first target recommendations for my modded dslr

[scitmon]

Tonight is looking promising for imaging.  I'm hoping to test out my astro-modded canon 700d & 1000d with my 80ED DS-pro for the first time and looking for recommendations for targets.  I'm looking for something between north and southwest that will stay high in the sky for as much of the night as possible. 

Looking at Stellarium, M33 looks perfectly placed for this, but is it a good test of my modded camera?  From what I can gather there isn't massive amounts of H-alpha in there.  Other candidates could be IC59, Fish Head & Heart Nebulas (might get a meridian flip early on tho). 

I am very much a novice in astrophotgraphy and I am not sure whether these targets are too difficult?

[tooth_dr]

What focal length lens are you using along with the the ED80?

[scitmon]

4 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

What focal length lens are you using along with the the ED80?

The focal length of the ed80 with my reducer will be 510mm.  I may also try piggybacking the 1000d with a 50mm lens.

[tooth_dr]

I have a similar setup, so will be following this thread too.  I sometimes struggle to decide what to image.  Recent targets I have done include the Rosette Nebula, IC1805, and IC443.

[Craney]

Rosette  ( plug in the co-ords for the star cluster NGC2244 in the middle).

The advantage of this one is that you get a positive I.D on the LCD screen with 30 sec (ISO 6400)....yep, the nebula very satisfyingly just jumps out at you.. .  then change the parameters according to what you want to do with the image.

Enjoy.

 

Sean..

 

[Stub Mandrel]

The Rosette should be an excellent target for you to try.

[scitmon]

15 minutes ago, Craney said:

Rosette  ( plug in the co-ords for the star cluster NGC2244 in the middle).

The advantage of this one is that you get a positive I.D on the LCD screen with 30 sec (ISO 6400)....yep, the nebula very satisfyingly just jumps out at you.. .  then change the parameters according to what you want to do with the image.

Enjoy.

 

Sean..

 

 

14 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

The Rosette should be an excellent target for you to try.

Unfortunately, The Rosette is in the South, which will be blocked out by my house.

[PeterCPC]

You could try The Wizard if can start fairly early.
Peter

[coatesg]

Just now, scitmon said:

 

Unfortunately, The Rosette is in the South, which will be blocked out by my house.

Move the house!!

M33 is a good one to try - there are a fair amount of HII regions in the galaxy that the modding will help with. If you're looking for pure HII regions that are high, The Flaming Star (IC405) in Auriga transits near midnight and is almost overhead from the UK, and IC410 is next door. There's also the Pacman in Cassiopeia (NGC281), and the heart/soul nearby. 

[scitmon]

5 hours ago, coatesg said:

There's also the Pacman in Cassiopeia (NGC281)

I think this might be the winner!

[Gerry Casa Christiana]

NGC 1499. California nebula. More in the east. 

Gerry

[scitmon]

I did go for the Pacman Nebula in the end.  This was my second session with my new mount so I am still very much on the learning curve with it.  It was my first go trying dithering as well, and had some issues.  I was using APT and the movement from each dither seemed to be quite big, even on the lowest setting! I initially thought the was something wrong with my alignment to begin with so some time was spent trying to solve that.  I also had dew problems which severely affected half of my subs.  

Here is what I managed with around 40 x 3 min subs:

[TareqPhoto]

Not bad, good image, keep doing it if you want or find another target to imaging, i am lucky enough that most targets in my yard can be seen fine by midnight, we have clouds these days but i am not in UK or Europe, so the clouds will go away then i can see the Orion and M45 and M31 and Rosette, but do i need to look at different targets than those as long i am just stating out? 

I am really looking for to do the Cone nebula or as they call it "Christmas tree" nebula, it is really very nice target, and other targets more beautiful could be far away or difficult to shoot with my cheap small one, but i have my house blocking the south too, and most above targets i mentioned are coming from East to West which means passing over my house not behind, my yard facing the North perfectly and also most of the East and parts of West are well seen, i just forget the south completely.

[coatesg]

That's a good first go! Tracking looks OK, though I wonder if the focus is a touch soft?

Dithering can be a bit of a fiddle until you find the right settings for the mount - it is generally a bit easier I find when guiding as the autoguider will feedback the required dither amount. You really only want something like 5 pixels of movement ideally - enough to get the rejection routines to work.

[tooth_dr]

You can work out what settings to use for dithering, the settings need to be correct in both PHD and APT.  Ideally you want about 15 pixels dithering with a DSLR.  If you post details on your guidecam and scope, and main scope and camera this can be worked out for you.

[scitmon]

1 hour ago, coatesg said:

That's a good first go! Tracking looks OK, though I wonder if the focus is a touch soft?

Dithering can be a bit of a fiddle until you find the right settings for the mount - it is generally a bit easier I find when guiding as the autoguider will feedback the required dither amount. You really only want something like 5 pixels of movement ideally - enough to get the rejection routines to work.

I did buy a bahtinov mask and use it, but it's very difficult to make out the diffraction spikes even on highest exposure and ISO.  I did my best, perhaps the focus changed with the conditions through the night.

59 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

You can work out what settings to use for dithering, the settings need to be correct in both PHD and APT.  Ideally you want about 15 pixels dithering with a DSLR.  If you post details on your guidecam and scope, and main scope and camera this can be worked out for you.

That's the thing, I was not guiding and I don't have a guide scope yet which probably explains why the dithering was so big even on the lowest distance setting?  I'm going to bite the bullet and order the FLO guide scope bundle and some dew heaters soon.

[PeterCPC]

The diffraction spikes are easy to see if you snap an image at say 2 secs exposure. Not easy to see in live view. Keep snapping exposures and adjusting until you are satisfied with the spikes.

Peter