Andromeda and Pleidies

[philsail1]

Here are a couple of photos of M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and the Pleidies Star Constellation. They were taken with my Canon A570is Digicamera, fitted to the eyepiece (Meade 1.25" 40mm) using a clamp on camera adaptor. The scope used was an Orion Optics (f4.5) 8" Newt. The camera was set at 800 ASA, and 15 second exposure. I further brightened the image using the simple "Picasa" program. They both are single images.

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Regards,

philsail1

[ChrisEdu]

What clamp on camera adapter? It sounds useful!

[philsail1]

It's this one Chris,

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=swinivcamadaptor

Cheap, and it works!

You just have to be careful that you leave enough space inbetween the end of your camera lens, and the eyepiece that you clamp the camera and bracket to. I personally don't use the zoom on my Canon A570is much, as I find the eyepiece gives plenty of magnification.

You can set this bracket up inside the house, then when you've got your scope in focus with what ever eyepiece your using, simply clamp the bracket/camera to your eyepiece, set the camera on say a two second timer (to avoid camera shake when pressing the shutter), press the shutter and that's it.

I have found this type of bracket very good. Simple to use, and will cope with almost all digicameras.

Regards,

philsail1

Regards,

philsail1

[Whippy]

Looking good there Phil , this is how I started imaging last year with my Canon Pwoershot A610. Without knowing exactly how your camera works, have a look at the timer menu on the camera. You may be able to take multiple shots with it which you can stack in Deep Sky Stacker and get some pretty good results. With my Canon, I was able to do 10 exposures of 15 seconds each . I also gave put a 5 second delay in there too so I could press the shutter button, retreat and let any vibrations die down before the camera starts the first exposure.

Tony..

[ChrisEdu]

That sounds like a good idea. I know on my D300 I can use the intervalometer (sp) to take multiple images. I wonder, has anyone tried stacking photos on a DSLR by using the multiple exposure feature, or image overlay feature?

[Psychobilly]

Hi Phil,

Some nice afocal shots

Chris - the in camera multiple exposure wouldnt do the star registration etc thats peformed in DSS or other stacking software...horses for courses so in this one i'd shoot individual raw subs for processing outside the camera...

Billy...

Phil sorry for the drift off topic

[ChrisEdu]

Ok

[philsail1]

Tony,

Yes, I can take multiple shots with my Canon A570is, but I don't know how to use any of the "stacking" programs as yet (it's just getting the time to play about with them).

Oh! and I've noticed that my batteries flatten pretty quickly when doing several 15 second delay shots!

After what "Billy" says, it looks like taking several dealy shots together wouldn't work?

(I'm quite happy at the moment to experiment with various apertures, shutter speeds, and set scene modes on the A570, to find out what it's full capabilities are. I will try several multiple shots of with the Moon and planets, and put them on my stacker program and see what happens.

Thanks for your advice fellas.

Regards,

philsail1

Regards,

philsail1

[Whippy]

Tony,

Yes, I can take multiple shots with my Canon A570is, but I don't know how to use any of the "stacking" programs as yet (it's just getting the time to play about with them).

Oh! and I've noticed that my batteries flatten pretty quickly when doing several 15 second delay shots!

After what "Billy" says, it looks like taking several dealy shots together wouldn't work?

Deep Skystacker (DSS) is fairly straightforward to use Phil, just load up all your images into it and stack 'em. You can get a bit more technical but it does do it's pretty well if you just let it get on with it.

I ended up buying some rechargables for mine otherwise it was a set of new batteries every night!!

Not quite sure what Billy is on about here but AFAIK, your shots are pretty much the same as mine that I get with my Atik camera so there shouldn't be any problem stacking them and processing them as I do. Indeed, the only real difference between what I did with my Canon and what I do now with my Atik is in the processing.

Because you're limited to a short exposure time (I guess 15 seconds is your maximum?), what you need to do is get as much light into the camera as quickly as possible, so that's using your fastest scope and making the camera as sensitive as possible (maximum ISO, lowest 'f' number) and take as many shots as your batteries will allow.

Here's a couple of images I did afocally.

M42: http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,20287.0.html

NGC 457: http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,21216.0.html

Double cluster: http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,21218.0.html

Tony..

[Psychobilly]

Tony...

Chris was on about using the multiple exposure facility in his camera...thinking it would stack the images one on top of another... which it would do but there would be no alignment calculations being done...if you had pefect polar alignmnet with zero drift then it would work.... but in reality....probably not...

Billy...

[Whippy]

Tony...

Chris was on about using the multiple exposure facility in his camera...thinking it would stack the images one on top of another... which it would do but there would be no alignment calculations being done...if you had pefect polar alignmnet with zero drift then it would work.... but in reality....probably not...

Billy...

Ah, gotcha. Mine and Phil's cameras are only simple 'point & shoot' models so we don't have such luxuries.

Tony..

[ChrisEdu]

I've got a range of cameras from fairly cheap and cheerful to the fairly expensive. The camera that I was originally thinking of was one of the simpler point and shoot types. The D300 is my DSLR that I like to attach to my scpe at some future point.

[gary1968]

They are very nice Philsail........ :-)

Gary