The EQ3 DSO Challenge

[Knight of Clear Skies]

3 hours ago, alacant said:

It seems that you just have to have an ed80

If someone had a cheap telescope and plenty of time they could, for example, use blue and red filters and focus them separately. (And then create a synthetic green channel if they didn't want to lose too much imaging time.)

[MylesGibson]

10 minutes ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

If someone had a cheap telescope and plenty of time they could, for example, use blue and red filters and focus them separately. (And then create a synthetic green channel if they didn't want to lose too much imaging time.)

You can also reduce CA quite a bit with a semi-APO filter and careful post-processing. The CA on the scope I used was horrendous but using a filter and spending a bit of time in photoshop I could tone it down to the point where it wasnt a big deal

[alacant]

15 minutes ago, MylesGibson said:

semi-APO filter

Or a yellow #8...

[Stub Mandrel]

7 hours ago, Thalestris24 said:

I never even bothered trying the rubbish aluminium tripod - put it straight on a HEQ5 one

Louise

I field mine with sand and fitted braces to it that improved it quite a bit, but getting a HEQ5 tripod was a worth it.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Somehow missed this thread, I have been using my EQ3-2 mount quite a lot with either a telephoto on it or the APM 80mm F/6 triplet with reducer

 

I am currently using the Vixen GP-DX, but I hope to get them running in tandem at some point, with the GP-DX carrying the Meade SN6 6" F/5 Schmidt Newton, and the EQ3-2 with the APM 80mm. That would leave the Vixen GP mount for the Celestron C8 for visual

 

[Alien 13]

I like my EQ3-2 and never had a problem with the aluminium tripod, the secret is to use it un extended which is easy if you have a DSLR with flip out screen and  RA camera viewfinder on the polarscope. 

Alan

[MylesGibson]

6 hours ago, alacant said:

Or a yellow #8...

I've not tried a yellow filter. Does that also work?

[alacant]

7 minutes ago, MylesGibson said:

not tried a yellow filter

Hi. Yes, and much cheaper. The #8 is pale yellow. There's also the #12, a deeper yellow which cuts out all blue.

Or put a fancy label on it and sell it for much more...

HTH

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

22 hours ago, Thalestris24 said:

I never even bothered trying the rubbish aluminium tripod - put it straight on a HEQ5 one

Louise

Mine is still on the aluminium tripod. Luckily my garden is sheltered from the wind, so that doesn't cause issues (unless it's blowing a gale). As long as the mount is balanced, and the subs are short, this works fine. Short subs aren't a huge issue in terms of read-out noise with my CMOS cameras, although it does mean I spend FAR more time during stacking.

I might give the EQ3-2 tripod the same hardwood makeover I did for the flimsy EQ-1 tripod

[Full Teneighty]

Veil nebula
Working nights doesn't lend itself well to astrophotography but managed to capture this image over the weekend.
First time using data from seperate nights.
210" x 80
Z73 & Flat73R 
Sywatcher EQ3-2
Zwo asiair & asi120mm mini
Canon 600D (T3i)

EQ3-2 working like a champ!

[wimvb]

Nice! The background is a bit too blue for my taste, but an easy thing to fix. Neutralising it should also give more punch to the red. 

[KevinPSJ]

Had my equipment (Skywatcher 150p on EQ3-2 and a Nikon D3200) for quite a while but finally got round to really trying hard with astrophotography in the last month. Just my luck to start in the summer - lots of very late nights waiting for darkness.  I have a motor on RA only.

I invested in a polarscope for my EQ3-2 and have got the hang of using it now. I usually check my alignment by taking 1 min shots using a rough DARV kind-of procedure (https://www.cloudynights.com/articles/cat/articles/darv-drift-alignment-by-robert-vice-r2760). Generally able to get good enough alignment for 45s to 60s without trails but my imaging is done with 30s subs.

I'm stacking using DSS and processing with startools or GIMP and have a steep learning curve. Also still figuring out how to take good flats.

Here are some of my best shots so far - I know there's plenty of room for improvement but family and friends have been very plesantly suprised at what I have achieved!

[bobro]

Images are looking very good considering your setup, targets and time of year.

With basics nailed, the question is what's next? An increased number of exposures should be straightforward to achieve and will improve SNR. Longer exposures will help with noise though will probably require guiding. Brighter targets (higher SNR) will result in visually improved images. Darker nights/sky will also make a good difference.

Perhaps a combination of choices for a greater improvement, though at this time of year a brighter target may be appropriate. Winter can make a dramatic difference to images!

Great stuff!

Bob

[KevinPSJ]

Thanks for the encouragment. The ring nebula photo was taken on a moonlit night too - I was camping in the garden with the children so took the opportunity to stay up late. I pushed myself quite hard to find M51 - originally I was looking for M81/M82 but failed to find them that night. Half the fun is the hunt at the moment but it does not leave me so much time for the imaging part. I use an intervalometer to control the camera and generally crack a hand-warmer once I start the actual imaging so going for more images to stack should be easy.  

I'm going to restrict my imaging now to really moonless nights and plan to stay up past midnight because I'm finding it too frustrating to process the images from bright nights. Roll on winter!

Here's one more I took from mid-May: this was a real joy because the view through the eyepiece was pretty underwhelming compared to even a single 20s exposure in the DSLR. I think this is when I really caught the bug. I imaged this 2 nights in a row because the first night the hamburger was almost off the edge of the frame. This is from the second night and represents 19 30s exposures with DSS taking the best 5.

 

Edited June 4, 2020 by KevinPSJ
Better stretching and color balancing using GIMP

[g-rex]

A few images from my setup.

Eq3-2 now equipped with Onstep Goto

Skywatcher 130pds

Nikon D3100

 

M51, M13 and the moon.

Still getting to grips with processing but having loads of fun learning 😁

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

My M33 effort from last autumn was also shot with the EQ3-2

This was shot with a 0.6x focal reducer, but the distance between reducer and chip clearly isn't quite right, given the poor star shapes in the corners

[MKHACHFE]

Here is my latest effort. M51 with a star Adventurer Mini and canon 4000d with a 300mm f5.6 lens.

No calibration images taken.

I'm pretty happy with it. I'm still learning, only started astrophotography 5 weeks ago and have absolutely basic equipment. For now.

[galatica77]

I added a guide port to my CG-4  175 lights  30% were 240s with Orion sky glow filter, the rest were 120s no filter. total 7 hours

[galatica77]

[galatica77]

My PHD2 graph with CG-4 

[Stub Mandrel]

Good stuff!

[YourjonesLu]

Hi

Really long post! I'm wondering if anyone guides a 750/150 Newt on EQ3 using a separate guide scope. My setup includes the OTA in question, a 50/183 guide scope connected to a ZWO ASI224, and a Nikon D5600 (ASP-C) for imaging. PHD2 graphs have seemed pretty struggling. While I admire what I have for AP, I'm wondering whether the weight of my setup has greatly overwhelmed EQ3, as it's definitely much more than the specified 5KG.

Anyone having same setup here?

Lu

[wimvb]

I used to have the same setup, with the wobbly aluminium tripod. The first improvement I made was to stiffen the tripod legs. The second improvement I made was to buy an AZ-EQ6. As you already noted, the mount is way above its load limit. The scope alone ways 5 kg, without camera or guide scope. The eq3 is a nice little mount that can perform very well, when loaded and tuned correctly. I've seen some amazing images where this little mount was used, here on sgl. If you put a small refractor on it, or just a camera with lens, you can get excellent results. But the combination eq3 with 150pds should never be marketed as an imaging kit. The 150pds needs an (h)eq5 at least. If you can't upgrade the mount, I suggest you put the 150pds in storage, and image with a lense or small refractor.

[YourjonesLu]

4 hours ago, wimvb said:

I used to have the same setup, with the wobbly aluminium tripod. The first improvement I made was to stiffen the tripod legs. The second improvement I made was to buy an AZ-EQ6. As you already noted, the mount is way above its load limit. The scope alone ways 5 kg, without camera or guide scope. The eq3 is a nice little mount that can perform very well, when loaded and tuned correctly. I've seen some amazing images where this little mount was used, here on sgl. If you put a small refractor on it, or just a camera with lens, you can get excellent results. But the combination eq3 with 150pds should never be marketed as an imaging kit. The 150pds needs an (h)eq5 at least. If you can't upgrade the mount, I suggest you put the 150pds in storage, and image with a lense or small refractor.

That definitely makes sense. Thank you so much! I do have a small refractor, but just don't like it as much as my Newt. I think an HEQ5 is what I'll try to get...

[YourjonesLu]

Marvellous photos with the 80 F/6 triplet. Can I know these images exposure lengths, and whether the system was auto-guided? Thanks

 

Lu