Hello from North Somerset, UK

[Endolf]

Hi

I've had a Orion Europa 150 f5 for about 20 years, it's not had much use in recent years due to living with light pollution near Bristol. I tried to do some photography with the scope a few years back but struggled with only having a manual mount, so really short exposures, using my other halves Canon 1000D and no filters. I've recently started using it again and decided to go for it, one bit at a time, so I upgraded my mount getting my first goto mount. I figured I didn't want to buy twice so I just went completely over spec so it will outlast me :). I've also started looking in to Stellarmate to control the setup. Still using the Canon 1000D and my ancient scope for now, but hope to upgrade things over time.

[John]

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'm in North Somerset as well - Portishead.

 

[Mr Spock]

Hi, welcome to SGL 

[Endolf]

.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Endolf
Duplicate...

[Endolf]

4 minutes ago, John said:

Hi and welcome to the forum

I'm in North Somerset as well - Portishead.

 

Aaah, the posh side of Junction 19 😉, I'm on the other side.

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL.

[PeterCPC]

Hello and welcome.

Peter

[Stephen Green]

Hi welcome to the SGL

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi and welcome. 

[John]

1 hour ago, Endolf said:

Aaah, the posh side of Junction 19 😉, I'm on the other side.

My other half is from "over there"

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @Endolf and welcome to SGL.  

[Floater]

Welcome. I hope you have lots of fun with the ‘reboot’. 🙂

[banjaxed]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

[Endolf]

 The best is unpacked, seen with my old mount

Had to put some new holes in the dovetail and machine a recess in the back to fit my old tube rings to the new mount.

Set up mostly, mount, DSLR and stellarmate waiting for some clear skies....

But not tonight 🙄

Edited February 4, 2020 by Endolf
Fix typo

[John]

Nice gear but its not really gear testing weather around here tonight

[Endolf]

1 minute ago, John said:

Nice gear but its not really gear testing weather around here tonight

Unfortunately not, 2 forecasts are suggesting Thursday this week and then maybe Wednesday next week. Guess I have time to figure out how the mount, Stellarmate and the DSLR work together 🙂

[ronl]

Hello and welcome to the community, see you around the forums.

Clear Sky's.

[sloz1664]

Hi, and a very warm welcome to the Lounge

Steve

[Endolf]

I got back late this evening from a meeting, so had to do my first setup with the mount in the dark. I need longer mains leads and I need to do some more research on polar alignment, but I managed to get enough set up to give *something* a try. I didn't get the Stellarmate set up this evening (power cable issues and time), so I didn't manage to get the camera triggering remotely, which meant 30s was the max. I managed to get my first reasonable image. I need to work on getting good focus too, but I did managed to capture my first photo.

M42, a nice easy starting point

Un processed, unstacked, single image. A personal first even if it's not very impressive  (and could have been done with much simpler equipment....)

[Endolf]

Managed to make some progress this evening, I got 20 minutes on M42 in 2 minute subs, played around with ASTAP for stacking the images and this fell out. Need to do some more reading as the stars are blown, but feeling quite good about how this is going . On the subs I can tell some of the issue is coma, and some of the issue is the light pollution where I am and the fact that the moon is not well placed right now.

 

[John]

Last night was challenging here because of the moonlight and the general transparency was not the best either. I stuck to Venus, the Moon and double stars ! (observation).

You could start a thread in the "Getting started with imaging" section if you want some feedback etc. There are loads on imagers on this forum from starters to people who write books on the subject and all are very friendly

This is the section of the forum that I was referring to:

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/184-getting-started-with-imaging/

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Pete in Bedfordshire 🙂