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Help!

Froggz

By Froggz
in Getting Started With Imaging

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Froggz

Froggz

Posted
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Hi I have just started to try and take pictures of Andromeda galaxy with a canon 1000D on Skywatcher 200p. I have two (silly?) questions:

1 - how do I ensure that my focus is dead on? It is really hard to see what's going on looking through my camera.

2 - why would Deepskystacker tell me that my pics are not compatible when there were taken seconds or minutes apart? It would not even register my dark and flat frames...

Thank you for helping!

Ben

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VigdisVZ

VigdisVZ

Posted
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Yeah, like Ronin says, if it's a dobson you wont be able to get M31. Technically a dobson can be used for planetary work, but not deep sky.

To achieve focus with a DSLR, i use Live View and try to point the scope at a star bright enough to focus on using zoomed live view. Most objects has one or two stars that appear in live view luckily.

DSS needs round, sharp stars to stack reliably. I've had it yell at me even when my subs looked "ok".

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Froggz

Froggz

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Thank you very much for your useful replies. The 200p is mounted on EQ5 with the motors but I have to admit that I find it difficult to adjust. Not sure what speed to use either, 2x , 4x or 8x ?

I took the pics on Raw/L setting... I may have to use RAW only?

Thanks so much !

Ben

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VigdisVZ

VigdisVZ

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No, Raw/L is fine! The motors should ofcourse go at 1x speed so they track the sky. It's easy to verify, if you leave the telescope at one star for a few minutes it shouldn't have moved out of view.

I think its just a matter of achieving focus with live view. Polar alignment, synscan setup and balance will ofcourse affect everything, but assuming that it's correctly setup it shold be a matter of finding focus.

Can you share an example of one of your pictures so maybe we can see whats the issue?

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Froggz

Froggz

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Hi,

Yes it tracks object while observing. I installed the 2 motors on the EQ5 .. No option for 1x speed though.

As for the stacking : yes I realise now that there were some jpegs! Thank you guys.

I guess I will have to be very patient with astrophotography as I am definitely not a natural :-) .

Your help is very much appreciated.

Ps. I meant Carl.. Not Karl

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Astrosurf

Astrosurf

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You'll get there! I'm not a natural and struggle constantly. But, regardless of the profanities and pulled hair, I'm now getting images I'm quite happy with. The reason I've progressed is due to this magnificent forum, but also my wonderful astro group, CNAAG. Do you have an astro group near you? You'll get a lot of help.

Alexxx

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uhb1966

uhb1966

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Hi,

Yes it tracks object while observing. I installed the 2 motors on the EQ5 .. No option for 1x speed though.

As for the stacking : yes I realise now that there were some jpegs! Thank you guys.

I guess I will have to be very patient with astrophotography as I am definitely not a natural :-) .

Your help is very much appreciated.

Ps. I meant Carl.. Not Karl

May i suggest posting a pic of the controls? The hive mind of SGL will find out :-) !
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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Froggz, I've just fitted a motor to my EQ3-2 and it doesn't have 1x marked on it. My understanding is that once you switch it on it automatically tracks at 1x until you press one of the slewing buttons.

I could be wrong, I'm a complete novice too....and nothing but flipping clouds since I got it....

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Actually, I just searched for some instruction as I just remembered an odd instruction in my box that didn't seem to do anything, but try pressing all four buttons at once and see if that works.....some instructions I found for the dual axis motors say - "

"When control box is turned on and all buttons are depressed, the R.A. motor will rotate at the proper speed to compensate for the earth's rotation."

Give it a whirl

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Froggz

Froggz

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Thanks so much Marky1973 this is really helpful! I hadn't seen it!

Happy-Kat that's great, I hadn't appreciated that there was another DSS version . I tried stacking raw files tonight and after registering it kept saying that only one picture will be stacked. More than 300 stars were detected..

Thank you again guys !

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Froggz

Froggz

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Thank you! I realise that after a while, say one hour, the object has moved from the centre to the right of the pictures, and slightly upwards. I thought it was the incorrect speed of the motors but it now seems that it

was the polar alignment, is that correct?

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