Imaging with a Star Adventurer

[Scooot]

5 hours ago, Chefgage said:

Very nice image, also thanks for the info. I have my asiair now, just waiting on a power supply and I am good to go.

Thanks, have fun with it, apart from the app bug my first impressions are that it is great.  
 

You’ll soon realise you have a problem if you get the following error message whilst trying to select STF in telescope settings. If so you won’t be able to polar align or guide, the camera still works. That was my experience. There’s nothing you’ll be able to do other than use the beta test version of the app. Asiair told me I can get the link to it from their Facebook page. I don’t use Facebook so they sent it to me directly. It’s quite straightforward, just download it from the App Store in the usual way. If you need it, I can PM it to you, just let me know.

This was the error message.

[Chefgage]

6 minutes ago, Scooot said:

Thanks, have fun with it, apart from the app bug my first impressions are that it is great.  
 

You’ll soon realise you have a problem if you get the following error message whilst trying to select STF in telescope settings. If so you won’t be able to polar align or guide, the camera still works. That was my experience. There’s nothing you’ll be able to do other than use the beta test version of the app. Asiair told me I can get the link to it from their Facebook page. I don’t use Facebook so they sent it to me directly. It’s quite straightforward, just download it from the App Store in the usual way. If you need it, I can PM it to you, just let me know.

This was the error message.

Thanks as soon as my power supply arrives I have a go and see what happens.

[Thorney]

Took this image of M31 a few weeks ago. My first time using the star adventurer and in fact my first attempt at astrophotography. A lot to learn but happy with what I got so far. 

[Onfray]

Hello! I'm new!

After read a lot about the Star Adventurer, I pulled the trigger the past week. My first astrophotography rig!

 

Is not a "real" image, is more a test of my equipment, so "not-yet-my-first-light". I have not done any balancing or good PA, and not any type of preprocessing, only Siril, without any darks or bias or flats. 

 

I'm very happy with the workflow and seems I can push a lot more the SA. 

 

Thank you folks for all information you posted here, it's trully amazing!!!

 

 

[Erling G-P]

4 hours ago, Onfray said:

Hello! I'm new!

After read a lot about the Star Adventurer, I pulled the trigger the past week. My first astrophotography rig!

 

Is not a "real" image, is more a test of my equipment, so "not-yet-my-first-light". I have not done any balancing or good PA, and not any type of preprocessing, only Siril, without any darks or bias or flats. 

 

I'm very happy with the workflow and seems I can push a lot more the SA. 

 

Thank you folks for all information you posted here, it's trully amazing!!!

 

 

That is a very nice "not real" image..

[Ken Mitchell]

On 13/10/2020 at 10:28, Onfray said:

Hello! I'm new!

After read a lot about the Star Adventurer, I pulled the trigger the past week. My first astrophotography rig!

 

Is not a "real" image, is more a test of my equipment, so "not-yet-my-first-light". I have not done any balancing or good PA, and not any type of preprocessing, only Siril, without any darks or bias or flats. 

 

I'm very happy with the workflow and seems I can push a lot more the SA. 

 

Thank you folks for all information you posted here, it's trully amazing!!!

 

 

Congrats!

For a first this is exceptionally good! Looks like you will be enjoying the SA a lot  

Can you share more info on your gear and settings?

 

Ken

[Onfray]

56 minutes ago, Ken Mitchell said:

Congrats!

For a first this is exceptionally good! Looks like you will be enjoying the SA a lot  

Can you share more info on your gear and settings?

 

Ken

Sure!

SW 72ED / Canon 450d modded / Astronomik CLS CCD

50x90" ISO 1600

I'll try M42 next to keep learning. I guess big and bright targets are the best to practice.

Today I played a little with Pixinsight and Starnet. I have to say that I'm more comfortable with Siril for non-linear process, but I understand the capabilities of Pixinsight.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Onfray

[Chefgage]

18 hours ago, Onfray said:

Sure!

SW 72ED / Canon 450d modded / Astronomik CLS CCD

50x90" ISO 1600

I'll try M42 next to keep learning. I guess big and bright targets are the best to practice.

Today I played a little with Pixinsight and Starnet. I have to say that I'm more comfortable with Siril for non-linear process, but I understand the capabilities of Pixinsight.

 

 

Any guiding being used. Interested as I use basically the same setup but start to get star trails at about 45 seconds or more. This is with good polar alignment.

[Onfray]

1 hour ago, Chefgage said:

Any guiding being used. Interested as I use basically the same setup but start to get star trails at about 45 seconds or more. This is with good polar alignment.

Nop, no guiding. Even bad balancing....this night I only have 30min of exposure to M42

30 x 60" ISO 800, no darks, no flats, no bias, super bad focus, only testing the framing of the object.

 

 

The balancing is very critical on the SA, I need a large dovetail to balance properly the 72ED

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Onfray

[Chefgage]

M31 using the star adventurer, Canon 200D with CLS light pollution filter and Skywatcher 72ED.

Lights 102

Darks 20

Bias 50

ISO 1600

Exposure 50 seconds.

 

[Onfray]

Last test before some mods to SA

Same equipment.

Canon 450d modded

Astronomik CLS CCD

SW 72ED

No guiding

40 x 90" / ISO 1600 / No darks, no flats, no bias

 

 

Heart Nebula needs many more integration time, but as a test for plate solving, I'm happy.

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Onfray

[Onfray]

Waiting the dovetail....400grs for 1€

 

 

 

 

[Victor Boesen]

4 minutes ago, Onfray said:

Waiting the dovetail....400grs for 1€

 

 

 

 

Don't drop that one one your feet while messing around in the dark!!

[Onfray]

46 minutes ago, Victor Boesen said:

Don't drop that one one your feet while messing around in the dark!!

Part of the imaging excitement

[Rapid]

Hello Everyone!

I just recently aquired the SA Pro in September and almost completed my setup I want to shoot with. Only the dummy battery is missing, so I cannot shoot all night long, yet.

This is my Horsehead and Flame Nebula from last night. I had some problem with the PA, because the fog was so dense, it was hard to see the Polaris.

Fortunately and for my surprise, the image came out quite good, regardless the light pollution what is reflected by the fog. I'm under Bortle 2.6, BTW.

The equipment I used:

Nikon D7100, Nikon AF 300mm F4

16x100s + dark + flat + bias

Stacked in Astro Pixel Processor, stretched in PS, corrected in LR.

 

 

[andy fearn]

That's very nice

[Onfray]

Finally, everything well balanced....

[Victor Boesen]

12 minutes ago, Onfray said:

Finally, everything well balanced....

That looks great! What dovetail are you using? I purchased the 21cm skywatcher dovetail but it was a pain in the *** fitting it to the tube rings since they used different screws... Would love to get something more suitable!

Sorry if this is slightly beyond the topic of this thread!

[Onfray]

15 minutes ago, Victor Boesen said:

That looks great! What dovetail are you using? I purchased the 21cm skywatcher dovetail but it was a pain in the *** fitting it to the tube rings since they used different screws... Would love to get something more suitable!

Sorry if this is slightly beyond the topic of this thread!

This

https://aliexpress.com/item/32859631147.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.31b163c0LxoN55

 

It's cheap but is very nice and sturdy

[Whistlin Bob]

Here are a couple from this week. I've recently acquired a fan-cooled Altair Hypercam 183c, which with it's tiny pixels and light weight is a great partner for the Star Adventurer. At the moment I'm partnering it with a vintage 135mm m42 lens which seems to work well.

We've had a very bright moon, so I've had the Ha filter in. This one is a mono presentation of the North America and Pelican nebulae, 80x 60 secs with gain of 600.

Here's a 110x 60secs on the California nebula. I've cheated a bit on this one- it's purely Ha, but there was a bit of signal on the blue and green channels so I de-saturated the stars to give the appearance of RGB. I've also made the sky darker than usual as I had some mutant godzilla sized dust bunnies. 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Whistlin Bob
Re-process!

[Onfray]

Last night I have a lot of trouble with tracking.

 

The thing is...the trail isn't a continous line, but a "jumpy" line

 

 

Do you have any idea about what happened here?

 

Finally, after only 30min of integration a lot of discarded images and as usual, without darks or flats or bias.

 

 

 

Thank you!

Edited November 10, 2020 by Onfray

[AnonymousAnimosity]

Here's a picture of the Sadr region at 135mm (Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm f3.5 at f4) with a modded canon 100D and the Optolong L-Enhance clip-in filter. 74x180" lights at ISO 800 plus flats and biases. Stacked in DSS and processed in startools, perhaps too aggressively. It was taken from a bortle 6 town a few days ago when the moon was almost full.

 

 

[orions_boot]

I am looking at getting one of these.  

I have a Cannon 550d, cannon 50mm prime, the stock 18-55mm and Cannon EF 70-300mm.

My question is what do you use to line up the camera to the target?  Is there something like a finder scope, red dot finder, or just keep looking through the screen until you see it?

[Chefgage]

14 minutes ago, orions_boot said:

I am looking at getting one of these.  

I have a Cannon 550d, cannon 50mm prime, the stock 18-55mm and Cannon EF 70-300mm.

My question is what do you use to line up the camera to the target?  Is there something like a finder scope, red dot finder, or just keep looking through the screen until you see it?

When I am using just my DSLR and lens on the star adventurer I use a red dot finder and hot shoe adapter. This is the one I use https://www.365astronomy.com/Blitz-Hotshoe-dSLR-Camera-Adapter-and-Red-Dot-Finder-COMBO.html

I then take a short sub to properly frame up the target.

 

 

 

[kendg]

If you have a 3d printer (or know someone who does)

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1232862

or this (which I think is better)

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1232862