Let's see your 1st DSOs

[Rodd]

10 minutes ago, chemistorge said:

and a screenshot (I lost the original processed file and haven’t reprocessed the data yet) of my effort last February.

I'd say you have made it to the promised land!  Interesting palette.

[chemistorge]

@Rodd I did the processing in Startools trial version as a test and got that result, but I couldn't save so screenshot instead.

[jeffmar]

I took this with my first camera and a 200mm lens propped on the roof of my car. I had about 5 subframes and could barely tell that they showed a galaxy. This is the stacked version after 

doing quite a bit of post processing. 

[Mike73]

This was from the 28th July, I went from borrowing a mates 200mm lens for a couple nights to getting a dedicated mono astro camera in a pretty short space of time. 

When I was a visual observer I just couldn't see the attraction to imaging but oh how was I wrong!

[Maho]

Heres my first ever picture after processing in GIMP. I could only take 29x30sec subs from my Bortle 8 location. I also took flats, bias and darks too. Taken on a CEM25P

For some reason, top left of the frame is a lot darker than the right. The stacked image had no differences in lighting and only happened as I tried processing it in GIMP.

[The Lazy Astronomer]

On 07/09/2021 at 22:17, Maho said:

Heres my first ever picture after processing in GIMP. I could only take 29x30sec subs from my Bortle 8 location. I also took flats, bias and darks too. Taken on a CEM25P

For some reason, top left of the frame is a lot darker than the right. The stacked image had no differences in lighting and only happened as I tried processing it in GIMP.

Very nice for such a short integration time. Really like the teal colouring you've got there. 

The lighter part of the frame is a gradient caused by light pollution and/or moonlight. These gradients generally only become visible upon stretching the image.

All the main astro processing softwares have tools to remove gradients, and there are plugins for photoshop as well. Not aware of anything for GIMP though, unfortunately.

[Rob20236]

as many others my first was m42. taken only last year and still very much learning

Autosave-Edit.tif

Edited October 7, 2021 by Rob20236

[tauceti]

This is the best I've been able to squeeze out of my 127SLT in Bortle 7/8 skies. Single image about 15 seconds, no post processing. Canon SL1 - T-ring and remote shutter. 12/29/2020.

 

Hoping to upgrade to a larger aperture scope with smoother goto tracking, maybe this year (Meade 10" LX200 is my dream). Stars appear tack sharp but when downloaded there is always slight movement. 

 

Still happy with what I've gotten all things considered and how darn cold it was outside (0C or 31F). 

Edited October 29, 2021 by tauceti

[Paul M]

3 hours ago, tauceti said:

This is the best I've been able to squeeze out of my 127SLT in Bortle 7/8 skies

That's great for a single shot. Take a bunch of those, stack and stretch them and you'll be blown away by what you've captured. Don't got bogged down too much with processing software. Use something that will do it all for you like ASTAP. 

The scope is very capable, the SLT mount is what will hold you back with imaging. I use mine on my NEQ6 mount. 

[tauceti]

3 hours ago, Paul M said:

That's great for a single shot. Take a bunch of those, stack and stretch them and you'll be blown away by what you've captured. Don't got bogged down too much with processing software. Use something that will do it all for you like ASTAP. 

The scope is very capable, the SLT mount is what will hold you back with imaging. I use mine on my NEQ6 mount. 

It really is, isn't it. 

I see some shots of the moons/planets and think my little 127 can do that!

 

Here is another DSO, I took this summer, again a single shot, but this was in Bortle 2 skies while on vacation. 

[IDM]

Hi,

I noticed semi-clear skies last night during the brief respite between storm Arwen (We were lucky just lost a tree our neighbor's lost power for 9 days!) and tonight when we get storm Barra. I quickly put the mount up and setup my SW Equinox with an until last night unused Zwo ASI294MC Pro. I am yet to try the cooling, I simply setup to see if I could get things in focus and try and get some image. The photo I took is obviously Andromeda and consists of 16 x 60 second images stacked in DSS. I also did some rather random processing in Gimp (must read more about this). I did add 5 x 60 second dark's but no other calibration shots. It's nowhere near as good as some of the other first images I have seen, but I was still blown away at what photos can be taken from what appears to the naked eye as just a rather murky area of the sky. So much to learn

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Not sure I have posted this before, but here goes my first M42

This is a scan of a slide. A single 15 min exposure, manually guided.

Camera: Contax RTS II
Lens: 8" F/10 SCT,
Method: prime focus with focal reducer to f/6.3, Celestron LPR filter used to reduce light polution
Exposure: 15 min on 1600 ASA Fujichrome Sensia film
 

Focus was slightly off, alas.

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

13 minutes ago, IDM said:

Hi,

I noticed semi-clear skies last night during the brief respite between storm Arwen (We were lucky just lost a tree our neighbor's lost power for 9 days!) and tonight when we get storm Barra. I quickly put the mount up and setup my SW Equinox with an until last night unused Zwo ASI294MC Pro. I am yet to try the cooling, I simply setup to see if I could get things in focus and try and get some image. The photo I took is obviously Andromeda and consists of 16 x 60 second images stacked in DSS. I also did some rather random processing in Gimp (must read more about this). I did add 5 x 60 second dark's but no other calibration shots. It's nowhere near as good as some of the other first images I have seen, but I was still blown away at what photos can be taken from what appears to the naked eye as just a rather murky area of the sky. So much to learn

Very nice first image. Andromeda and Orion seem to be very popular first targets, and rightly so, certainly were mine.

You are so right to take every opportunity to get your imaging rig out and do something.  
Many nights in my early days I got no useful data at all but if I learned something or got something working then that was still a good nights work, I think when I started guiding it took several nights tuning things in in PHD2 but paid dividends later and when the clear skies came that lasted all night I could then gather lots of data without messing about for hours first fumbling about trying to remember what to do.

I think any image of another Galaxy (probably mores o for are own milky way), or a DSO is a great achievement gathering all those photons that were emitted so long ago from a piece of sky that by eye seems to contain very little.

Your little 16 minutes of data is really a great first image and hints of some great images to follow 🙂 

Steve 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

14 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Not sure I have posted this before, but here goes my first M42

This is a scan of a slide. A single 15 min exposure, manually guided.

Camera: Contax RTS II
Lens: 8" F/10 SCT,
Method: prime focus with focal reducer to f/6.3, Celestron LPR filter used to reduce light polution
Exposure: 15 min on 1600 ASA Fujichrome Sensia film
 

Focus was slightly off, alas.

Wow, an amazing first image for the time (excuse my presumption but assume this was taken some years ago as it is pre DSLR's) , you must have been well pleased with it 🙂 

Having only been in the hobby around 4 years I often thought how grateful I am for digital cameras and think maybe if we still had to do this on film it may well be beyond my capabilities, or at least beyond my patience, I really have total respect for anyone in this hobby pre digital era.

Steve

[Stuart1971]

This was my first, Dumbell Nebula taken with an unmodded canon 1000D DSLR about ten years ago, through an 8” Mede SCT, stacked in DSS cropped and finished in PS, 30 x 3 min subs with darks…

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Stuart1971

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

2 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Wow, an amazing first image for the time (excuse my presumption but assume this was taken some years ago as it is pre DSLR's) , you must have been well pleased with it 🙂 

Having only been in the hobby around 4 years I often thought how grateful I am for digital cameras and think maybe if we still had to do this on film it may well be beyond my capabilities, or at least beyond my patience, I really have total respect for anyone in this hobby pre digital era.

Steve

It must have been early 1996, or perhaps late 1995

More recent results using a modded DSLR and much smaller scope are definitely much better

but then of course, several hours of data beat 15 minutes any time (just like the QE of a DSLR beats that of even the most sensitive film by a huge factor)

[Grzegorz Czernecki]

7.03.2010 canon eos400d BKP200/1000 SWeq5 unguided, 15x30s iso1600

[FinleyChambers]

My first ever dso shot, haha.

 

canon 1200D

canon 18-55mm lens @55mm 

f5.6

 

[nephilim]

57 minutes ago, FinleyChambers said:

My first ever dso shot, haha.

 

canon 1200D

canon 18-55mm lens @55mm 

f5.6

 

Thats a good start for your first image. Your slightly out of focus & your tracking is slightly out (Probably need a more precise PA )

Id be happy with that though 🙂

 

Edited January 8, 2022 by nephilim

[FinleyChambers]

2 minutes ago, nephilim said:

 

I know it’s out haha, this was a year ago now, oh how time flies, I’ve moved up now, 200PDS and will be getting a HEQ5 Pro

[nephilim]

Just now, FinleyChambers said:

I know it’s out haha, this was a year ago now, oh how time flies, I’ve moved up now, 200PDS and will be getting a HEQ5 Pro

That's a great mount mate. Good luck.

[FinleyChambers]

39 minutes ago, nephilim said:

That's a great mount mate. Good luck.

Thanks matey 

[Iced Tiger]

This is my first attempt at DSO imaging with my new set up. It has taken ages to get it all working so I have something to look at. I am still on the very steep learning curve of image capture and processing, used Snapseed after stacking with the ASI software.

[RayWUK]

My first and so far only DSO image since buying a telescope for Christmas, gosh its been cloudy, FLO weren't kidding 'may contain clouds'

Its only a screen shot as i haven't got a license as yet for APP/StarTools so can't save. I haven't much of a clue what i'm doing just following a load of youtube 'guides' so i'm quite pleased with the result so far.

52x120sec subs, WO RedCat51, canon 600D, Star Adventurer tracker.

Edited February 6, 2022 by RayWUK

[Alex_]

Here we go, first proper output of the Orion Nebula after several failed attempts. This is very cropped due to it being taken by Canon 60D (non modified) on the back of my Nexstar 8SE Alt/Az. 155 x 6s subs @ 800 iso.

Edited in Affinity which I clearly have much to learn about!