Altair astro hypercam 1600 M - what am I doing wrong?

[monikatt]

I recently bought a cooled hypercam for astro imaging. I have never used anything else then DSLR before, so I have no experience using this kind of camera.

I tryed to image the moon, since that is the easiest target to find on the night sky. But it appears as a light bulb when I try to photograph it. I got a huge lightbulb on the screen and when I attached the recommended spacers the lightbulb became worse, and its not even possibly to see what I tried to take a photo of.

The photos shows my very first attempt with the 30 mm nosepiece that came with the camera – here you can see the moon. The other photo is using the spacers that was recommended. I have tried to focus in various ways and I have also read the manual Altair astro have on their web page.

I have no clue of what I might doing wrong. Anyone have any experience with this?

My equipment: refractor Starwave 80 mm triplet APO, Altair astro flattener 1.0x, Altair astro hypercam 1600M. I dont have any filter

[StaceStar]

11 minutes ago, monikatt said:

I recently bought a cooled hypercam for astro imaging. I have never used anything else then DSLR before, so I have no experience using this kind of camera.

 

I tryed to image the moon, since that is the easiest target to find on the night sky. But it appears as a light bulb when I try to photograph it. I got a huge lightbulb on the screen and when I attached the recommended spacers the lightbulb became worse, and its not even possibly to see what I tried to take a photo of.

 

The photos shows my very first attempt with the 30 mm nosepiece that came with the camera – here you can see the moon. The other photo is using the spacers that was recommended. I have tried to focus in various ways and I have also read the manual Altair astro have on their web page.

 

I have no clue of what I might doing wrong. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

My equipment: refractor Starwave 80 mm triplet APO, Altair astro flattener 1.0x, Altair astro hypercam 1600M. I dont have any filter

 

Hi what spacers are you using ? It looks to me here like it was very out of focus and over exposed.

[monikatt]

I`m using T2-spacers as recommended from Altair astro: a 20 mm, a 10, mm and a 7,5 mm - and an adapter from M48 to T2. It might be very overexposed, I tryed to set gain to almost zero, but it didnt do any difference

 

[StaceStar]

It's all good just trying  to get an idea of the bigger picture. What was the exposure time of these pics? Generally with something bright like the moon, you would be looking at very very short exposures 

[Nikolas74]

I think it's over exposed .... i had the same problem when i first switched to ccd from dslr.....Specially with the moon because its very bright try to lower your exposure time.....

I remember that was my first experiment also....

See if that works.....

[david_taurus83]

What software are you using to capture? As above, it's way over exposed. Low gain and exposures in milliseconds is what you need. Then you can hone in your focus and make slight adjustments to gain and exposure. Sharpcap is free to use and offers lots of control over the camera.

 

https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/

[bobro]

Like yourself, I was out last night testing my new Altair Hypercam 183M on the Moon. For comparison, here is a single sub at minimum gain (good for max dynamic range) and 12msec exposure.

 

[knobby]

The first image (on left) is nearly there ... just out of focus but exposure time looks good. just need to tweak slightly in or out from that.

[Bobinius]

3 hours ago, monikatt said:

I recently bought a cooled hypercam for astro imaging. I have never used anything else then DSLR before, so I have no experience using this kind of camera.

 

I tryed to image the moon, since that is the easiest target to find on the night sky. But it appears as a light bulb when I try to photograph it. I got a huge lightbulb on the screen and when I attached the recommended spacers the lightbulb became worse, and its not even possibly to see what I tried to take a photo of.

 

The photos shows my very first attempt with the 30 mm nosepiece that came with the camera – here you can see the moon. The other photo is using the spacers that was recommended. I have tried to focus in various ways and I have also read the manual Altair astro have on their web page.

 

I have no clue of what I might doing wrong. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

My equipment: refractor Starwave 80 mm triplet APO, Altair astro flattener 1.0x, Altair astro hypercam 1600M. I dont have any filter

 

Hi,

 

As others have responded already, it is overexposed. I think you should be able to focus. If you are using Altair Capture, you can try video mode and auto-exposition while selecting the moon. If the camera is set on unity gain (159 for 1600?) decrease the exposure until you get some texture on the moon other than the light bulb and adjust focus. 

 

All best

B

[Adam J]

4 hours ago, monikatt said:

I recently bought a cooled hypercam for astro imaging. I have never used anything else then DSLR before, so I have no experience using this kind of camera.

 

I tryed to image the moon, since that is the easiest target to find on the night sky. But it appears as a light bulb when I try to photograph it. I got a huge lightbulb on the screen and when I attached the recommended spacers the lightbulb became worse, and its not even possibly to see what I tried to take a photo of.

 

The photos shows my very first attempt with the 30 mm nosepiece that came with the camera – here you can see the moon. The other photo is using the spacers that was recommended. I have tried to focus in various ways and I have also read the manual Altair astro have on their web page.

 

I have no clue of what I might doing wrong. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

My equipment: refractor Starwave 80 mm triplet APO, Altair astro flattener 1.0x, Altair astro hypercam 1600M. I dont have any filter

 

As others have said your exposure is way too long, it should be 10's of milliseconds at zero gain. I imagine your issue is that you are yet to adjust to the delta in sensitivity from your DSLR.  

Adam

[Adam J]

3 hours ago, bobro said:

Like yourself, I was out last night testing my new Altair Hypercam 183M on the Moon. For comparison, here is a single sub at minimum gain (good for max dynamic range) and 12msec exposure.

Shame the moon was up but nice first light, gives you confidence things are working as they should be. 

Adam

[monikatt]

Thanks for all  the good feedback and advise.

I`m using Altair capture as software. I`m gona be more careful when it comes to the gain setting next time I`m out - and a few millisecond only.

Hopefully I`m gona try it again this week.