The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[calli]

stupid post deleted ?

 

Where is the delete button?!

Edited October 18, 2018 by calli
Stupidness.

[Manners2020]

I think it's the processing as I just guess at things for now. I'm stuck in the light polluted back yard for now so I just shoot jpeg and go through astrotoaster. As soon as I can get to darker skies I'm going to put a proper unrushed effort in.  

[Manners2020]

Ie darks, flats ect. Not astrotoaster  but the manual way. 

[Manners2020]

Also using the jpeg for now as my laptop struggles with raw on astrotoaster, but I will be going down the raw route when I can get out and do it. 

[LOL221]

9 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

Also using the jpeg for now as my laptop struggles with raw on astrotoaster, but I will be going down the raw route when I can get out and do it. 

have you tried deepskystacker? what extension (Ie .NEF .CR2) do your RAW's have? DSS should not have any problems with most RAW's.

[The Admiral]

13 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

Also using the jpeg for now as my laptop struggles with raw on astrotoaster, but I will be going down the raw route when I can get out and do it. 

Jpeg doesn't really cut it when you come to astro imaging. Being only 8 bit, they fall apart too readily with the stretching that is required. RAWs are the way to go, and as LOL221 says, DSS is a capable freeware that you should be able to run. If your laptop can run in 64 bit, then the 64 bit version of DSS would be preferable. But in any event, the processing won't be quick and letting it do its thing, even if it takes half an hour or more, so go off and have a coffee!

Ian

[Manners2020]

Oh I know. This is just my tempory. Method. Raws are fine on my laptop it's just the raws  through astrotoaster. It would be quicker if I sketched every exposure. This is just my temp way until I can get out. I dont even know what this is called what I'm doing. I believe it was created for eaa but how I use it is something  I'm between eaa and ap?? I dont know but I like it.

Edited October 19, 2018 by Manners2020

[The Admiral]

1 hour ago, Manners2020 said:

Oh I know. This is just my tempory. Method. Raws are fine on my laptop it's just the raws  through astrotoaster. It would be quicker if I sketched every exposure. This is just my temp way until I can get out. I dont even know what this is called what I'm doing. I believe it was created for eaa but how I use it is something  I'm between eaa and ap?? I dont know but I like it.

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

Try it!

Ian

[Stub Mandrel]

If you want to live stack, DSS can do that, but Sharpcap is very good.

This is a live stack of 16 second frames produced in Sharpcap, then tweaked later:

[SteveNickolls]

This guide, initially signposted elsewhere is a start with DSS (and more so with StarTools)-https://astro.ecuadors.net/processing-a-noisy-dslr-image-stack-with-startools/#comment-17174 You can get DSS version 4.1.0 now.

Cheers,
Steve

[Manners2020]

8 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

If you want to live stack, DSS can do that, but Sharpcap is very good.

This is a live stack of 16 second frames produced in Sharpcap, then tweaked later:

Is sharpcap recognizing dslrs  now?

[Manners2020]

5 hours ago, SteveNickolls said:

This guide, initially signposted elsewhere is a start with DSS (and more so with StarTools)-https://astro.ecuadors.net/processing-a-noisy-dslr-image-stack-with-startools/#comment-17174 You can get DSS version 4.1.0 now.

Cheers,
Steve

That looks like a guide I could follow

[SteveNickolls]

8 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

That looks like a guide I could follow

There can be a lot of fun getting DSS to work as you want it but the guides are, 'out there'. Star Tools (ST) will repay investment in time spent with it. The great thing about astro-photography is that as you progress with experience you can go back to earlier attempts and redo them.

Good luck whichever route you decide to follow and do keep posting!

Cheers,
Steve

[Stub Mandrel]

13 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

Is sharpcap recognizing dslrs  now?

Ahh... that was with a ZWO 120MC

[Manners2020]

Yeah I think it's going to happen but it's not quite yet. I might be wrong though.

[Mr niall]

Quick go with the virtuoso mount last night - very very sketchy polar alignment but seems to manage 30secs at 55mm no problem. No darks or flats - was more a tracking test. Target was the coathanger - but got m27 and m71 too if you look very very very closely!

19x30 secs Eos 1300d with 18-55 kit lens at 55mm

 

[Stub Mandrel]

33 minutes ago, Mr niall said:

No darks or flats - was more a tracking test

Nice round stars, but looks like they would help - dark smudges and those little trails of red, green and blue hot pixels will be zapped by using darks and flats.

[Mr niall]

6 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Nice round stars, but looks like they would help - dark smudges and those little trails of red, green and blue hot pixels will be zapped by using darks and flats.

Yeah I noticed that, I even never actually stacked without calibration frames I was shocked by the number of hot pixels floating about!

[happy-kat]

That's tracking well. I can't recall have you got a goto handset yet for yours, if not that is tracking very well to get 30 seconds on plonk, level and position. 

[Mr niall]

14 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

That's tracking well. I can't recall have you got a goto handset yet for yours, if not that is tracking very well to get 30 seconds on plonk, level and position. 

Thx pal, no I don’t have the handset or dongle. Do you think it would make a difference?

[happy-kat]

No not seeing what you've done above that's got good star shapes

 

[Fraunhoffer]

Hi all,
Here are my rather basic attempts with just a compact zoom (Sony hx90) and cheapo tripod. 
They are all 10s 800 ISO and widest aperture I can get f is usually around 100 and I crop the pictures to suit. Some are stacked upto 10 and the focus seems a bit off sometimes. These are all jpeg files as I don't have any RAW capability and I just use the copy to clipboard from DSS to go into an ancient copy of Paint Shop Pro to do some curve stretching (coo just looked it up v7 from 2000!)

The flip up screen is great and using the picnic table and 5 sec shutter delay helps a lot.

I was really pleased to be able to pick out Brocchi's Cluster and the double cluster in Perseus. Orion was beginning to show some features and I was surprised to be able to split some of the doubles in Lyra.

Im finding that I don't need to go above 150mm before things get hard and frequently have to use the camera on a high ISO setting to help find my way around as its more sensitive than my eyes and we have fairly light well polluted skies near London.

So thankfull for this thread and the other folks who have submitted their pics with some quite simple equipment.

Cheers

 

 

[wiama]

anyone here using hyperstar with alt-az (non eq mount)? i have the small hyperstar 6, still waiting for the weather to clear up for the first light

[happy-kat]

I haven't noticed anyone using one of those.

Welcome Fraunhoffer great to see you are making the most use of what equipment you have. You might also like to look at GIMP it is quite  good and free.

[SteveNickolls]

On 28/11/2018 at 00:32, wiama said:

anyone here using hyperstar with alt-az (non eq mount)? i have the small hyperstar 6, still waiting for the weather to clear up for the first light

No, sorry but rather wish I had to prove the value of using an Alt-Az mount. Do post your successes.

Best Regards,
Steve