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The EQ3 DSO Challenge


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ST102 on an EQ3. No motors, no finder. Just a laptop, a cheap guide cam and a script I wrote to link Sharpcap to Stellarium... after revisiting the double cluster which I missed by a frame's width last time, I zoomed out in Stellarium and looked around for DSOs. I got myself close, wasn't easy... click, wait, tweak, repeat... I ended up here-ish...

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Rotated the camera, and live-stacked 2s exposures until drift meant Sharpcap wouldn't find the alignment stars anymore, tweak the RA handle then repeat. I took four of these stacks and fired up DSS for the first time. Total integration time, 70s.

My first galaxy.

image.png.4099f37cc555d52dc49032679f80eb89.png

 

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8 hours ago, furrysocks2 said:

My first galaxy.

Didn't realise how dark this looked, different monitors can make things look so different... so here it is again after a bit of Exposure/Black Level in Gimp. Probably looks rubbish on the other monitor.

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Here's a couple of efforts with the EQ3.

37108014804_6c2e04833e_h.jpg

A kit lens shot on the left, while the closer view showing the Eagle and Omega nebulae were taken with my 135mm f2 lens and an Ha filter.

9 hours ago, furrysocks2 said:

Rotated the camera, and live-stacked 2s exposures until drift meant Sharpcap wouldn't find the alignment stars anymore, tweak the RA handle then repeat. I took four of these stacks and fired up DSS for the first time. Total integration time, 70s.

Interesting technique, even without tracking you've shown the camera can be used as an enhanced viewing device.

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4 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Interesting technique, even without tracking you've shown the camera can be used as an enhanced viewing device.

Thanks. That was the plan. Gain set to 100, 8 bit and 2x2 binned, though. If I can get decent pictures with just an RA motor and camera set to somewhat lower gain, max 10s exposures and 16bit full size, I should be content for a season or two. Need to tweak my script for faster solving - hinting fov and recently solved coordinates, and write an auto-snapshot script for SharpCap. I'm getting off-topic.

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12 hours ago, furrysocks2 said:

No motors, no finder. Just a laptop, a cheap guide cam

Do you mean you're tracking by hand, following a star in the cam ? I know this can be done in theory, but achieving it... wow :)

I find the image does not reward your efforts as it should, maybe using shorter subs (and 16bits!) in live stacking could help avoiding trails and enhance final quality. (just a wild guess)

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1 minute ago, rotatux said:

Do you mean you're tracking by hand, following a star in the cam ? I know this can be done in theory, but achieving it... wow :)

Just getting the target in view and letting it drift, stop live-stack, save it, then reposition scope and start another stack... I'd sometimes have to take a snapshot and re-solve to see in Stellarium where I'd ended up if I'd fiddled around on the laptop for too long, as I didn't level or align the mount other than turning it more or less the right way round. FOV is 30 arc minutes or something like that. I could see the center fuzz of the galaxy in the preview so I put it off center on frame so that it drifted through the middle of the frame to the opposite side. I think I got about 20 seconds each time but watching the live stack, blackness creeps up from the borders and eventually SharpCap can no longer align new frames to the stack.

 

4 minutes ago, rotatux said:

I find the image does not reward your efforts as it should, maybe using shorter subs (and 16bits!) in live stacking could help avoiding trails and enhance final quality. (just a wild guess)

It's a start, but you're right, room for improvement. I'll should put the effort in to get the RA motor working - it's in place but not hooked up to anything. Then I can use 16bits, no binning, lower gain and longer subs. It's quite labour intensive otherwise!

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So here's my Andromeda from last night, stacked 57 x 45 sec ISO 1600, 5 darks, 10 bias and 10 flats, 150p Canon 1100d, motors but no guiding, stretched in GIMP, no where near as much detail as others achieve, but it is better than I have managed before.  It misted over a bit so seeing was not perfect.

2.jpg

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Importing my subs! I know I have reasonable data for Uranus.

I woke up screaming in the middle of the night when I realised I had misjudged the FOV of my finder and the star I was trying to hop to Neptune to from was Neptune :-( All I needed to do was drop the exposure...

Edited by Stub Mandrel
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This picture won't win any prizes, but i will haul it out when people say you can't track DSOs with an EQ3.

M15, 21.9 second unguided subs at an effective focal length of 3600mm. 150PL + x3 barlow. ASI120MC, which seems to have produced mono PNGs. Not sure how...

I admit I did dump about a third of the subs.

M15.thumb.png.1a85e08538b5999a0b11c8373726c138.png

 

Edited by Stub Mandrel
Improve noise reduction by using astra image
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I started getting data on the horseHead & flame nebula last night, so far 1h 48m of 360s @ISO800 .

Quite cold and heavy dew, but the hand warmers did there job and optics stayed clear. :) Without a doubt my best effort yet. Looking to add a couple more hours.

Nige.

HH-p1-1h4m2.thumb.jpg.d8abb98a891b6f9bbafa70d32248d57a.jpg

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43 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

I started getting data on the horseHead & flame nebula last night, so far 1h 48m of 360s @ISO800 .

Quite cold and heavy dew, but the hand warmers did there job and optics stayed clear. :) Without a doubt my best effort yet. Looking to add a couple more hours.

Nige.

HH-p1-1h4m2.thumb.jpg.d8abb98a891b6f9bbafa70d32248d57a.jpg

I nearly chocked on my spit when I saw that image (not a hyperbole I almost did) great job!

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5 hours ago, Nigel G said:

I started getting data on the horseHead & flame nebula last night, so far 1h 48m of 360s @ISO800 .

Quite cold and heavy dew, but the hand warmers did there job and optics stayed clear. :) Without a doubt my best effort yet. Looking to add a couple more hours.

Nige.

HH-p1-1h4m2.thumb.jpg.d8abb98a891b6f9bbafa70d32248d57a.jpg

Beautiful man.. just beautiful..

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Nigel.  Seriously.   Stop posting these pics here - you are going to cost me some extra cash!!!

 

But properly seriously, great pic HorseHead.  I look forward to trying this target again this year - it's not in sight for me yet and my last attempt didn't include any guiding.  it's a rich area.

 

In the meantime, my imagination has failed me so I'm aiming at the Pleiades with a setting half moon.  Who knows what will turn out....  

 

I think M74 might have to wait for a moonless night. :-)

 

While setting up tonight, I was pleasantly distracted by actually looking through an eyepiece instead of worrying about plate solves and polar alignment.  There are some fine sights out there and they still look good...

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Just to add.... The pleiades were (was?) the first DSO that I noticed.  I saw the faint smudge then borrowed my dad's binoculars.  That definitely planted a seed, way back then.  Even now, it's amazing to see DSS Live giving me a hint of the wisps I never saw with the bins...

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Last night was amazing after the moon went down. I could see traces of the blue nebulosity through my 50mm finderscope!

Orion was coming into view around the house at about  12:30, but my tracking battery was down to 11.4V after six hours running so I packed up :-(

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IC 63 in Cassiopeia. a bit of moonlite made this difficult to process. 

Around 1h 50m of 240s & 360s dithered. I started off with 360s but as the moon started to bleed into the subs I had to lower to 240s.

Nice to see other colours shining through :) 

80ED, Guided EQ3 pro, modified 1200D. 

Cheers

Nige.

IC63-3.thumb.jpg.75612eb6a910f3e9fbacd436434ee1b7.jpg

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