Milky Way from Spain

[carastro]

Staying with friends who are right on the coast 7 miles south of Estepona, we can see Gibraltar from their terrace.

It's Bortle 5 here and there are bright lights along the beach front which I had to mask out with a large board. I re-superimposed the Palm Tree from single shot over a trailed bit of their trellis.

I have never been much good at camera lens imaging but needs must:
Milky Way taken with Canon 1100D and stock lens @ F4.5
47 x 2mins with Ioptron Skytracker
A bit of thin cloud around invisible to naked eye

This is an edit I did further down the thread, I think new viewers are missing it and just looking at this top one:

For the edit I managed to add a bit more data taken earlier in the evening but with a number of land objects in the way, so mainly it has extended the image on the Right and enabled me to move the re-superimposed palm tree further to the right. 

Edited June 15, 2019 by carastro

[Ags]

The image link is broken for me at least...

[happy-kat]

That's a nice image plenty to see and great to see a kit lens example.

[Ceramus]

Great image, with Jupiter shining bright next to Antares?

[Ouroboros]

It is nice. Saturn on the other side of the Milky Way too I think? Was it tricky processing given the Bortle class 5 sky? 

[carastro]

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Was it tricky processing given the Bortle class 5 sky? 

No problem processing.  

Carole

[JamesF]

Not the most astrophotography-friendly of environments   Worth the effort, though.

James

[Ouroboros]

Ah, well, it's easy for the expert!   

[carastro]

Now that I am home I have reprocessed this.  This is also a stack of both sets of data (3mins and 2mins) which for some reason i could not seem to successfully combine in Spain.  

I think this is smoother and less noisy and I cropped out some of the edge where there was a small gradient from what I think was a nearby palm tree and the effects of the local LP:

No flats were used for this image as despite being taken they completely messed up the image giving is swirling gradients all over.  Left them out and all I had to deal with was a couple of dust bunnies. 

Milky Way taken with Canon 1100D and stock lens @ F4.5
30 x 3mins + 16 x 2mins

Unguided on ioptron skytracker

[Laurin Dave]

Very nice Carole..  is that the 50mm lens ? 

Dave

[carastro]

Thanks Dave. Yes 50mm

[happy-kat]

My 1100d came with a 18-55mm zoom lens. I like your reprocess.

[carastro]

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My 1100d came with a 18-55mm zoom lens. I like your reprocess.

Actually you are quite right.  I got confused with another image I was doing the night before, where I used the Nifty 50.   The Milky Way image was indeed done with an 18-55mm zoom lens but at the lowest setting (18mm).

I should correct Laurin Dave.  

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 is that the 50mm lens ? 

Sorry Laurin, please read my previous sentence.

Carole 

[Seanelly]

How do you like the Ioptron mount? I almost bought one to start off my imaging venture with the DSLR, but in the end decided to go with the HEQ5, et al, mainly because of my experience with upgrading my Dobs several times until I was finally satisfied with the 10".

[Ouroboros]

Yes, you've improved that, Carole.  It has a better colour balance.  

[carastro]

Quote

How do you like the Ioptron mount?

It would not be my first choice for imaging, but as a simple mount for taking on a plane it serves its purpose.  The Skywatcher star adventurer possibly is better but more bits to it.  I like the simplicity of the Ioptron mount.  I generally only use it for travelling abroad, though  I think I used it once at camp to do the milky way on one occasion while my main rig was busy doing other imaging targets.

I am not sure whether I am likely to have much further use for it as I got the two main targets I wanted on this trip, and anything else I might want to image is too small for my camera lenses.  So unless I suddenly decide to travel to the Southern hemisphere - which is unlikely as I have already done that, I am not sure I will use it again, so will probably be selling it.

Carole