So happy, finally got some kind of image of Andromeda

[adder001]

Just had to share this I am so pleased. I have got my first image of Amdromeda galaxy. I know I still have a lot to learn about imaging but after doing lots of reading, experimenting and watching youtube vids and loads of trial and error (lots and lots of error) these images seemed to be the best so far.

I have a canon Eos 1300d with a 300mm lens and I mounted it on my EQ2 mount which has a motorised RA drive but it was not quite accurate enough to allow for really long exposure without star trails so I had to use roughly 2 sec exposures to avoid star trails.

So in total I did 400 2 sec exposures at  ISO 1600, 20 darks and 20 bias (not made a light box yet for flats but its on my diy to do list) and stacked them is Deep Sky Stacker. This is my first time ever so I am probably doing loads wrong so please feel free to correct anything or improve anything on the image and also any advice would be greatly appreciated however I can not afford at the moment to replace my mount setup so I will have to do what I can with the equipment I have.

Anyway have a look at the attachment I personally am so chuffed

[Yamez]

brilliant first try, i personally have never tried Andromeda as it will appear to large to image through my telescope. I don't have a big enough lens either to get that close

[piprees]

Great. Have a look at Forrest Tanaka's tutorial on you tube, "astrophotography without a star tracker". Easy to follow and quite inspirational, also same subject. It's the one that got me totally hooked.

 

[MARS1960]

Well done, that's an excellent first attempt, keep up the good work.

[wimvb]

Great first image. If you make sure balance and polar alignment are ok, you should do fine with this mount, with a light weight setup. To help with focusing, you can make a bahtinov mask for your lens. There are several tutorials about this on the internet.

[adder001]

26 minutes ago, piprees said:

Have a look at Forrest Tanaka's tutorial on you tube, "astrophotography without a star tracker"

Thanks, thats what I did he is very good. Thats what give me the idea to do it this way.

[Knighty2112]

Great image. As a first I would be extremely happy with that too. Well done!  

[laudropb]

Great first image of Andromeda. Well done.

[Peco4321]

That's a brilliant image. I've been trying for some time now to achieve anything half as good as that and no luck so far. I love trying though and will keep at it and use some of your technique. Thanks for posting. 

[adder001]

3 hours ago, wimvb said:

you can make a bahtinov mask for your lens

I have thought about doing this, I will post results if I end up making one. Its all very new to me and I kept hearing this term bahtinov mask and thought it was something very complex so I was surprised to see it could be hand made

[Starwiz]

Very nice first image of M31.  I did my first M31 last night but had the luxury of guide scope tracking. 

Well done.  

John

[happy-kat]

Excellent image well done for pushing what you could do with the gear you have. I make flats using my android 7 inch tablet with app called light box, get that running balance it on camera lens take photo, I may have to adjust the app brightness to get the histogram right but it is a fast way to create flats at the end of the session before I go in.

Not extending the tripod legs will keep it steady as will getting it balanced as best you can coupled with as best you can to polar align it mentioned above.

What are you going to try next?

If you have an android device look up dslr controller it's great for focusing

[adder001]

22 hours ago, happy-kat said:

What are you going to try next?

If you have an android device look up dslr controller it's great for focusing

I have been trying to get M51 whirlpool and the ring nebula, also the coathanger cluster.

I have had minor success with M51 but nothing amazing (definitely not worthy of showing on here - can just make out the structure of the spirals) but I need a better dark night and also my neighbour to stop coming in and out all the bl**dy time setting his secuirity light off

I have not yet managed to get the ring nebula or the coathanger cluster at all but I know it can be done so thats my plan.

I will definitely have a look at dslr controller as I have a Hudl2 which is Android - thanks

[happy-kat]

Check remote release first it is free and allows you to check connectivity to hudl from camera if that works dslr controller should.

[adder001]

cheers for that, I have installed a similar app called canon camera connect which seems to do the same sort of thing. Only thing is it requires WiFi but my router doesn't reach far enough outside for me to use it so I cant use it but the lightbox app will definitely be useful.

[D Wright]

I use DSLR controller with my Canon 450D and it's brilliant especially with live view.

[happy-kat]

Try dslr dashboard instead from memory it is free, need camera usb cable with an otg cable.

[adder001]

so here are the other three that I had on my list, The whirlpool is not as good as I'd hoped but from my back yard it is only just visible for about an hour early night time before disappearing behind the house so there is a lot of light pollution and because it is not high in the sky the quality of the air etc is causing distortions I think.

However even with that said I still think that with only a camera and a 300mm lens it is amazing what can be achieved.

Here they are

Whirlpool M51 Galaxy, M57 ring nebula and the coathanger cluster.

I think that when I get to a dark site again the whirlpool will be much better.

 

[wimvb]

Nice trio.

The coathanger is my favourite. It has a nice variation in star colour.

The Whirlpool is best imaged during "Galaxy season", in spring. At the moment it is at its lowest point. When it's higher in the sky, the effect of seeing and light pollution is much less.

The planetary nebula came out quite nice, but I think that imaging it through a scope does more justice to this subject.

Thanks for sharing