First attempt at deep sky imaging

[matteboy]

Well chuffed with my first attempt at imaging a couple of my favourite objects to look at.

Taken at Kelling Star Party with an unmodded Canon 450D.

I must say thank you to John for the loan of the T adapter and remote shutter timer and especially for the help in setting the camera up correctly.

I went for M57 first, as my goal was to get just a bit of colour in the doughnut, all expectations were surpassed when the image appeared on the camera screen, complete with the central star.

I moved over to M31, M81 & M82, went to the Witch's Broom, proper faint but it's there! Finishing up with M27. 

No processing or autoguiding, just taken straight off the camera card.

Hope you like them........

[WaveSoarer]

Those would make excellent subs to put into deep sky stacker and the like. I think that's the next step really. An excellent start and you must be very happy with the results.

[codeman]

Hi,

Very good start!!!!

Agree, your next step should be stacking with DSS. you will be amaze with the results.

you can find many tutorial on the subject in Youtube, for Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfUBkPfVxpE

Also try to fix the subject position, put it in the middle before taking many exposures.

Good luck and again very good start!

Haim

[Twisted Lip]

Your first pics are a lot better than my first! Good effort and DSS is definitely the next step.

Top job!

Will

[Barry-Wilson]

Excellent start Matt.

Beware . . . AP does become addictive   .

Barry

[Pete Presland]

very nice start for your DSO imaging, stacking is definitely the next step.

[zedds]

Great start. If these are single subs, I can't wait to see the results after you've stacked and processed the rest.

[Vox45]

Good work for a first try ! keep at it

[matteboy]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

The ones above were all single exposures between 90 secs and 3 minutes, I was so surprised that they showed the colours in a relatively short exposure,

Definitely want to try stacking some so the next night after I got 26 x one minute exposures of the dumbbell, particularly as there was a hint of red in the first attempt, the clouds came in for the night though hence only the 26!

Upon checking the pictures some that were fine but there were a lot with little trails so think it was a little too breezy. I thought I'd try the best of the bunch, however, loading them into Registax killed the computer each time, the PC's so old now it can't send an email without crashing. I'll see if DSS has the effect.

Now off to watch the tutorial! No way this lark is possible without forums and YouTube!

Thanks again for the tips and nice comments!

Matt

[StuartJPP]

Great set of 1st images!