Should I even bother?

[feverdreamer1]

Regarding shooting NGC7000 and veil nebulas with a stock canon 550D, sturdy tripod, sky watcher star adventurer and bortle 8. No filters or modifications, but cygnus is at the zenith these days for me and thought it would be interesting to try and shoot it. 

Thanks in advance and clear skies!

[david_taurus83]

Give it a go at least.

[Craney]

Yeah, give it a go.

This is one from about 4 years ago. Canon 60D ( un-modded )    with an 80mm F5  ( FL=400mm)  Achromat refractor. (unguided).

It was before I started to take notes of exposure times, but the file data  says  ISO=6400.  exposure 180 secs, which is quite believable.

This is from Bortle 6 skies.

I think it is definitely out there to be got.

 

Sean.

 

[feverdreamer1]

5 minutes ago, Craney said:

Yeah, give it a go.

This is one from about 4 years ago. Canon 60D ( un-modded )    with an 80mm F5  ( FL=400mm)  Achromat refractor. (unguided).

It was before I started to take notes of exposure times, but the file data  says  ISO=6400.  exposure 180 secs, which is quite believable.

This is from Bortle 6 skies.

I think it is definitely out there to be got.

 

Sean.

 

Thanks for the info you provide, I will definitely give it a shot. Will try and go for about an hour of data (1 min exposures) at 250mm

Clear skies!

[endless-sky]

After a few sessions with an unmodded D5300 - that I bought March this year - I felt I was wasting precious imaging time for little results, from a Bortle 5. I modified it and the difference was night and day. Stock, DSLRs are usually less than 20% sensitive to H-alpha. That means that for every 5 hours you take, it's equivalent to 1 hour - in one of the most important band passes for most nebulae.

That said, as other people said, go for it. But one hour is quite low. Go as long as you can!

[feverdreamer1]

Thought I'd update this thread and comment on how it went.

I did about 30 pics on the veils and after not seeing anything on the subs I decided to give up on it. I'll probably try stacking it and see how it goes. On the bright side, i learnt quite a lot and got good shots on M31!

Clear skies

[endless-sky]

Don't judge the outcome of the integrated image by looking at a single subexposure. If the sub is not stretched, it should be almost completely black. Even the stretch shown when you look at the picture in the back of the camera display shouldn't show much.

The subframes of the image that's in my profile, unstretched, only showed a sea of black and some, very dim, stars (where the brightest ones are supposed to be).

[feverdreamer1]

1 minute ago, endlessky said:

Don't judge the outcome of the integrated image by looking at a single subexposure. If the sub is not stretched, it should be almost completely black. Even the stretch shown when you look at the picture in the back of the camera display shouldn't show much.

The subframes of the image that's in my profile, unstretched, only showed a sea of black and some, very dim, stars (where the brightest ones are supposed to be).

So should subs be almost black before stacking?

What if they actually show the object? Will it affect negatively?

I'm quite new to AP so sorry for dumb questions 

Thanks for the answer!

[endless-sky]

It really depends what program / method you use to see the subs and if the program / method applies some form of autostretch (to simulate non-linear data) or not (keep it linear). If you view it in linear state, everything should be almost black except for maybe the brightest stars (that should barely show). If you view the image in the back of camera display, the camera itself already performs some sort of stretch and you should actually be able to see a little more.

The general rule is to expose long enough (or if tracking is an issue, with high enough ISO) that the peak of the histogram, when seen from the back of camera display, is detached from the left side by about 1/4 to 1/3 (in other words, it should peak halfway between 0 and the middle, maybe a little more). Going more than that doesn't gain you any more signal, but actually harms dynamic range and saturates stars.

[smr]

Having imaged for the last 2-3 years with a Stock DSLR (Canon 80D) I would suggest upgrading to a modified DSLR asap. I procrastinated over buying a modified DSLR for the whole time I used my stock DSLR and tbh I should have upgraded a lot sooner. 

I quickly realised that there were a lot of targets I just couldn't image successfully with a stock DSLR but there were a few which surprised me. I think the Veil Nebula is actually quite bright compared to many other Ha rich targets (such as the Heart Nebula)... that, the Lagoon, Eagle etc. I just didn't bother imaging after trying the Rosette Nebula with my stock DSLR.

I'd always choose brighter DSOs or Galaxies with my 80D - M31, M42, M33 etc. although I was quite surprised with the Eastern Veil Nebula. I did plough 16 hours of integration time into it. I don't think it's impossible without a modified DSLR but it just takes much longer, it effectively takes 4 times as long on the basis that most DSLRs only let 20-30 percent of Ha photons through. A modified DSLR let's in 100 percent.

Some results with my unmodified 80D...

The Triangulum Galaxy, Messier 33 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Messier 42 - The Great Orion Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Eastern Veil Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr

Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 by Joel Spencer, on Flickr