The EQ3 DSO Challenge

[Stub Mandrel]

Remind me not to drink out of your crockrey Nige...

[mikey2000]

I've been away for a bit.  Pesky Holidays!  I had some nice clear skies and had a little bit of fun doing some good old fashioned Naked Eye astronomy.  I'm sure I caught a gliimpse of Andromeda M31 and with some cheapo binoculars (8x20s or something) I managed some reasonable views of the Double Cluster and also the great cluster in Hercules.  It was a nice dark place to be :-)

 

I'm back and now it's raining solidly here.  :-(

 

Before I went, I had another go at the Western Veil nebula.  Sadly, I crashed the scope into the eqdirect cable and caused a 'significant tracking error'.  I forgot to re-adjust my aim and ended up with a rather off centre composition.  In the end, I rather like it though...  I love it when you get rainbow effects in the diffraction spikes...

 

just 6x4mins with darks and flats

 

 

[Nigel G]

We had a couple of hours of clear sky before the moon destroyed the dark so I set my scope towards NGC 7380 the Wizard nebula.

I took 2 hours of 240s subs ISO800, the last couple had too much moon lite in so only dumped 2 subs. After about an hour each sub was getting a little brighter.

I did 2 stacks. One had 28x240s with darks, flats and bias, the other stack had 17x240s ( the first 17 of the session) with flats and bias- no darks.

Modified 1200D, 80ED, EQ3. - PHD2, DSS, ST & PS.

Which do you think is which ?

I think I prefer the first, seems to show more detail.

Cheers

Nige.

 

[mikey2000]

I think I like the first better too.   It seems less 'busy'.  It's definitely a well-populated part of the sky but in #2 the distant stars seem more prominent.  #1 shows a bit more orange in some stars but I quite like that.  I'm quite fond of a the idea of a galaxy populated by red giant stars.

[wimvb]

The first is my favourite too. You managed to bring out more of the faint Ha background. (Btw, the Ha background causes stars behind it to appear orange.) My first guess was that this is the image with more subs, since more subs = less noise, which means you can stretch more. Otoh, as the moon brightens the sky it also introduces more noise. So, in this case the better image may well be from the smaller stack.

[Nigel G]

The first image is 1h 8m, the moon had caused a fair amout of glow in the full stack ( second image) quite a bit of work to remove it compared to the first.

So I'm better off getting 1 hour of no moon than 2 hours with moon, unless the moon is opposite in the sky to the target or you have narrow band filters, It's not really worth it.

On the other hand, we get so few clear nights here that a moon lit night can't be waisted and is better than a cloudy night.

Carry on as usual then  

Nige.

[Filroden]

I also prefer the first image. There are noticeably more gradients in the second image caused by the moon which would be difficult to remove in their entirety. The first image also has a warmer feel and the stars look delicious.

1 hour ago, Nigel G said:

On the other hand, we get so few clear nights here that a moon lit night can't be waisted and is better than a cloudy night.

I guess its also down to target selection. With a bright moon, it may be better to stick to clusters where you can attack the gradients a little harder; something that you cannot do well with nebula or galaxies.

[Nigel G]

2 hours ago, Filroden said:

I guess its also down to target selection. With a bright moon, it may be better to stick to clusters where you can attack the gradients a little harder; something that you cannot do well with nebula or galaxies.

Ken, thats a good point, there's plenty of clusters and doubles to capture during the moons presents.

 

Nige.

[Peco4321]

I've been thinking that as well, clear tonight so will see what takes my fancy. 

[Stub Mandrel]

Nige, now you have tracking sorted, why not save up and try a Ha filter for moonlit nights? That's the route I'm probably going to follow, returning to Ha-rich targets to on moonlight nights.

[Nigel G]

38 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Nige, now you have tracking sorted, why not save up and try a Ha filter for moonlit nights? That's the route I'm probably going to follow, returning to Ha-rich targets to on moonlight nights.

Great minds  I found a 12nm clip in filter for sale £75, still deciding  I have the funds but still saving for the Zwo 1600mm which has 3 narrow band filters. Do I borrow from the funds?

Nige.

[Graham Darke]

Eq3 pro with a TS65q riding on it.  20 two minute subs through a Canon 600Da. 

[Nigel G]

1 minute ago, Graham Darke said:

Eq3 pro with a TS65q riding on it.  20 two minute subs through a Canon 600Da. 

 

Very nice image, good detail in the spiral arms and nice stars.

A touch blown in the core, but it is a difficult DSO with such a bright core. Still a better job than me  

Great little scope you have there  

Thanks for sharing

Nige.

[Filroden]

36 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Great minds  I found a 12nm clip in filter for sale £75, still deciding  I have the funds but still saving for the Zwo 1600mm which has 3 narrow band filters. Do I borrow from the funds?

Nige.

Hold out. I think the ZWO filters are narrower. There's plenty of other things to do while you wait

[Graham Darke]

33 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Very nice image, good detail in the spiral arms and nice stars.

A touch blown in the core, but it is a difficult DSO with such a bright core. Still a better job than me  

Great little scope you have there  

Thanks for sharing

Nige.

Cheers Nige.  It was a great little scope but I sold it. ?

[Peco4321]

I'm actually thinking of trying Andromeda again tonight, just canon 1100d on the eq3-2, hopefully at least 60 sec subs before moonrise at 22:10.  I always struggle getting sharp focus though with stock lens 18-55mm set about 40 I think. We'll see.  

[Nigel G]

Me too, Hoping to get a couple of hours on M31 with the scope.

Looking a bit patch cloud here though.

Focusing the stock lens, try on Saturn or a bright star before mounting the camera, I found that a bit easier.

Nige.

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, Nigel G said:

Great minds  I found a 12nm clip in filter for sale £75, still deciding  I have the funds but still saving for the Zwo 1600mm which has 3 narrow band filters. Do I borrow from the funds?

Nige.

Whooo.. going to be playing with the big boys soon!

[Peco4321]

2 hours ago, Nigel G said:

Me too, Hoping to get a couple of hours on M31 with the scope.

Looking a bit patch cloud here though.

Focusing the stock lens, try on Saturn or a bright star before mounting the camera, I found that a bit easier.

Nige.

Best laid plans dashed by neighbours lights. May as well not bother at all.

And to top it off, I've lost an SD card with magic lantern on and it won't seem to work on other cards ?

Edited September 11, 2017 by Peco4321

[billyharris72]

No! You can't do deep sky imaging with an EQ3. You just cant. So stop it ... right now!

[billyharris72]

Thinking about it, the new cooled CMOS cameras could make a great pairing with an EQ3. Rarely need subs over about 30 seconds; even narrowband won't need more than about a minute.

[Peco4321]

4 minutes ago, billyharris72 said:

No! You can't do deep sky imaging with an EQ3. You just cant. So stop it ... right now!

Think you're on the wrong thread friend. 

[billyharris72]

22 minutes ago, Peco4321 said:

Think you're on the wrong thread friend. 

No, I'm really not. Some of these images are superb, and with exposures I wouldn't have thought possible.

I thought the EQ3 didn't support guiding, so wondering if these are manually guided or the mount has been modified in some way?

Actually, just seen reference to Eqmod so that answers that one.

Edited September 11, 2017 by billyharris72
Answered my own question.

[Peco4321]

I'm having one of those nights, everything going wrong, neighbours left all their upstairs lights on, windy, bit of cloud now, can't find the right sd card but now trying Andromeda just with stock lens. I'll report  back later

[Nigel G]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Whooo.. going to be playing with the big boys soon!

Not so soon, taking a long time saving and only about halfway.

Sailing and astrophotography are both expensive hobbys but I need to do both