First pictures with the star adventurer: Cygnus, the Pleiades and Andromeda

[AnonymousAnimosity]

Hi everybody, since my first post on this forum I have upgraded my setup with a Star adventurer and an old pentax 70-200 f4 lens. I haven't had much time at home (bortle 4) since february due to university and work in the summer, these are the pictures I've managed to capture with my new gear. All the images were stacked in DSS and processed with startools. The workflow was very similar for all of them: autodev, crop, bin, wipe, autodev, sharp, contrast, hdr, colour and noise reduction.

This is a widefield view of the cygnus constellation, I was hoping to center it around sadr but I didn't realize the framing was off until I processed the image. If I remember correctly it's a stack of 45-60 60s shots at f3.2 with a 50mm f1.8 lens. It was my first time processing a region without large bright objects, there is definitely a big margin for improvement in the processing of this type of data.

Another 50mm shot, this time about 90 minutes of total exposure in 60" shots. I was hoping to capture some of the dust between the pleiades and the california nebula, surely more data would have helped but again the processing can be improved.

This was my first attempt with the 200mm lens, about 100 minutes of total data, 60" shots. This lens suffers from severe aberration of all kinds, therefore this was shot at f8. It was definitely stretched too far, because I was trying to pull out more detail than less than 2 hours of data can offer.

This is yesterday's attempt at andromeda, captured at 200mm, f6.3, ISO 1600. Only 60 minutes of total data, 30x120s lights and some flats. I'm fairly satisfied, although I can tell that the colour balance is not optimal (most stars are white-blueish). This too is stretched too far, the next time I shoot this I will be aiming for at least 2 hours of total exposure. Speaking of that, as of now I feel limited by the lack of an intervalometer plug in my camera (pentax k-s1), which means I use my phone as a remote. In the near future I'll either find a way to tape the phone to the tripod in a way that the IR blaster's always pointing at the camera, or look into building a simple IR intervalometer. 

I'm open for advice on how to optimize my photographs, in both acquisition and processing. I will update this post with links to the stacked files in case any of you want to try doing a better job with my data.

Thanks for your attention and clear skies for all!

 

[Davey-T]

Good start, there's a thread running called imaging with the Star Adventurer be good to add your images to it.

Dave

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/303949-imaging-with-a-star-adventurer/page/28/

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by Davey-T

[daemon]

Great images! Well done. Especially the Andromeda shot!

I also have a new Star Adventurer and have posted my first attempt at M42 with it. So far I am quite impressed with its capabilities.

Clear Skies!!

Daemon Steve

 

 

[rickwayne]

That's a beautiful M31. Did you do localized contrast enhancement to bring out the dust lanes, or is this just overall stretching?

[AnonymousAnimosity]

50 minutes ago, rickwayne said:

That's a beautiful M31. Did you do localized contrast enhancement to bring out the dust lanes, or is this just overall stretching?

I did play around a bit with the contrast module in startools to make them pop out.

[Science562h]

Your Andromeda pic looks best.  

Image 1. Widefield of M45 Las Pleiades. No 'scope, just camera. Canon T6 18-55 mm. Celestron SLT mount. 10 light x 15 sec, 3 darks. Location B5 red zone. January 2020. 

Image 2. Widefield of M31 Andromeda Galaxy. No 'scope or flter, just camera. Canon T6 18-55 mm, 55 mm. 94 light x 15 sec, 11 darks. B5 red zone. January 2020. 

  

Image 3. Widefield of M31 Andromeda Galaxy cropped.  Settings from image 2. January 2020.

 

I'm going to try 20 & 30 sec exposures next, take a trip to the country. I'm surprised my alt-az mount didn't elongate my stars. I'm only supposed to be able, to do 5 sec exposures @ 55 mm, using the 500 rule. Other than that, I will have to zoom out to 18-35 mm or so, for 20-30 sec exposures. Any Tips?  

Edited January 25, 2020 by Science562h
Grammar