Rusty...

[happy-kat]

Thought it was clear enough just... Not as wet as last night... I thought I'd try the new to us 85mm lens... Got a bag of bits ready, camera ready, barn door ready plus two chairs and went out the back.

Cold forgotten how cold it can be ...

Leveled the barn door and crudely pointed hinge at polaris.

Managed to drop the lens shield and it rolled off, fished it back with a near by plant tray.

Barn door fixing to ball head proved not tight enough camera was slipping, spanner made it marginally better.

Barn door handle disc had come lose since last using it... Not a lot I could about this so had to use the handle directly rather than my easier to turn disc.

Lousy sky had no stars shown on the tablet screen... Camera slipped on mount oooh now I have a star I can focus on. Focus set.

Set shutter to 30 seconds took an image cranked the handle....... Rather long steaks... Ok I am making a bad job so tried again.... Not any better so tried again... Partner comes out to see how it is going and remarks you turning that the right way..- Yep so rusty I am turning the handle the wrong way!!

Finally I get to take an image and phone shuts down... There goes my stop watch timer.

Take a few more counting in my head manually.

Very cold now so packed up.

All in all the Ps strike...poor planning makes for poor performance, I know what I need to do this weekend.

[Garethr]

Yep 

Welcome to astrophotography.

Gareth  

[Eri]

poor planning makes for poor performance so crack open the prosecco, the bad side of astrophotography in winter is the cold 

[happy-kat]

Ah but on the dryunary... so none of that. Lol

It was worth it though got to try the lens, realise with my baader lp filler I need iso1600 to get the histogram right and to stop the lens down to f4 to minimize ca and the lens on very small check looks good corner to corner. Pleased though it is for day time use mainly anyway so a bonus.

[Joel Shepherd]

The cold is all part of the fun. Having half of a rare clear, still night ruined by a cable hooking the telescope leg and not being able to "debug" the panicked autoguider and suddenly-streaking stars until the morning ... eh, not so fun.

[happy-kat]

There were four images i could stack, no darks, bias or flats.. couldn't use a lens cap it was inside and I had no where safe to put the filter if I had removed it assuming I had remembered the lens cap.

If you pixel peep there is evidence of some slight trailing. Nice variety of star colours.

Canon 1100d

4 x 25 seconds (was set as 30 in DSLR controller... looks to underrunthis session)

ISO 1600

Baader Neodymium filter

Canon 85mm f4

Used Nexus Android 7inch tablet to control camera and set focus.

DIY manual Barn Door.

Camera looking in region to the right and above of M31. Probably a bit too much in the Moon glow as it had not set fully I don't think. Still only way I could look without being on the icy decking.

Stacked in DSS, cropped and binned 50% in Startools, processed briefly a bit of curves in Painshop Pro x7.

[happy-kat]

Didn't manage one 30 second image without trails today I think I should stick with just using the 50mm lens, I think 85mm is pushing the necessity of too much accuracy on the manual turning. Used a different OTG cable and camera connection stability back with dslr controller. Very cold tonight and the Moon was playing to much havov even with the Baader filter.