How to reduce trails

[IamLost]

I recently got a photography setup consisting of an EQ5 mount, ED80 and a canon 700d. For the first time, I tried to photograph the Orion Nebula  but It didn’t go too well. The actual nebula itself was distinguishable, however since I was using the manual slow turn cable to account for the earth’s rotation I found it extremely difficult to actually get a photo without any stars trailing. Are there any ways to reduce this or do a better job manually, or am I going to have to get some motors for the mount? I’ll include the image I took with a 20 second exposure (it’s slightly blurry and cropped because I took a photo of my computer screen)

[dobblob]

Which Skywatcher EQ 5 mount are we talking of here? Which brand? The EQ 5's I see out there are the costly goto's and do not have a manual cable.

If yours has a manual cable to turn RA then it is certainly a mount unsuitable for astrophotography on nebulae. Also you say it is not motorised ?

Best post a photo so we are sure what you have.

Edit: Sorry, I see which one you have now-indeed a manual EQ. So yes it is very difficult to track manually no matter how smooth and steady you feel your control is. Also as soon as you touch the cable handle it will impart movement and vibration into the scope. Those cables are really only intended for manual steering.

How are you looking at the star/image to perform the manual tracking? Usually the camera will not show a live view so I can only guess you have a second scope attached or using  a finder.

Edited February 18, 2020 by dobblob
insufficient research on mount..

[IamLost]

25 minutes ago, dobblob said:

Which Skywatcher EQ 5 mount are we talking of here? Which brand? The EQ 5's I see out there are the costly goto's and do not have a manual cable.

If yours has a manual cable to turn RA then it is certainly a mount unsuitable for astrophotography on nebulae. Also you say it is not motorised ?

Best post a photo so we are sure what you have.

Edit: Sorry, I see which one you have now-indeed a manual EQ. So yes it is very difficult to track manually no matter how smooth and steady you feel your control is. Also as soon as you touch the cable handle it will impart movement and vibration into the scope. Those cables are really only intended for manual steering.

How are you looking at the star/image to perform the manual tracking? Usually the camera will not show a live view so I can only guess you have a second scope attached or using  a finder.

Yes, I was looking at the stars by using a finderscope and the thing I was using to manually turn the telescope was this https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/skywatcher-slow-motion-cable-set-eq2-eq5-az3.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm7aOuYLa5wIVRrDtCh0fyQAYEAQYAiABEgI_rvD_BwE

[dobblob]

OK that's the problem. The finder scope has nowhere near enough magnification for you to keep the star as accurately as required on the cross hairs.

Not sure how that can be improved except to fit a much longer focal length finder and/or higher mag eyepiece.

Not a satisfactory solution as it effectively means another scope attached!

Perhaps fitting a drive motor should be the way to go.

[happy-kat]

Unfortunately in a catch 22 situation. If you are manually tracking I would reduce your exposure length down to say 5 seconds but this means now needing to capture many more images to then stack to combine what you captured.

Orion is a large target in this case I would actually use just your camera and a camera lens, if you have the kit lens use that. You could even try 20 seconds or even 30 if at 18mm and try hand tracking again.

[ollypenrice]

You need an accurate, motorized mount for this job. That's my honest answer.

Olly

[IamLost]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

You need an accurate, motorized mount for this job. That's my honest answer.

Olly

Ok Thanks

[IamLost]

3 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Unfortunately in a catch 22 situation. If you are manually tracking I would reduce your exposure length down to say 5 seconds but this means now needing to capture many more images to then stack to combine what you captured.

Orion is a large target in this case I would actually use just your camera and a camera lens, if you have the kit lens use that. You could even try 20 seconds or even 30 if at 18mm and try hand tracking again.

I’ll probably just get some motors but thanks for the info

[michael8554]

With your present setup take a series of exposures from 5 seconds upwards (without manually trying to track), say 5, 10, 15secs, and examine the results.

Then you will know the exposure that gives acceptable trailing.

You don't need to take photos of your screen, use the Prt Scrn button on the top row of your keyboard to send a screen grab to the Clipboard.

[IamLost]

17 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

With your present setup take a series of exposures from 5 seconds upwards (without manually trying to track), say 5, 10, 15secs, and examine the results.

Then you will know the exposure that gives acceptable trailing.

You don't need to take photos of your screen, use the Prt Scrn button on the top row of your keyboard to send a screen grab to the Clipboard.

Thanks for the advice, and also the reason I took a photo of my screen was because my login details for this site are saved on my phone so I posted this on my phone 

[tomato]

Great advice from @michael8554, see what you can get away with unguided exposures before trailing becomes an issue then align and stack these together using some free software called Deep Sky Stacker. There are some great images of brighter nebulae taken this way, but I agree with the above posters that you will need to get a motorised mount at some point for Astrophotography.

[Tomatobro]

On 18/02/2020 at 13:20, IamLost said:

I’ll probably just get some motors but thanks for the info

 Welcome to the astro photographer's slippery slope...asset rich cash poor!