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By cwinstone
Hello, does anyone know if my imaging train looks correct, and if it does, why am i still getting these coma errors?
Could it be incorrect backfocus? Searching the internet makes me think my dslr is 44mm, adding the t ring (even tried a 1mm spacer too) gets me to the required 55mm (assuming that's correct)
I have no idea how to solve this and i feel like I'm just throwing money down the drain fighting this in vien. Help would be much appreciated.
Skywacher Evostar 72ed
Reducer rotator for 72ed (needs this for extra distance to achieve focus, the reducer and adapter alone doesn't allow for enough outwards travel)
Reducer/corrector for ed72
Canon eos 650d
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By Uncertainty
Hi,
I am a complete novice and got into astrophotography in December of last year, I had some decent success using only my Canon 450D and stock 18-55mm lens.
Since then I have purchased a telescope and mount (Sky-Watcher Startravel 102 and the AZGTe WiFi GOTO mount), which arrived yesterday. Luck would have it that the skies were clear last night and I had a go at imaging both M42 and M31 (also tried m45 tonight just to see if I could fiddle around with anything to solve it, but no luck), both of which came out pretty dissapointingly.
If someone could tell my what is is that is wrong with the star shapes in the images, and potential fixes, it would be greatly appreciated, as I don't want to waste another clear night if it is an easy fix!
I have read about coma, but also that refractors don't have this issue, so I am completely baffled.
Thanks in advance.
M45 at 1 second exposure, M42 at 20 seconds and M31 at 30 seconds.
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By SpaceDave
I'm new to the astrophotography hobby. I have experience with astronomy. I am struggling to make decent deep sky images (other than M42). The images don't seem to have much definition or brightness despite a decent overall exposure time. See the below images. I have seen on this forum that people are able to take awesome images of the below objects with my same setup. Is anyone able to tell me if I am missing something, please? Do I need even more exposure time?
I use a Celestron 6SE with unmodified Canon 600D. It has a goto alt az, no EQ. I use a bahtinov mask to focus. Both images were taken with the native focal length of 1500mm, no filters or eyepieces.
The image of the Triangulum Galaxy is 180 x 15sec ISO800 images. The Crab Neb is 250 x 15sec ISO800 images. Both images had their appropriate flats, darks and biases (30 of each). I use SIRIL to stack the images, which I have had good success with M42 before (see below).
Any advice would be appreciated!
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By dcobb
Hello everyone,
After impulse buying this 80mm refractor a year ago, being very underwhelmed and returning it, I've stepped back and done a lot of researching of scopes & astronomy (mainly online due to Covid19). Now that I have a little better perspective on things I'm looking to get my first "real" scope and would welcome some advice. A lot of things I read and seen seem to suggest an 8" DOB being a good beginner scope one can grow into, without breaking the bank. Thus I'm leaning towards the Apertura AD8 with a Barlow & maybe additional lenses down the road, but again I welcome any advice or confirmation that this is a good first scope for me and my family?
Other details worth mentioning:
Price - A definite factor as I have no idea how hooked I or my family will become with the hobby. Last thing I want is an expensive dust collector sitting in the corner of the room. Definitely under $1k, preferably closer to half. If we end up loving it and I trade up, so be it... Interests - Planets and definitely faint & DSO's for sure (so I think that rules out low cost refactors?) Aperture - I know this is the most important aspect and people tend to suggest "Go bigger", 10", 12"+, and I understand the trade offs, but have no practical experience yet, so this is a difficult decision. Price, portability & light gathering are all considered here and why I feel the 8" is probably a good first scope size? (feel free to weigh in here) Location - I mainly see this being used in our backyard, which thankfully is pretty private & dark but we do live in the suburbs and there are stairs to consider. Maybe we'll take it camping or drive to a secluded rural spot once in a while, who knows... Size - Similar to aperture giving more light, I read that 10"and above start to become heavy & unwieldy. I'm no weakling but my wife and kids may want to use this too and the backyard is down stairs off our deck, so factoring this in.... Astrophotography - Probably not yet... My wife's a photo nut and has a couple nice DSLR's already. However, this seems like an expensive & time consuming rabbit hole, plus I would think you'd need auto-tracking mounts. Things could change down the road but for now it's not something I'm really factoring in. One can always google celestial pics right? Manual vs. motorized - I really don't know. I've read the pros & cons, people seem to be on one side or the other, and again astrophotography isn't a big factor at this time, so probably manual.... I was somewhat considering NexStar 6SE as it's barely under $1k, but thinking a 6" will limit DSO capabilities? The 8SE seems nice but we're talking $1200+ for bare bones. Also an interesting conversation I had with a rep from highpointscientific mentioned an 8" DOB would be more blurry and have less color than an equivalent 8" SCT, which got me worried about a DOB and seemed to contradicted things I've read, but again I have no practical experience here. All I know is I bought a $200 scope off Amazon a year ago that could view the moon and bird watch. Saturn and Jupiter were blurry, shaky, white dots, forget about DSO's. I returned that 4.5 star hunk of junk and wanted something more. I hear great things about DOB's far as viewing, but I'm not going to find an accurate video online of what one would really see through it for obvious reasons. So here I am looking for advice. Would an 8" DOB be a good first buy? Would it genuinely be able to see the planets well along with many faint and DSO's? I know a 10" or 12"+ would gather more light while sacrificing cost and bulk, but are they that big of difference between being able to see DSO's and not vs. an 8"? What I would hate is to buy an 8" DOB and immediately think "I should have bought a 10" or bought a 10" and never use it as it's too much of a hassle to lug down the stairs & setup? So C'mon experts, please bring it! If you made it this far, thank you very much & you'll have good karma for many moons to come!!!
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By AstroRookie
Hello,
when applying the flats taken in my last session (to find out what is causing the strange diffraction spikes) with Siril, the final stacked result still shows the vignetting and the dust spots. I also did the whole preprocessing with Nebulosity, same result.
I took the flats as follows:
same iso as my subs camera and focus not touched I use a homemade flatbox combined with the a white t-shirt with Ekos took test shots till the histogram was half-way to the left checked all my flats, they all show vignetting and the same dust spots as in my subs I tried using them with and without using a bias frame, same result, the final result looks as if no flats were used.
Anybody any idea what is going on? An other question I have, will the vignetting and dust spots also show in the master flat (flats stacked)?
Thanks for your help,
AstroRookie
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