First widefield try w/Canon 500D fixed

[Gerhard]

Hi all!

It's been a while, since the weather has been really autumnal over here up until yesterday evening!

So yesterday, clear sky, and I was up and out!!

tried to catch some stars with my tripod and Canon 500D (still haven't bought any other gear.

I made 10 lights (20 secs), 10 darks (20 secs) and 30 something bias (1/4000). No flats...

Stacked them with DeepSkyStacker, and some post production in ACDSee... Playing with luminance and contrast, mostly. Nothing much.

I'm happy Andromeda shows up in both of them! :-) 

I made another one of Orion, but the moon was bright and too close, so too much light over there... Next time...

Tomorrow night I want to try and make some decent flats using the same setup...

Any suggestions for this? Could the milky way be convinced to show itself using also the flats, or will it make no difference?

Thanks for any reaction / suggestion!

Gerhard.

[gnomus]

Congrats on your images.  You don't say which lens you were using.   The Milky Way should certainly be do-able using a 'normal' to 'wide' lens, wide open from a fixed tripod, up to 30 secs at ISO 3200 (or possibly a little higher). 

Here's one link - there will be several:

http://www.astropix.com/wp/2012/08/15/milky-way-on-a-fixed-tripod/

[Gerhard]

the wide photo was taken at 18mm f/4.5 with my kit lens (18-55mm)

3200 ISO, which is also the max for my camera...

I was reading this thread: 

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/231092-m31-first-meager-attempt/

which contains some nice pointers on how to use DSS, and settings etc.

If the weather holds, friday I'll be taking pics with the telescope (30 yr old C8) of my friend, so wish me luck! :-)

no, otoh: give me advice on how many subs, how long, etc!!! :-DD 

the scope is motorized, but not guided. I was thinking at least 1 minute subs... Of course I'll do some trial shots to see how they turn out. If I can do long exposures, maybe I can lower the ISO to lower the noise a bit...

And that's hoping I'll be able to get focus. Yesterday that was no trouble: autofocus on the moon, switch to manual, et voila! :-D

any thoughts on the flats? Would they be any use, when taken in completely different circumstances (temperature, etc ) as the actual subs?

Thanks!!