used the autofocus on the moon and then switched to manual focus and re-aligned on M42. Is there a better way? What do I do when there is no moon?
  

Sorry for asking lots of newbie questions that have probably been asked loads of times before but I'am so pleased I have something to show the wife and kids! I want to find Andromeda next and have a go at that.

--- Alistair.

orion nebula adjusted.tif

Edited February 2, 2012 by Penguin

[ollypenrice]

What amazes me about these images is that they look like astrophotos. Mine... well ... didn't! And with that confession I'm outta here to destroy the evidence!

Olly

[digitaltre515]

That one looks nice! Mine is definitely overprocessed, I think. Right now I'm in for two weeks of clouds plus a business trip across the country so I'm not getting any more practice. I wish I could get the running man in with a single shot, but my C8's focal length is just to long, even with a f/6.3 reducer. Guess to get it I'll have to learn mosaics!

[Zul]

wow very nice orion!

[Gina]

This is my first real attempt at DSO and managed to capture the Orion Nebula using my ED80 scope with 1100D DSLR attached directly to the focuser using the DSLR adapter supplied with scope and EOS adapter ring. Taken using APT for the first time.

This is a single shot processed in the GIMP to bring out the details so I'm expecting better results later when I get to stacking multiple images.

[peonic]

Just trying to get back into the swing of things after a 4 year break - so it felt like my first DSO!

M38 and a smudge of NGC 1907.

Taken on a Canon 300d through a Celestron Nexstar 102SLT, riding on a Vixen GP. 20x20secs with a few darks thrown in for good measure.

[paulk]

Here's mine, a bit of fun really.

[Fenriz]

Here is my first DSO, taken back in April last year just a month after I got my first scope. This was just a single 20sec exposure at ISO400. Also I only had an EQ5 then so this was the first object that I actually found.

[TommyD]

Not my first... but only been taking astrophoto's for just over a week and tried my first stacking tonight so thought i'd share.

taken with Canon 1100d with Tamron AF70-300mm (not the best i know, but will have to do till i can afford a better superzoom lol), and cable release. used deep sky startracker to stack.

first images of Pleiades wouldn't go through the stacker so took this of Polaris.

18 x 20 secs at f6.3/iso800 + master dark at same specs

took ages adjusting everything after stacked and still not as good as i'd have liked, but i guess i've got to start somewhere lol

Tom.

[ronnietucker]

Pleiades (NGC 1432) taken by holding my digital camera to the eyepiece

[mindburner]

cigar galaxy

Edited February 19, 2012 by mindburner