Photography newbie, help please.

[StormAurora]

Hi all 

Just starting out with AP and could do with some advice.

Being old, I am useless with computers, I can't get to grips with it all.

I would like to take some images via my scope and wondered if anyone could give me suggestions on what settings I should try to get the best, non processed results.

My new scope is the Skywatcher Explorer 150pds on an eq3 pro mount with synscan. I am using a Canon 100d camera.

I know I'll never get magazine quality images without processing but I would like to get something viewable.

Many thanks ?

[Tim]

It will really help you to get something worth looking at, if you stick to brighter targets. Fortunately most of the Messier list is pretty bright.

Does your mount track once you are on a target?

If so, then make sure you get as accurately polar aligned as you can, there are plenty of guides available for doing this.

Then take as long an exposure as you can without the stars starting to trail. This exposure time will vary depending on where in the sky you are looking, nearer to the pole you should be able to get longer exposures. Also, go for objects high in the sky if you can, these will be in clearer sky and more contrast should be available.

Use the highest iso setting you can stand. As you are only taking single shots of something, you are not going to be able to get the noise element down in the image by stacking a few of them together, so use the highest setting you feel that you can get away with.

A good starting point might be doing 30 second exposures using the manual settings. You really need to start the exposure without touching the scope or camera at all, so use a countdown timer on the camera if it has one.

Even though you dont plan to process the images, I would still shoot in RAW mode, to give you something to work on if you do decide to have a play.

Don't be too intimidated by computers. The difference between a single exposure and a few exposures stacked is enormous, and there are loads of tutorials available for working through a step at a time.

If you do shoot in RAW mode, even Canon's own tools will give you a few options to bring out the best from the images you take.

Hope it goes well!

[ronin]

Presume you are at least half familiar with computers as you have posted a question, that is a start. Have you ever read titles to posts that are "Help, Unable to make a post?" 

You could set the DSLR to something like ISO 800, Exposure time say 20 seconds, and take an exposure and just see what comes out - single shot.

If your polar alignment is good - let you decide on that - then try 40 seconds, same othesr bits and again see what comes out - again a single shot. Maybe try 60 seconds but that may be a little high.

Not sure that going above ISO 800 will really help but again an option, could try ISO 1600 and see. As I say if not good there is a simple button called Delete. Consign it to digital hell for not being good enough .

If you specifically do not want to load into a PC then switch the noise reductions On. It will in effect double the time of the exposure but sort of replaces a dark frame. I would only do it for single exposures not a run of say 8 for stacking.

Whatever you do/try make a record of it so that you can repeat the good ones again at a later date. That is my mistake.

For stacking in Deep Sky Stacker you can use ISO 800 and say 30 seconds (If tracking and you say synscan so it should be tracking). Get an intervalometer (remote timer) and set it for say 12 exposures (use normal jpeg images initially as DSS will stack these into something). And stack these in DSS and just see what comes out. Will say selecting images for DSS is not overly obvious.

For the intervalometer set it to a delay of 10 seconds (time to put it down somewhere after you press the Go button), 30 second exposure time (same as the DSLR exposure time) and a 20 second Wait time.

Better if you have Darks for this (Stacking) so no noise reduction, and they are treated almost exactly as the exposure, you just tell DSS that these files are the Darks, not the normal stacking images. It then does whatever it does with them.

After that I would stop there and get no more complicated.

Worst aspect I find is managing to tell which 10 images is for which object, thoughts being you go out get 10 images of M42, then swing to say M3 and get 10 of that. Do that for 3 objects then seperating them into the right group is I suggest more problematic them stacking.

Worth eventually doing the DSS stacking aspect with say 10 to 20 images and about half as many Darks, just it produces something a bit better. Also people can wonder why you are putting the DSLR in the fridge << good place to get Darks, just take it out when finished. This is what I do, makes it easy. If all exposures are "the same settings" then one set of Darks will do for all the objects. Take images outside (get cold) come home, set intervalometer to half as many exposures, lens cap on DSLR, press Go, put DSLR in fridge, make coffee, take DSLR out of fridge, drink coffee. Worked OK so far.

[StormAurora]

Tim and Ronin, thank you both so much for the invaluable replies.

I tried downloading registrax and DSS but when I go to my images, it says there aren't any in there, although there are thousands! I've done raw and jpeg but no luck. Then it says I need to convert the files into tiff or fits and I haven't got a clue what that means.

So I will just try to take single shots and hope some are cool ?

Thanks guys, much appreciated x