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First Light with HEQ5 PRO

Ant

By Ant
in Member Equipment Reviews

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Ant

Ant

Posted
Posted

I suppose that this is a mini review but more a first light report.

I took some shots of the moon and mercury earlier in the evening. The mount was just plonked down because I was in a hurry.

At around 10pm I moved into the back garden. Polar aligned using the polar scope and did a 1 star align.

The light pollution is bad at my location and 9 times out of 10 I can't see a damn thing. So the camera was already well focused. So I did a 1 star align and then thought I'd see how close the GOTO was... OK this is quite a large FOV (ED80 and 300D) so I thought that even with an innacurate polar align and a 1 star alignment it would be fun to see what I got on the chip.

Well I'm a happy chappy... Here are some images.

First M57, then M13, then M51 and finally something that I've never found from my back garden M101 (it's faint but I assure you it is there...

Remember these are single frames, rough focus, no LPR filter...

5707_normal.jpeg

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5709_normal.jpeg

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5710_normal.jpeg

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5711_normal.jpeg

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These have been resized - but not cropped. I think that's pretty good.

All in all one happy chappy!

Ant

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Paxo

Paxo

Posted
Posted

Well done Ant, the mount definately seems up to the job, just reduce the effect of the pollution and your away. What sort of exposure did you give these? My recent attempts have just used a fairly accurate polar align and one star alignment on EQ6pro, gets the DSO's near centre frame everytime - amazing bits of kit.

Looking forward to future attepts.

Steve..

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Andrew*

Andrew*

Posted
Posted

Hi Ant,

the mount's certainly doing its job! The pics are great considering. I hope you don't mind but I had a little crack at processing them. Colour balance on all of them, and a bit of curves on M13.

Nice one!

5854_normal.jpeg

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5855_normal.jpeg

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5856_normal.jpeg

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5857_normal.jpeg

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Andrew

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Ant

Ant

Posted
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Posted

Yeah a little blue - but thanks all the same Andrew.

The level of moisture in the air lately has been appalling. This means that the orange glow has been dire.

When I start imaging properly, I will use the LP filter, which will get rid of most of it.

The images below were between about 40 seconds (the first) and 25 seconds (the rest), I knew that the LP was going to be bad, hence not doing anything else after these shots.

The test was on the GOTO only. I'm a happy chap!

Ant

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Andrew*

Andrew*

Posted
Posted

that's much better col :(

I couldn't get it black without hurting the stars, so blue was as natural as I could get. Blue also reflects the typical night-time sky colour at this time of year :angry:. Clearly Col's much more wise in the ways of PS than I.

Andrew

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barkis

barkis

Posted
Posted

Nice one Ant. you sound a very happy chappy. So we can now officially welcome the Canvey Island

arm to the SGL Imaging network. :angry:

Looking forward to the serious stuff as soon as you've attached the LP hoover to the scope.

Ron. :(

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Ant

Ant

Posted
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I've been imaging for a long time Ron, just not very good at it.

My plan going forward is a second scope mounted side by side. The second scope is all but ordered (nothing grand).

So the future buys are as follows.

SC1 mod for the webcam - £50

New laptop -£300 - £400

Big hole in the garden filled with concrete

Pedestal

Ant

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barkis

barkis

Posted
Posted

I've been imaging for a long time Ron, just not very good at it.

Ant

Not true Ant. The Images of yours I've seen are fine. When you get the gear in place you mentioned, It will improve as a matter of course. Guaranteed mate. :angry:

Ron. :(

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russ

russ

Posted
Posted
I've been imaging for a long time Ron, just not very good at it.

Know that feeling :?

It's just lack of funds Ant. You've done extremely well with what you have. We both need to move onto the next level, it's just downright impossible to get there.

That said, Synscan is a huge step forward. You can now go after objects that were impossible before because they couldn't be found visually to start with. But Synscan puts them on the chip for you....that's so awesome!

Enjoy the HEQ5 Pro

Russ

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jcm

jcm

Posted
Posted

You have an excellent mount , Ant. I love ( probably not the correct word :angry: ) my HEQ5 pro , its quiet , tracks/autoguides well and always puts objects near the centre of the FOV. With this mount you have an excellent platform for improving your images.

John

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Cloudwatcher

Cloudwatcher

Posted
Posted

M101- Oh no it's not! :p............ Well,'tis really but not all in the box.

I had a go at your image before bed last night but confind myself to the area within the box and did not find as much as I expected. Anyway, I was about to bin my copy this morning but had another look on an enlarged scale outside the box using CSI techniques (Close Stellar Inspection :angry:) and the Dodge tool,Levels,Curves etc. This is the rough result so apologies for the colourful stars.

I think that the box should go and with some desaturation and a bit of blurring maybe, you should end up with a good image.

Cheers

CW

Click as usual.

PS.Actually if you look very closely at the 'orange' original you can see lighter areas beyond the box. Just though you would like to know that. :(

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Parallax

Parallax

Posted
Posted

CW, you never cease to amaze me. What you can do, to seemingly 'binnable' images, is nothing short of wizardry and magic. As others have said, you ought to get round to writing a tutorial (unless it is of course wizardry :angry: ). I have 'thrown away' images where I have thought there was nothing there, so come on, please give us a clue.

Steve

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Ant

Ant

Posted
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I am stunned CW.

As I've said before, the images were only taken as a "how well the GOTO works", and I'm very pleased with that.

But the information you have brought out in that 25 second image is nothing less than magic.

I do not have the original image! But you can bet you're bottom dollar that if it's clear tonight I'm going out again to find it!

Off to another section to talk about auto guiding... :angry: Oh boy am I looking forward to that!

Ant

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saturn5

saturn5

Posted
Posted

that's much better col :(

I couldn't get it black without hurting the stars, so blue was as natural as I could get. Blue also reflects the typical night-time sky colour at this time of year :angry: . Clearly Col's much more wise in the ways of PS than I.

Andrew

This link will get you black without hurting your stars.

http://pietertieghem.100free.com/astrophoto/tutorial1.html

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aries

aries

Posted
Posted

I've been imaging for a long time Ron, just not very good at it.

My plan going forward is a second scope mounted side by side. The second scope is all but ordered (nothing grand).

So the future buys are as follows.

SC1 mod for the webcam - £50

New laptop -£300 - £400

Big hole in the garden filled with concrete

Pedestal

Ant

I've got a hole you can have, if I can find a big enough box, i'll post it to you!

:angry::(:p:)

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