A break in the clouds!

[BillPickle]

so after 2 long weeks there was a break in the clouds...

Spent ages looking for the pinwheel and gave up... then i tried the flame nebula and didn't realise it crossed over a telephone line and ruined 20 of the 30 pictures i took....

made an attempt at the whirlpool galaxy.

2 new targets for me...

loads wrong with them but at least ill know what not to do next time.

Whirlpool is 21 x 60 secs iso800

10 darks, flats, bias

miles off what id hoped for but the camera battery died after so much messing about

the flame is just 10 lights as i wasnt expecting much with ten pics and just wanted to see if i got anything at all.

just not my night haha

[BillPickle]

and another

[wxsatuser]

You will get nights like that but it's all experience.

Can just makeout the Horsehead btw.

[BillPickle]

here is the flame with flats...

a bit more photoshop which seems to have reduced the horse head a bit

14x100s subs...

i should have just re positioned my mount and stuck with this target all night i think.

Im gonna focus on this target next i think.

[Dr Hamzonian]

nice work.

[BillPickle]

I also took 13 mins worth of andromeda (8 subs) just to see what sort of results i got without the moon washing it out and i think its promising... i captured about an hour for half this detail during the full moon.

quite surprised by this

[Dr Hamzonian]

this is on the st-80 with the 500d?

[BillPickle]

Yeah, St 80 on a star adventurer with an un modded 500d with a sky watcher light pollution filter. Deep sky stacker and Photoshop.

I have a synguider but haven't had the time to spend figuring out how to use it yet as the clouds could show up any minute and I'm waiting on a finder scope to use it with.

[Dr Hamzonian]

good stuff, I hear andromeda is a tricky one to get right, looks like a great start.

[wxsatuser]

Yeah, St 80 on a star adventurer with an un modded 500d with a sky watcher light pollution filter. Deep sky stacker and Photoshop.

I have a synguider but haven't had the time to spend figuring out how to use it yet as the clouds could show up any minute and I'm waiting on a finder scope to use it with.

Once you can get your sub length up you will do ok.

At f/5 I would aim for 5minutes minimum plus more if you can, but watch your histogram, that will tell you

your optimum length for your setup and sky conditions.

[Marky1973]

Good stuff Bill....you did better than me! Real quick set-up, great PA - was getting 2 mins without any trailing. But could I find any targets? Could I hell as like! And, when I did, I was getting trouble with LP from the local streetlights. Just couldn't get on target last night, so gave up and come inside to watch The Babadook. Just one of those nights!

[frugal]

I was also out last night. Due to one thing and another I did not manage to get everything set up till 1am. Fortunately it is herselfs birthday today, so I took today off, which is good as I crawled into bed at 4, and then had to get up again at 7:30 to put the lens caps on and turn it all off. I have no idea if I managed to get any decent images yet

[Astrosurf]

Great start! Try again at 1600 ISO.

I wonder if you might have pinched optics due to the triangular shape of your stars, but I'm far from an expert! See here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/236667-first-light-m42/

Or it might just be movement.

When you get the guider sorted the universe will open up!

Onward and upward.

Alexxx

[BillPickle]

Thanks

Ill check out the pinched optics thing and follow that guide on how to improve the st 80 a bit... an ed-80 is on the cards soon i think.

The synguider just wasnt happening for me last night tried for a while to find a guide star but just couldn't.

Hopefully ill have better luck once my finder scope arrives and i get everything all aligned properly.

Also gutted about the 350d not working via backard eos and win 7 so thats the modded 350d thing out the window.

Im gonna invest in one of those canon eos battery/mains adapters so i dont have to charge the battery so much when imaging.