First Prime Focus Photos

[thing]

Managed to get out last night and use the new adapters for the camera. Minolta D7 at Prime Focus. I used levels in PS to darken the images a bit, but that's all. Because that's all I know how to do... . Anyway, be brutal, all criticism accepted. Scope is a C8NGT.

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[algol]

very nice images there mate. tried to get the auriga clusters myself the other day but ended up with the two NGC clusters instead.

[CELESCOPE]

Cant be brutal on those images , they are all excellent ,beautiful wide field ,

Nice

Rog

[blinky]

Excellent I love the capella one best! Out of interest were these guided? and what scope was used?

[dogfish]

They are all really good. This has really made me think. Who needs these fancy CCD's then?

Cheers, Martin

[jgs001]

That's a nice set of images there.

[steppenwolf]

They are a nice set of widefields - I especially like the crispness of the Capella shot.

[Andrew*]

Really special stuff there 8) especially for firsts...

Especially like M35/NGC 2158, although it confirms that it was NOT NGC2158 that I saw that night :?

Capella is also pretty stunning

Andrew

[thing]

Crikey thanks everybody. They really were point and hope for the best because I really don't know what I'm doing. Craig, the C8NGT is on the CG-5 mount that it came with, I did a rough polar align and just crossed my fingers. The focusing was the hardest part, trying to squint at dim stars down the viewfinder was a bit dodgy which is why I took the Capella shot, it was the brightest star I could find to focus on. I was also suprised by the amount of colour on the M42 shot, I wasn't expecting that at all. You have to hope that the GoTo does it's job as well, because you can't tell with some of the dimmer stuff whether it's in the viewfinder or not, but the Celestron one has always been pretty bang on in my experience, and with the fairly widefields you get with prime focus, if it's a bit out it doesn't matter. I did one of the Crab and it's dead centre of the image, but not enough exposure to warrant putting up here. I'm borrowing a shutter release so I can use the bulb setting to get some longer exposures, it will be interesting to see how well the mount tracks.

I'm going to have to get to grips with PS as well I think.

[MartinB]

Lovely clean images which capture the star clusters very nicely.

Here's a primer on how to stretch the histogram so that you can bring out the faint detail without burning out the brighter stuff

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,10082.msg107402.html#msg107402

[Beyond_Vision]

A great first set of images I bet you were really chuffed to bag those.

Regards

Kevin

[thing]

Thanks for that Martin, did you know there are no images on it? Kev, I wasn't sure what to expect, but they came out OK I think.

[themos]

Very nice looking indeed.

[Cloudwatcher]

Really great captures,bright and sharp images one and all.

Cheers

CW

[thing]

Mmm, had a go at Martin's tips on the M42 pic. It's certainly lost some graininess but I think I might have lost some of the nebulosity.

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[gary1968]

Those are amazing images................................... :salute:

Makes me wanna put a bit more effort into imaging with my C8NGT.......

Gary

[thing]

Thanks Gary but honestly all I did was borrow my Dad's DSLR and buy the adapter for it. I think it was about £12. The fitting is already there on the C8N for it to screw onto. Then just point it at something, focus it and press the release. Actually I found the best thing to do was put it onto the delay setting, like when you take a self portrait then you don't get any shake on the scope when you press the release. It's as easy as that. I've found that setting the 'film speed' to ISO400 gives the best results, anything any faster and the images get a bit grainy.

That's all there is to it, you know as much as me now, which ain't a lot!!

[Roy Batty]

You've got off to a really good start there

RB

[LostNSpace]

Hi Dave

So those were the images you were tinkering around with yesterday? Blimey they are cracking images......Def like the Capella image......

Cheers

Mark

[thing]

Yeah the Capella one was just a focus shot as well! I like it the best of the lot actually, it's a bit offbeat, almost arty.

[RobH]

Very very good images there....Capella does it for me too but the rest are crackers also....no stopping you now

Cheers

Rob

[zhgutas]

I'd say that's extremely nice first photo's you've got there really like the clusters

Marius

[beamer3.6m]

Nice shots, I think Capella is lsightly out of focus.

The diffraction spikes are splitting into more than 1 line at the ends.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

The diffraction spikes are splitting into more than 1 line at the ends.

That's just because the spider is not made with four right angles perfectly. Out of focus would be short blurry spikes usually.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[saturn5]

Congrats on your excellent first prime focus pics.I am because i have been waiting over 3weeks to have a go at my first DSO,its either been cloudy or windy or both.

Well done