My first DSO

[furrysocks2]

This is a first for me... my first stars caught on camera.

 

Armed with my laptop and new camera (Datyson T7M), I stepped out the back, propped the camera with its little wide angle lens against my kid's scooter and sat down on the patio.

Behold! M31...

 

 

[toxic]

good start

 

[furrysocks2]

Bagged M39 too, haha!

 

[MarsG76]

good start

 

[orion25]

[Dave In Vermont]

I agree - Keep going!

Dave

[Ouroboros]

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".   All you have to do now is keep going.

[furrysocks2]

I've seen a couple of globulars in the dob, but ignoring M31 and M42, I don't think I've ever even seen another fuzzy. Maybe a couple at Galloway through someone else's scope but the whisky...

It's almost like everything sits in a portion of sky that never presents here, but it's not... I love seeing widefield shots of the milkyway with odd galaxy visible, sort of proves a point that they are there, something that charts and sky apps never quite match.

I thought I'd caught something randomly in the 8x60s the other week... turned out to be a double when seen in the 15x70s, but the sense of excitement in my belly at the thought of rediscovering (stumbling upon) a fuzzy was fun.

M31 above... not so much.

Looking towards live-stacking/EAA type stuff, and expect it will improve my visual enjoyment, too.

[cjdawson]

Now that you've done it.  Do it again.

[AstroKerr]

...and keep doing it! You give me hope!

Those are excellent results for a first time, I think - I am envious!

 

Does this look like your Datyson T7?  If this is the same imager, well, I'd say from your fine pix they're pretty okay, yeah?  

  

Congrats and Thanks for sharing!

Jim

[furrysocks2]

Thanks, folks!

Aye, all good fun. Cloudy again.

 

54 minutes ago, AstroKerr said:

Does this look like your Datyson T7? 

  

The same. I'm very pleased... for now.

It's essentially an ASI120MM, but to what extent they compare, I don't know. I'd have another if I could afford it.

[AstroKerr]

DatysonT7M / ASI120MM -Thank you - I'm going to try to get one as well - you've set us a fine example!

Thank you for your help - honestly.

Jim

 

[furrysocks2]

1 hour ago, AstroKerr said:

DatysonT7M / ASI120MM -Thank you - I'm going to try to get one as well - you've set us a fine example!

Thank you for your help - honestly.

You've welcome!

It is just a simple guide camera, though. I'd encourage you to do your own research and ask questions if necessary. My selection was primarily based on cost (cheapest astro-specific camera I could find), but I'd done enough reading to know what I was getting (in terms of sensor size, length of exposure, etc). I actually bought it for lunar imaging, not DSOs!

At the price though, it's a wee cracker in my opinion.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Congratulations on bagging your first DSOs, I well remember my first accidental capture of M31.

To increase the exposure time, you could try motorising the scooter and drive it through a carefully contoured sandpit.

[furrysocks2]

Deliberate revisit of M31 tonight, with Cas, Perseus and the Double Cluster all in front of me. Camera propped up inside a mug this time.

Focused best I could, worked out exposure, took a dark, live-stacked 5 or 6 frames, took a screen grab and unplugged the camera.

M31 is off-frame! D'oh!

 

[cjdawson]

That's a good image of Cassiopeia. 

Keep going. 

Take a series of dark frames, not just one.  

[furrysocks2]

1 hour ago, cjdawson said:

That's a good image of Cassiopeia. 

Keep going. 

Take a series of dark frames, not just one.  

Thanks, dark was an average of three but exposures were 50s each and it was cold sitting on the doorstep. I know I need to play with bad pixel maps as well as darks.

 

I know it's not much, but actually you don't need much kit to make mistakes. And you don't have to aim high to learn something.

[cjdawson]

No need to worry about bad pixel maps.   That's something that sorts itself out with other techniques.

 

Going into the full detail, there are several types of images that you should be taking for a full set.

 

1. Lights.   You already do this.

2. Darks.    You already do this too.   (note: should equal the number of light frames, but my experience is that 15 is good when you take more than 15 lights)

3. Bias frames.  These are like darks, but taken with the camera's fastest exposure.         Some people say that you can use Bias frames instead of dark frames on a DSLR.  (I want to experiment this this at some point)

4. Flat frames.   These are an exposure of a flat white surface.  i.e. no colour gradients etc.  Easily done in Av mode on your DSLR.   That'll give a good exposure.  i.e. not over exposed.

 

Then you process the full set of these in something like DSS.  it will reduce the noise.  The more frames of each type, the less noise.  There are diminishing returns, so whilst there's no limit, the practicalities get silly after too many frames.

 

In addition, there is a technique known as Dithering.    This is where the image is shifted slightly between shots.   This then means that the picture will fall on different pixels.  When stacking, bad pixels (hot and cold) will be averaged out, as though they are noise.

If you are not guiding, you don't need to worry about dithering, as the inaccuracies in the scope will give you this for free.   (Autoguiding can correct this problem, and that's why some autoguiding software has Dithering as a feature)