Starting to image DSO

[feverdreamer1]

On 28/06/2020 at 18:40, iapa said:

one POSSIBILITY is to

1. find a DSO that is going to be accessible during night time hours. Stellarium is a good free tool.
2. narrow that list down to this were there is a visible, or near visible, star that the camera will "see"
3. work out best exposure (I think that's roughly 400/focal length of lens) you are probably going to be 1s exposures with a 400mm lens
4. take some images of the sky with the "visible" star in centre
5. shift the image centre to include the DSO of interest
6. take as many images as you can in time available

you can stack these (Deep Sky Stacker is free) to see how things come out.

 

PS - it's Sunday Dinner so, a few libations have now been consumed

 

You can PM me tomorrow is you want.

Yeah I've heard of DSS but I prefer Sequator, because DSS has been giving me installing problem. But will definitely try out the tips you give.

Thanks and clear skies!

S

[feverdreamer1]

On 29/06/2020 at 03:55, rickwayne said:

There are also several deep sky objects that don't need a ton of magnification. In the winter the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex can be imaged with a 50mm; the North America and Pelican Nebulae are also pretty big (one of Carole's shots is of the NA). The Andromeda Galaxy won't fill the frame by any means at 135mm, but it will certainly dominate the image.

The big advantage of compositing short exposures together for star trails is that no single event can ruin your image. E.g. kicking the tripod, vehicle driving by with headlights, firefly landing on the lens...if you have one super-long exposure, any of those can tank it. If you're putting together short ones, you shrug and throw that one away. I use Photoshop and a "Maximum" stacking mode on Smart Objects, for what that's worth. You do have to be careful about the downtime between exposures, if you look carefully at this image the trails look sort of "dotted":
 

Andromeda is actually behind my neighbours house unfortunately. So I'd have to wait for the whole night to get a decent image and with work that simply doesnt work. What I will do however is try anything from clusters to what's available in the cygnus constellation.

That's a really good picture by the way, I'm blown away.

Thanks,

S

[ollypenrice]

We don't actually know where you are, feverdreamer1. I'm in SE France and have a minimum of nearly 4 hours of astronomical darkness on the shortest nights (moon not counting.) The sky is absolutely stuffed with DSOs for all focal lengths at the moment but as you go north, so you lose the darkness. Bear this in mind.

Olly

[JonCarleton]

It isn't easy, especially with dark, dim objects.  That is why it is better to start with the low hanging fruit (bright things).  But it is possible!