Slowly making a bit of progress.

[kendg]

and I emphasize slowly. 

Got around to getting most things up and running. The AZ-EQ6 is a very nice mount. Holds my 6SE OTA just fine. (yes the OTA is second on a very long list of upgrades). The mount is level, north leg points north and 2 and/or 3 star alignment works very well (usually unless I mucked something up). Just started having a go with the Polar Alignment utility and I'm getting better at using it. PA is close, but not quite there. More practice and iterations and it should be not to bad. I really do like this mount. It should do nicely for a few years as I start to satisfy my aperture envy. 

The T3i connects very nicely to my refurb Dell Laptop with BackyardEOS. Need more lifetime from the laptop battery so going to use a very small generator until I get a small obsy (2m x 2m x 1.5m with a roll off roof) built.

I think I should be able to get 60 - 120 second exposures with the current setup without to much trailing. At least that's my goal before I get an autoguider which is my next upgrade in the ever growing never shrinking list.

Anyways, here are my first "true" imaging efforts. As always, comments are welcome .

[jambouk]

Looks and sounds good. Nice images.

The tripod doesn't need to be bang on level, so don't waste lots of time adjusting that, if it looks roughly level that is good enough to sort out the centre of gravity (which is the important component rather than having it level for polar alignment).

The mount is lovely. I love mine too.

You've got some subtle aberration at the edges Of your image which could be subtle field rotation due to poor PA. make sure you do the PA routine after a two star alignment when using two stars on the same side of the meridian - after several rounds of this what sort of Mel and Maz errors is it giving you? After your final iteration of polar alignment (and you may want to repeat the 2 star alignment again to find out what the true Mel and Maz is rather than the values of 0 and 0 it will tell you after altering the az and alt knobs), do a three star alignment so you then reduce the impact of any cone error on your goto accuracy, but be prepared for the Mel and Maz errors to shoot up again though just ignore this as your polar alignment hasn't got worse again, it's just the fact you have now crossed the meridian and using stars all over the sky, and tipping cone error and other errors i to the equation.

Keep up the good work

If you really want to push the mount to its unguided limits, really nail the PA, maybe add in a bit of drift alignment, then do some PEC training

James

[seo]

Nice images Ken. Well done. Have you started using flats ? I'm asking because it seems there is enough vignetting in your images.

[kendg]

Thanks for the comments. Really helpful.

I'm also using the Celestron 6.3 reducer. 

One of the things I found is it gives a lot of vignetting. Not sure if I really like it yet but going to use it a lot more to see if it is a worthwhile addition to keep permanently attached.

Slowly working on getting the PA down. Maybe this weekend. Prediction is for clear skies. So I plan to be out for a while. Lot's of gas for the generator 

Now to ask the neighbor to turn off his yard light so I can see things to the North and NE. Pretty much giving up on West and NW. The city of Edmonton won't dim their lights.

Looking forward to getting out lots more now. Summer is kinda shot for AP as the sun really never sets here. 

[kendg]

Not using flats or darks. Darks are automatically done in the camera. I think flats will help. Just need to get around to doing them.

[jambouk]

There is a setting to make the camera take a dark off the sub each time you take an image, but most imagers say not to use this as it massively cuts down the lights you are collecting, and darks can be taken even in the day time if you can temperature control things a little.

Flats are, i think, much more important than darks as they will reduce the impact vignetting has on your images which will allow you to stretch the data more and get more of the hard earn detail you deserve to see.

Neighbours lights are annoying. And city lights. And highway lights.

James

[kendg]

As for in camera darks, I was at a seminar (Alan Dyer) and this came up. Valid points for and against. Best point for in camera darks is they are as close as possible to the settings of the lights. Yes the time to capture images is doubled with most camera (including mine) but doing it means you'll never forget taking a series of darks. I think the Canon full frame cameras will do 1 dark for every 4 or 5 pictures and apply it to them.

But you are right, I really do need some flats.

At least I have a nice neighbour. 

[jambouk]

Yes, as I always say nothing is black and white in astro-imaging. You'll have to do your own experiments, but darks actually add very little, whereas doubling ones data adds exponentially to the end result. Imd rather have double the data and no darks, than half of the data and perfectly paired and subtracted darks.

Yes, friendly neighbours is a real benefit - i'd still rather live in a field and have no neighbours

Looking forward to seeing your images evolve.

James

[kendg]

Getting to the point where I have an absolute love (and a little bit of hate) of the Synscan PA.

It is so simple for me to use. I do a 3 star align, PA, 2 star align and repeat for a total of 3 times.

Last night at the end of the 3rd iteration I got to

Mel 00: 00: 02 

Maz 00:03: 34

Looks like I've got the elevation nailed about as much as I can. Az is close but I'd like to get it better. It always is a bit out no matter what I do.

I got up to 2 minute subs but it was a bit windy so they didn't look all that great. A few out of 10 were OK but to get anything I had to bump the ISO way to high (3200 and 6400)

So, next time out I plan to take darks, and try for some flats and nail the Az a bit more. 

I figure the under ideal conditions I should be able to get up to 3 minute and maybe a bit more.

Once I get to this point I figure I'll be fairly familiar with the scope and the tools.

Then I'll work on autoguiding. 

[nameunknown]

Great images!

P

[kendg]

OK, A lot more progress. 

Thanks jambouk for your helpful hints and suggestions.

Here is the result of the best 10 out of 15 with 4 flats and 5 darks.

90 sec exposures at 1600 iso.

One step at a time.

[miafey]

Big improvement. Congratulations!

[Tim99]

Yeah Ken, They look a lot like my first images.  Seems we all go through the learning curve then things start getting better.

I have an ED80mm Refractor and also a 9.25" SCT.  I can tell you that imaging DSO's with the Refractor is where it's at!  If you are considering an upgrade then consider getting a nice 80mm Refractor.   They are so easy to set up, offer great wide field views and focusing is easier.  The image quality for DSOs is excellent. (Better than my SCT.)  Save the big aperture slower scopes for planetary work. 

I can also recommend a program called Nebulosity for capture and pre-processing.  This program has a really nifty focusing routine that works great.  No fuss in getting good focus.  The program was designed to be easy to use for a beginner (like me) and yet powerful enough to get great results in the pre-procesing phase. 

Good luck, Ken

[RSM]

Nice work. I can see potential for a lot more detail to be teased out of this image. Try finding some tutorials on you tube for the processing software you are using. I had similar images with my first go at M31 and after a week or so with pixinsight free trial and the help of tutorials recorded by Richard Bloch on you tube, I found I could get loads more detail from my subs. Also with such a narrow field of view scope (I have a 200 pds with a similar FOV as yours appears to have) I needed to take four sets of subs and mosaic them together into a larger image. With M31 you start to get the full shape of the Galaxy coming through. With the improvement in these two images you posted, you're certainly going in the right direction. Good luck.