First go at EAA, a bit wide field

[D4N]

Well this certainly isn't a traditional video astronomy setup as I am using a 35mm lens and an ASI178mc but I was quite pleased with what it could do and found it a lot of fun.

I used the Astrolive software which is free for ZWO cameras and has some really nice features for controlling the live processing.

First I used the 35mm lens with a fisheye adaptor to get a really wide shot of Cassiopeia; the double cluster, heart and soul are visible on the left.

 

At 42ºx28º this was a little too wide and I'm not keen on warp effects so I took the fisheye off and took a look at Pleiades.

It started to struggle with the stacking because of the tree so I moved on to Andromeda.  This is 13 x 30s exposures.

Next I looked at Cygnus, I was surprised at how quickly it showed the Gamma Cygni Nebula.  This is 9x30s exposures.

 

Lastly I decided to give it a tougher challenged and tried the Veil Nebulae.  This was harder to pick out but with 7 x 40s exposures the Eastern Veil is visible as well as NGC6940.

 

None of the images are processed beyond what was on the screen live.

This was a lot of fun, I am used to long exposure imaging where after a few hours I might have enough subs to process one channel (which also takes a long time to do) so seeing things pop out so quickly was a nice change.

It will be interesting to try this with different lenses or scopes.

[Yamez]

Lovely report and images, may I ask what is making the images pink? 

[D4N]

Thanks, probably my fault adjusting the curves individually.  I suspect that the amp glow areas are quite green so it throws the histogram out.

[aparker]

Very nice work!  Really emphasizes what can be done with conventional camera lenses.  Got to give that a go one of these days.

[Dom543]

Very nice work!

You may also want to experiment with adding an H-alpha filter. It has multiple benefits: Eliminates the chromatic aberration of refractive optics, reduces star sizes to make them nice pinpoint and brings out the large emission nebulae embedded in many star fields.

Clear Skies!  --Dom

[D4N]

Thanks, I do have a Ha filter that would fit in my Geoptik lens adaptor but it is currently embedded in the filter wheel of my CCD.

I could easily use one of my 2" UHC-S filters over the objective of the lens though, that would have the added advantage of still allowing all the pixels to receive light as since it is a colour camera I am using a Ha filter would block off 3/4 of the pixels.

I've set it up on my newt' now, gonna try some smaller targets.  Chances are I will spend a lot of time not finding anything though (assuming the clouds go away that is).