Can you believe this!!!

[brrttpaul]

For the last few months I have been trying to learn about astro photography and about a month ago bought a mount and scope, took the plunge so to speak. I have spent weeks trying to get it sorted doing something wrong all the time, clouds, etc. My last chance tonight and been watching videos on polar aligning, star alignment etc. I waited patiently for nightfall everythings ready can I do it this time?. Nightfalls everything runs like clockwork even the star alignment works, WOHOOOO yes yes , Hmmmm what shall I aim the scope at lets pick the pinwheel first time for everything, it slews to position i start mt subs, 1, 2,3, its all going great, when BANG WHOOOOOOOOOSHHHHH they only letting off rockets  and fireworks down the road. You couldnt make it up   Im doomed

[ronin]

Has Wales voted for indepandance then ? :eek:

I suppose they could have been blowing up the Severn Bridges. :grin:

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

This kind of thing only deepens my belief that fireworks should be banned (except for displays by professionals, perhaps)

[brrttpaul]

Just ran my subs through DSS and only one frame will stack on the plus side I can see the pinwheel even though its just faint

[goose35]

Same here. Always one thing or another. Been out this evening doing m3 "again". Got 20+ minuite subs. Yet again dds cant find enough stars. This in a globular cluster with over a million of the darn things lol. Like your self though the single subs are okish.

[wxsatuser]

Same here. Always one thing or another. Been out this evening doing m3 "again". Got 20+ minuite subs. Yet again dds cant find enough stars. This in a globular cluster with over a million of the darn things lol. Like your self though the single subs are okish.

There is your problem, may be..........."the subs were okish"

You really want good to very good subs.

Round stars

enough exposure for plenty of stars.

good focus

ideally very good tracking plus guiding if possible.

if LP is obvious, get a decent LP filter.......btw this will be helpful even at a dark site.

Recently there have been lots of comments on the forum about DSS and problems imagers are having with it.

I bet that most have, to be quite blunt, awful subs to start with.

Get good quality subs, even if they are shortish and I'm sure DSS will give a nice result.

As to Pauls fireworks........unexpected things happen all the time......you have to take it on the chin, unfortunately.

[brrttpaul]

Tried everything with DSS  altered compute number of stars everything, just wont pick them up, had a look at the single sub and they do seem to be out of focus a bit so maybe its that, I was pretty sure the focus was ok at the beginning of the session. Well onwards and upwards still lernt a lot tonight

[wxsatuser]

I don't know how out of focus DSS will cope with but it's best to get as tight as possible.

All my lenses and scopes normally give an FWHM of around 3.5 in DSS, not brilliant but stars seem reasonable.

[goose35]

Did have a good end to the sesh though. Had a dabble with guiding via main scope whilst piggybacking some widefield shots. Just a "try it out" with some success. Got to sort a guidescope out on payday:)

I do feel like its coming together now so i say keep pluggin away paul

No. Out of focus wont help with star detection

[wxsatuser]

It took me about a year before everything started to click and all worked together.

I still get problems popup now and again but when a good session happens all is forgotten.

[brrttpaul]

Yes I have to admit I made giant leaps last night even if it was just in the setting up polar aligning and star alignment, I had the camera attached  and when it slewed to the first star I could see it on the livescreen so getting it centre was a lot easier. The main problem I have now is after say I have taken 30 subs of m101 for example I then try something else (lets say Vega) and I find im off again, now before I would have been tering my hair out but found now if I hold the escape key I can centre target and get back on track. I do feel its coming together better my next purchase will be a laptop and power station so I can get away from the garden , so annoying knowing Jupiter is behind my roof lol

[wxsatuser]

It's very tempting to flit between targets, I did it originally but now I decide what I'm going to image before I go out and stick to that target.

My aim is at least 2hours of 5 to 10minute subs, normal exposures here are around the 5minute mark for a 25% histogram.

I normally image at around f/4 and iso1600, this is my sweet spot for my usual sky conditions.

[Starlight 1]

Had 1 or 2 fireworks going off last night, But not looking forward to BBC radio 1's big weekend only 3 mins down the road.

[brrttpaul]

My next clear night I am going to just do a single shot of 3 mins then another at 5 mins and so on to see what my limit is on it, if for arguments sake its 5 mins I will do my subs at that, last night I done 40 subs @ 2 mins , I should have taken a test shot first  

[wxsatuser]

What setup were you using ?

Would have thought 2minutes should give something reasonable.

[brrttpaul]

I had the HEQ5 mount a 150 skywatcher reflector, camera was a D7200 set at bulb mode with an invalometer attached and focusing was through a hitecastro, I was using livescreen on the camera and focused it when doing the 3 star alignment on vega, I did notice though that when i got the star bang in the middle and then focused it would jump off centre a bit depending if i was focusing in or out 

[wxsatuser]

May be a Bahtinov mask would be an idea.

I always use one with my scopes but I focus by eye with Liveview when using camera lenses.

[brrttpaul]

Yes I have been looking into something like that, idealy I,m hopeing for a better scope a refractor ED80  or similar, I had this scope as part of the package with the mount, until then though it,ll do

[DaveS]

I always use a Bahtinov mask now, having wasted several potentially good images due to out of focus stars. Even if it looks in focus to the eye, the mask will tell the truth.

Also refocus between filters.

[brrttpaul]

Just been looking at them on amazon are the adjustable ones any good?  there is one there that adjusts between 100-150 or would i be faffing about to centre it tidy

[glowingturnip]

just make one mate - http://astrojargon.net/maskgen.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1  all it takes is an evening in front of the telly with some stiff card and a stanley knife.

Mine is distinctly Blue Peter but works just fine