The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[The Admiral]

10 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Field rotation evident bottom right in the cropped image.

Do you think? They're quite short subs, and you're not pointing in the worst direction for FR.  Could it be a touch of coma?

Ian

Edited February 13, 2018 by The Admiral

[happy-kat]

I was pointing almost due South. I could be coma either way it isn't pretty.

[happy-kat]

Today's session... Red dot finder is not aligned enough for use with the 200mm but I did get my target in frame but... Way to close to the edge of the frame... However manually adjusting to place in middle of frame stopped the tracking being good enough to image.. Asking the handset to re find the target and tracking good to go again..This weekend I'll have to sort the RDF exact alignment out.

I'm also going to try the startools RGB split so I can sort the CA out when I process the images taken. Although a southerly target did manage 30 seconds. I used my bazooka flocked tube on the lens this time. I've got focus movement past infinity focus not a lot but it's there.

[happy-kat]

Had to do some magic in StarTools on the blue channel to seriously kill off the halos. Bin 50%. Used a new method here using Deconvolution on the blue channel then re merged with red and green.

18 minutes 54 lights a mix of 30 seconds 20 seconds 10 and 5, bias, flats and dark flats. I had taken the 5 second images to sort the core out I just haven't done that part of the process. Along the way I have lost some star colour I think but it was a new way of processing out chromatic aberation so I may need to review that to bring any lost colour back. The CA was showing even before stretching just on the bin. Final colour channel balance in PSP then levels then saved as png. Very strong gradients as well to remove I think the street light got in my flocked bazooka tube..

Virtuoso mount, 200mm lens Canon 1100d

Lesson for today make sure the red dot finder is aligned for your most powerful lens!

Just realised I have caught the running man and can make it out, much clearer on the pre uploaded image.

Edit: I did the 5 second stack but there is not enough overall resolution to make it worth layer blending the middle bit.

Edited February 17, 2018 by happy-kat

[RolandKol]

Hi all, It was my third attempt with the most popular target

SW GOTO 10"DOB Flextube, Canon 1300D, LP Filtter, from Woolwich, London (December 2017)

ISO800 /3200-204frames [10sec each] (darks+bias)

DeepSkyStacker + Photoshop.

Has anyone managed to get at least 30sec on GOTO Dob?  
I somehow managed to have more or less good 30sec subs on Andromeda, but was not able to repeat...
 

 

Edited February 16, 2018 by RolandKol

[happy-kat]

That's a super image. Andromeda might have been better placed sky wise for 30 seconds. Orion is quite south now.

[happy-kat]

@JOC see the image above for some inspiration for your dob :-)

[JOC]

That's a fine image isn't it.  It seems I've got all the kit I need.  Its just a case of the right settings and some clear nights needed!

[RolandKol]

9 hours ago, JOC said:

That's a fine image isn't it.  It seems I've got all the kit I need.  Its just a case of the right settings and some clear nights needed!

I think, It was a beginners luck...... nothing more.
It was very clear, neighbours had all lights Off and GOTO surprisingly stayed on the Orion for quite a long period of time without adjustments (for 2 or 3mins aprox).

I was so excited, even tried to do 30sec subs, - but the result kicked me down to 25s, later to 15s and back to 10sec at the end  

Next day, I tried to stay on 15 sec only... but had only every 6th sub close to acceptable result  stacking went ugly...

P.S. there is possibility I also used FITStackerV12 to get rid of the noise and match the colours, - I do not remember... but I would definitely use it now 

P.P.S. I used 2" adaptor and 2" LP Filter for Cannon, not the 1.25" one.

Edited February 17, 2018 by RolandKol

[matt_baker]

M42 Orion Nebula

Celestron 130SLT

Mirror moved 2 inches up the OTA (To achieve prime focus without barlow)

Very light polluted town (Literally a giant sodium light right outside my house)

13 lights, 10 darks @1600 ISO, 15 secs.    3 minutes exposure in total

Stacked in DSS and edited in PixInsight

Only was able to it for a short time because the clouds piled in and I wanted to test out after I extended the mirror

 

[happy-kat]

That's great too Matt, will you be trying to add to your data when the clouds go?

[matt_baker]

13 hours ago, happy-kat said:

That's great too Matt, will you be trying to add to your data when the clouds go?

Yes! But unfortunately my SD decided to corrupt the pictures and I wasn't able to retrieve them and had to format, so on that respect I can't. But I'll be sure to go somewhere where there isn't a giant light outside my house and try to get at least 20 minutes worth of data. Since I've done this mod, after having a go at orion, I'm planning to do pleiades and see if I can get the reflection nebula

[happy-kat]

It was clear, not working tomorrow (the odds of that are often very low!)  and very cold, Orion way too South really but quite low, RDF a little better aligned. Could I get the mount to track... not a jotty. Ho hum that's how it flies sometimes I guess.

[matt_baker]

 

Celestron 130SLT, Mirror moved 2 inches up the OTA, Nikon D3200

Took this just last night. It was clear enough for me to stay out there for a couple of hours.

This time I took 85 lights @ 15 seconds, 800 ISO, 15 dark's and 20 offset frames totalling for about 20 minutes exposure

Stacked them in deepskystacker and processed in startools, although unfortunately I couldn't save the file due to me not having the full licence.

I've just ordered an intervalometer so I don't have to press my quick release shutter every time.

Just one question: When the camera takes the 15 second exposure, it will take another 15 seconds for me to be able to press the shutter again. Is this due to the camera processing and is there anyway to cut that time down?

 

Thanks all,

Matt

 

[Nigel G]

6 hours ago, matt_baker said:

 

Celestron 130SLT, Mirror moved 2 inches up the OTA, Nikon D3200

Took this just last night. It was clear enough for me to stay out there for a couple of hours.

This time I took 85 lights @ 15 seconds, 800 ISO, 15 dark's and 20 offset frames totalling for about 20 minutes exposure

Stacked them in deepskystacker and processed in startools, although unfortunately I couldn't save the file due to me not having the full licence.

I've just ordered an intervalometer so I don't have to press my quick release shutter every time.

Just one question: When the camera takes the 15 second exposure, it will take another 15 seconds for me to be able to press the shutter again. Is this due to the camera processing and is there anyway to cut that time down?

 

Thanks all,

Matt

 

Very nice image, nice core.

I think the reason for your camera taking the same time to process the shot is because you have long exposure noise reduction switched on, you need to locate this on your camera and turn it off. There will be instructions on the web how to find and deactivate it

Nige.

[The Admiral]

You've done well with that Matt, and as Nige said, you've got the core well exposed. That's probably down to the short exposures. M42 may be bright, but it actually isn't the easiest of targets because of its large brightness range. There's a lot of dust around too, which needs longer exposures to reveal, so one often takes a range of exposures and blends them for the final image.

The long exposure noise reduction function on the camera takes a second identical exposure but with the shutter closed, and then subtracts this background frame from the first frame. As Nige says, switch this off. For astro images, you do your noise reduction by taking a set of darks, and programs like DSS will stack those separately and subtract the resultant from the stacked lights. I think it would be worth taking at least 50 darks as otherwise you're likely to introduce more noise into your image than it corrects.

Ian

[Filroden]

13 hours ago, matt_baker said:

Took this just last night. It was clear enough for me to stay out there for a couple of hours.

This time I took 85 lights @ 15 seconds, 800 ISO, 15 dark's and 20 offset frames totalling for about 20 minutes exposure

Stacked them in deepskystacker and processed in startools, although unfortunately I couldn't save the file due to me not having the full licence.

I've just ordered an intervalometer so I don't have to press my quick release shutter every time.

That's a nice image. The core is showing some nice detail and you've got the colours balanced well. I can see a few things that could easily be adjusted for future sessions. You don't mention taking flats. These can have the single biggest impact on the image and remove the vignetting. This allows any remaining gradients to be more easily processed out using software. Your stars also look to be elongated. I can't tell if they are radial, and something to do with the optics, if they are rotational and therefore field rotation, or whether they are caused by camera vibration. I know what I used DSLRs I would include a delay between the mirror flipping up and the exposure being taken to give time for any vibrations to settle. Ideally you will want to lock the mirror up.

Otherwise, the next thing is just to keep gathering more data. 20 minutes, even on a target as bright as M42, will still leave you with a lot of noise. Aim to gather about 2 hours of light subs. It's your choice of whether to stay with 15s or push for longer. The former reduces risks of star trails but increases processing time and storage requirements. 2 hours at 15 seconds means 480 subs to integrate!

[therion82]

Adding my first successful(?!?!?!) try with astrophotography. From super light polluted Athens/Greece, I present you M31.

I took this on September 2017

Only 6 lights @21 seconds, with 1600 iso. Meaning a total of 2 minutes.

Telescope : skywatcher 130 pds

mount: skywatcher synscan goto

camera: canon 1100d (un-modded)

DSS was used for stacking and cs6 for streching

 

[smisy]

Hi all, sorry for my basic english! I found this topic at last may, when I started to interesting about astronomy. I bought later a Celestron nexstar 8" with alt-az mount and in this year I started to take some pics about the beautifull objects on the sky. Of course at first with my mobile phone, I bought a little bit expensive phone adapter to fix that on the okular,but it works very well. I want to share my first pics now, to show that, its not impossible to make pics with mobile phone, about dso-s too. 

[happy-kat]

Welcome.

Those are great captures.

Have you seen this?

Link here

[smisy]

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Welcome.

Those are great captures.

Have you seen this?

Link here

Thanks the tipp! Very friendly! 

[rotatux]

On 3/27/2018 at 14:09, smisy said:

I bought later a Celestron nexstar 8" with alt-az mount and in this year I started to take some pics about the beautifull objects on the sky. Of course at first with my mobile phone

Hello smisy and welcome to the hobby

For a beginner IMO you actually happen to start with one the most difficult configurations: long focal, high focal ratio, ridiculously small sensor, and ocular projection which magnifies again the already long focal... and of couse Alt-Az mount. So getting any images is an achievement it itself, and yours are quite decent.

Good luck and skies !

PS: your M42 looks mirrored left-right to me :-P

Edited March 29, 2018 by rotatux
PS

[smisy]

2 hours ago, rotatux said:

Hello smisy and welcome to the hobby

For a beginner IMO you actually happen to start with one the most difficult configurations: long focal, high focal ratio, ridiculously small sensor, and ocular projection which magnifies again the already long focal... and of couse Alt-Az mount. So getting any images is an achievement it itself, and yours are quite decent.

Good luck and skies !

PS: your M42 looks mirrored left-right to me :-P

Thanks the welcome! I have some problem, but I hope, I'll find a way to fix them. My smartphone works only with my 25mm eyepiece. In the others (15mm and 8—24mm baader hyperion zoom) there is a black field in the center of eyepiece. I tried to pull up and push down the phone, to change the focal lenght, but its not working :/

PS: Maybe because I live on the other side of Earth?

[Manners2020]

Hello all. I love this thread. Gives me hope after being told of all the other avenues I've asked questions on to not bother trying if I don't have eq  equip. So this is my first multiple image attempt.  I piggy backed my Nikon d5300 with the kit 55mm  to 200mm lense @200 on my 9.25 sct on the evo mount. I had about 20 minutes to get anything due to weather. This is about 29 20 second exposures at 1600 iso. I managed a few bias. No flats or darks. Messed about on the trial pixinsight and stacked on dss. Pixinsight even though expensive when I buy is the only one I could get my head around.  I tried star tools but my pc isn't up to  scratch and a few others that I had no joy with. Looking forward to trying properly when the weather permits with my 102mm  refractor on the same mount.

[Manners2020]

Although over processed it's the only one I could manage to upload??  I much prefer the unmessed with raw file. But this is 1 20 or 15 second exposure on my evo mount and 102mm lunt ed.  Again just practising setting up and getting used to the camera. I'm pretty pleased with what was captured with one exposure though.