My first go, any tips?

[geekypenguin]

Last night was finally clear enough to get out and try to capture the classic Orion Nebula.

I used a canon DSLR with a telephoto lens at 250mm on my eq5 telescope mount.

 

I was doing 15 second exposures at iso 3200 and f5.6, stacked with DSS and then adjusted and cropped with Photoshop. I didn't get many shots in before clouds came over (just over 100, plus dark, flat and bias frames) so do I just need to take more photos to get better images or is there something with my technique i can improve? Should I be taking a range of exposure lengths to get a good mix of the faint shadows and the detail in the bright core, or should I take lots more shorter exposures?

 

All tips greatfuly received 

Edited March 2, 2020 by geekypenguin

[CraigT82]

Not bad at all! I think your focus is a little off and there may be a slight tracking error. Shotting some shorter and longer exposures is recommended for Orion as it has such a large dynamic range. Shorter for the core and longer for the wisps. Perhaps 5 secs and 45 secs to add in? 

[geekypenguin]

Thanks, yes I noticed the tracking was a little off as it had drifted over the half an hour or so that I was shooting but Orion stayed in frame the whole time. Ill put a bit more effort into the alignment next time.

I'll also experiment with the exposure times as suggested.

Any tips for getting a better focus? I looked through the live view and adjusted to get a star as small as possible

[CraigT82]

Yes I find focusing with DSLR and lens very tricky. Did you zoom in as far as you can go in live view to focus? Controlling the camera via a computer or tablet via backyard eos or similar can help you nail the focus and generally make the capture side of things much easier

[geekypenguin]

I did, yes, but it's not very far on my camera.

 

I've read a few posts about backyard Eos so that could be worth a try next, just need to find a long enough usb cable

[Adreneline]

1 hour ago, geekypenguin said:

I've read a few posts about backyard Eos so that could be worth a try next

I’m a fan of BYEoS and the focus aid is great. Others will advise APT which is much cheaper and more versatile and has a variety of focus aids.

I seem to recall that if you go to the BYEoS site it gives you the optimum ISO to use for each Canon camera it supports.

Excellent first image though - loads better than my first attempt. Well done!

Adrian

[geekypenguin]

Thanks Adrian, I'll take a look!

[happy-kat]

If you have a canon and an Android phone take a look at DSLR Controller it makes focusing so much easier

[alacant]

9 hours ago, geekypenguin said:

it's not very far on my camera

Hi

Choose your zoom then autofocus on the moon. Tape the lens to stop the focus ring moving. Now switch the lens to manual.

That will get you to where the lens thinks is infinity. Unfortunately, CA may mislead it and you'll have only the blue and green in focus leaving red fringes on stars. If you've a good lens you may however be lucky.

HTH

[geekypenguin]

40 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

If you have a canon and an Android phone take a look at DSLR Controller it makes focusing so much easier

I'm not sure if my camera is supported as it's not supported by a lot of mobile apps I've tried in the past but I'll give it a go

[geekypenguin]

18 minutes ago, alacant said:

Choose your zoom then autofocus on the moon.

Hadn't thought of that, thanks!

[happy-kat]

2 minutes ago, geekypenguin said:

I'm not sure if my camera is supported as it's not supported by a lot of mobile apps I've tried in the past but I'll give it a go

Which camera is it?

Try the free remote release app first.

[geekypenguin]

600D, looks like it is supported on their website.

A lot of the apps only work on WiFi or Bluetooth which mine doesn't have, but looks like this one does usb too

[happy-kat]

600d is a great camera. You'll need an OTG cable to use with the camera's usb cable

Edited March 5, 2020 by happy-kat
O to many

[MarkAR]

A good start there. Manual focus on a lens is a lot of trial and error, maybe try a Bhatinov mask along with a laptop to capture and zoom in.

[Lancebloke]

I am new to this but I normally focus a good as possible at the zoom I want, then use the digital zoom, refocus and the same again until I cant (normally twice). That has seemed to work ok so far.

With exposure time, I used 180s exposures for my last attempt which got quite a lit of the fainter detail but blew out the core. 

Next time I am going to do the same for the detail and then some much shorter (15 - 30 seconds) for the core. See how that goes.

[tomato]

That's a great first image, way better than my first DSLR attempts.  I agree that the focus maybe slightly soft and there does appear to be some trailing. Did you stack all your subs in DSS? Any which are well below par due to wind, cloud, etc, should be left out as they can impact on the final quality of the stacked subs.

M42 is a tricky subject to get right due to the high dynamic range,  previous posters have pointed the way with a combination of  long and short subs, there are loads of tutorials on YouTube on how to blend these together in PS.