Bedroom astronomy

[happy-kat]

That's a shame you picked up the wrong intervalometer for your canon, hope you can get that sorted, though you don't say it your phone if Android, because if it is take a look at DSLR Controller. Your stars are of nice shape, well done on focus. ISO likely for your canon optimum is either 800 or 1600 ISO.

 

[ShaunyC]

Thank you for your comments.. 

I will try longer exp next time at 70mm, didn't cross my mind to see how long I could get before start trails.. 

I'm not sure I want to divulge into updating firmware with 'magic lantern', everything so far has been a learning curve even down to how to use Windows 10 on laptop, which I'm sure should be common knowledge 😂 I have found at wilko or argos they do a male to male 3.5 jack so will try that as a adpter.. Or will have to wait for another intervalometer.. 

Regarding flats.. On the video he dosent really say what settings you should be on iso, shutter... He mentions about getting histogram up and get the sign wave to the middle, couldn't how do you do that or is there just common settings to use?I'm gone change my screen display on phone get rid of the cracks and will try the t shirt idea... 

Just had a look for dslr controllers on google play where loads to choose from is there one people generally use? 

Also I take it you have to plug a lead in... Which will require a USB to USB adapter of some sort? Or is it wireless? Canon 600d to hewawi p20 pro(still runs android) 

Next time I will also drop the iso once I've found what I want to snap.. 

Thanks you for all your help

[ShaunyC]

Just found what seems to be a good site?? Gives what your able to see in your area...

https://telescopius.com/solar-system/small-bodies

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, ShaunyC said:

Regarding flats.. On the video he dosent really say what settings you should be on iso, shutter

To take flats, they are the same iso & shutter speed as your lights and darks 

[Erling G-P]

11 minutes ago, LeeHore7 said:

To take flats, they are the same iso & shutter speed as your lights and darks 

They can hardly be the same ISO & shutter speed as the darks and lights, as that would require an extremely faint, uniform light source.  I take mine on auto exposure, with the lowest possible ISO, to get the shutter speed as slow as possible.  Still, with a dedicated flats panel, my shutter speed is 1/250.  Getting that to match the 3-minute subs I typically take, would seem nearly impossible.  As the purpose of the flats are to correct vignetting & dust bunnies, I can hardly see the need for matching shutter speeds & ISO?

Edited January 3, 2021 by Erling G-P

[Thalestris24]

1 hour ago, ShaunyC said:

Thank you for your comments.. 

I will try longer exp next time at 70mm, didn't cross my mind to see how long I could get before start trails.. 

I'm not sure I want to divulge into updating firmware with 'magic lantern', everything so far has been a learning curve even down to how to use Windows 10 on laptop, which I'm sure should be common knowledge 😂 I have found at wilko or argos they do a male to male 3.5 jack so will try that as a adpter.. Or will have to wait for another intervalometer.. 

Regarding flats.. On the video he dosent really say what settings you should be on iso, shutter... He mentions about getting histogram up and get the sign wave to the middle, couldn't how do you do that or is there just common settings to use?I'm gone change my screen display on phone get rid of the cracks and will try the t shirt idea... 

Just had a look for dslr controllers on google play where loads to choose from is there one people generally use? 

Also I take it you have to plug a lead in... Which will require a USB to USB adapter of some sort? Or is it wireless? Canon 600d to hewawi p20 pro(still runs android) 

Next time I will also drop the iso once I've found what I want to snap.. 

Thanks you for all your help

See here: DeepSkyStacker FAQ (free.fr)

Louise

[nephilim]

4 hours ago, ShaunyC said:

Thank you for your comments.. 

I will try longer exp next time at 70mm, didn't cross my mind to see how long I could get before start trails.. 

I'm not sure I want to divulge into updating firmware with 'magic lantern', everything so far has been a learning curve even down to how to use Windows 10 on laptop, which I'm sure should be common knowledge 😂 I have found at wilko or argos they do a male to male 3.5 jack so will try that as a adpter.. Or will have to wait for another intervalometer.. 

Regarding flats.. On the video he dosent really say what settings you should be on iso, shutter... He mentions about getting histogram up and get the sign wave to the middle, couldn't how do you do that or is there just common settings to use?I'm gone change my screen display on phone get rid of the cracks and will try the t shirt idea... 

Just had a look for dslr controllers on google play where loads to choose from is there one people generally use? 

Also I take it you have to plug a lead in... Which will require a USB to USB adapter of some sort? Or is it wireless? Canon 600d to hewawi p20 pro(still runs android) 

Next time I will also drop the iso once I've found what I want to snap.. 

Thanks you for all your help

For flats just set the camera to AV so it can decide the shutter speed settings. Take a look at this https://astrobackyard.com/how-to-take-flat-frames/#:~:text=Luckily for DSLR astrophotography shooters,to properly expose the image.

Edited January 3, 2021 by nephilim

[AstroNebulee]

45 minutes ago, Erling G-P said:

They can hardly be the same ISO & shutter speed as the darks and lights, as that would require an extremely faint, uniform light source.  I take mine on auto exposure, with the lowest possible ISO, to get the shutter speed as slow as possible.  Still, with a dedicated flats panel, my shutter speed is 1/250.  Getting that to match the 3-minute subs I typically take, would seem nearly impossible.  As the purpose of the flats are to correct vignetting & dust bunnies, I can hardly see the need for matching shutter speeds & ISO?

That's what I've been doing, so I guess I've done it wrong (I've wasted so much time at least my max shutter speed was 30 seconds lol) I'm new at this also, so will use the same iso and set to av mode and let dslr determine the shutter speed 

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by LeeHore7

[ShaunyC]

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

See here: DeepSkyStacker FAQ (free.fr)

Louise

Perfect thank you 👌 and gives explanation of what it's actually doing

1 hour ago, LeeHore7 said:

That's what I've been doing, so I guess I've done it wrong (I've wasted so much time at least my max shutter speed was 30 seconds lol) I'm new at this also, so will use the same iso and set to av mode and let dslr determine the shutter speed 

 

Glad my question has helped you out as well Lee 😁

 

1 hour ago, Erling G-P said:

Getting that to match the 3-minute subs I typically take, 

30 minutes just on 10 darks... Ouch

 

1 hour ago, nephilim said:

For flats just set the camera to AV so it can decide on iso & shutter speed settings. Take a look at this https://astrobackyard.com/how-to-take-flat-frames/#:~:text=Luckily for DSLR astrophotography shooters,to properly expose the image.

Thanks for the link 👍 watched a few of astrobackyard very passionate about what he does.. 

Edited January 3, 2021 by ShaunyC

[happy-kat]

tip -  only set camera to AV mode after setting the lens to manual focus

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller&hl=en_GB&gl=US

BUT first use this app blow to check it works with your canon camera and phone

You will need an OTG cable to use with the USB lead you hopefully got with your canon camera

 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.remoterelease&hl=en_GB&gl=US

[Erling G-P]

3 hours ago, ShaunyC said:

30 minutes just on 10 darks... Ouch

I use a cooled DSLR, so have made a library of darks at various temperatures & exposure lengths. These I can just reuse over and over, so that makes it a little easier.

With my initial, uncooled camera, I typically put the lens cap on the coma corrector and set the camera to take darks, while I disassembled and carried the telescope & mount inside at the end of sessions. At that time I was shooting unguided and thus took 30-sec subs, so 20 darks only took about 10 minutes to make

[ShaunyC]

On 03/01/2021 at 20:30, Erling G-P said:

I use a cooled DSLR, so have made a library of darks at various temperatures & exposure lengths. These I can just reuse over and over, so that makes it a little easier.

With my initial, uncooled camera, I typically put the lens cap on the coma corrector and set the camera to take darks, while I disassembled and carried the telescope & mount inside at the end of sessions. At that time I was shooting unguided and thus took 30-sec subs, so 20 darks only took about 10 minutes to make

That's pretty impressive having a library of calibration images to hand.. 

I've just been out luckily jst before clouds rolled in thought the night was going to be better tbf..  

Had ago at andromada.. Jst waiting for my laptop to get some charge in before i start stacking to see what I've got.. 

Did have a try for heart and soul nebula but got lost in the stars and couldn't seem to locate them.. Starting to see why a good mount with goto etc makes life a little easier.... Maybe would of helped if I zoomed out again but didn't want to lose focus or so we shall see soon lol... 

I had another go for flats with white t-shirt rag over lens with... But as I'm writing this realised I'd left shutter speed on fast from bios frames doh... 

I was going to ask do flats still come out dark? Even tho I had whit screen from phone close to the t-shirt covered lens? 

Or will that be downto the fact I left the shutter on fast? 

Should I include them in my stacking? 

Gona have a play on laptop with what I've got and maybe head out again later if skies clear when rossete nebula comes over after orion.. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by ShaunyC

[happy-kat]

you could platesolve to help find things or as an idea look nova.astrometry dot net to platesolve for you an image you just took to confirm where you are pointing

Edited January 12, 2021 by happy-kat

[ShaunyC]

Will have to have a look into that plate solving.... 

Was generally comparing image with stalerium to find my way about.. Just been an looked whilst waiting for dss to do its things and it looks loads clearer... Think i must of tried abit to early while alot of haz coming off the land

[ShaunyC]

Pft.... Jst waited 15 min for register checked images for them all to have no score? And when I went to stack it just said only one frame will be used... 

Back to the drawing board it is ha

[Erling G-P]

1 hour ago, ShaunyC said:

That's pretty impressive having a library of calibration images to hand.. 

I've just been out luckily jst before clouds rolled in thought the night was going to be better tbf..  

Had ago at andromada.. Jst waiting for my laptop to get some charge in before i start stacking to see what I've got.. 

Did have a try for heart and soul nebula but got lost in the stars and couldn't seem to locate them.. Starting to see why a good mount with goto etc makes life a little easier.... Maybe would of helped if I zoomed out again but didn't want to lose focus or so we shall see soon lol... 

I had another go for flats with white t-shirt rag over lens with... But as I'm writing this realised I'd left shutter speed on fast from bios frames doh... 

I was going to ask do flats still come out dark? Even tho I had whit screen from phone close to the t-shirt covered lens? 

Or will that be downto the fact I left the shutter on fast?

Library possibly sounds more impressive than it actually is - I just have a collection of darks shot with the same temperature, ISO and exposure lengths I have used for my subs so far. If I use a new temp or sub length, I'll have to add similar darks to the 'library'.

Regarding flats; no they should not be dark. If you expose them correctly, they will be quite uniformly light, perhaps with darkening towards the edges & corners (vignetting). Mine are a light amber colour, probably from the modified camera, as all subs seems quite 'red-shifted' directly from the camera.  And yes, they should be included in your stacking.

The fainter nebulae that only really show up when several subs are stacked, can be difficult to find & frame, as often they're hardly visible on a single sub.  Having a modified camera helps a lot, at least if it's hydrogen emission nebulae. I typically also crank up the ISO for the locating & framing shots - irrelevant that they're noisy, as long as I can see my target - just don't forget to turn it down again before starting the actual imaging run..

Edited January 12, 2021 by Erling G-P

[happy-kat]

18 minutes ago, ShaunyC said:

Pft.... Jst waited 15 min for register checked images for them all to have no score? And when I went to stack it just said only one frame will be used... 

Back to the drawing board it is ha

no score could be that your stars are not focused or too trailing

[ShaunyC]

I think it's must be them flats I added into the mix? Managed to get it stacking again with only the light frames.... And scores did show up but not that good 344.9

[Erling G-P]

2 minutes ago, ShaunyC said:

I think it's must be them flats I added into the mix? Managed to get it stacking again with only the light frames.... And scores did show up but not that good 344.9

Not sure how DSS determines the scores - mine vary considerably from target to target, so I just use them in a relative way for that specific image run - I find the 'bad ones', and based on the scores, I set a threshold to weed out those from the stack.

[ShaunyC]

4 minutes ago, Erling G-P said:

Not sure how DSS determines the scores - mine vary considerably from target to target, so I just use them in a relative way for that specific image run - I find the 'bad ones', and based on the scores, I set a threshold to weed out those from the stack.

I suppose it's all learning curve for me atm.... Must of got lucky with my 1st image of orion lol.. Jst been out again and although there's no clouds it dosent see too clear.... When you look at stars lower down there as most a halo around then so suppose the atmosphere is being too kind.... Definetly not a hobby for the faint hearted aha

[ShaunyC]

I think I did the threshold I a about 15%, 41 stars.. I did notice thou if it means anything the settings was saying median rather than kapa sigma.... I have no idea what that means but not the same as the video I've been following 

[happy-kat]

If 20 lights or more use kappa as it will help star shapes

[ShaunyC]

Even if it shows up red in reomended settings? I was doing 80 lights at 3 secs... 

I deleted all that.. was really red once I'd stacked only the lights...

I tried again for orion hoping longer exp would show horse head blasted through the frames even sussed out flats (I'd left the cap on from bios and darks before 😂) left them stacking through the night and woke up to pretty much all the stars looking like nebulas aha so deleted that aswell did put it into cr2 but histogram was like 3 thin spikes and nothing sorted the fuzz... I imagine that was down to atmosphere more than focus as stars seemed bright just with a glow..... 

So bit of a waste of what I was hopping was going to be a good night...

Did help me get a bit more use to the whole process now tho images, settings, calibration, stacking.. 

Until the next time.. 

 

[ShaunyC]

Got the chance of a 2nd hand telescope.... 150pds £190 looks like new in the box with wrapping on still.. Got the black dovetail bar tho, does that just me its an old model? 

Can also supply eq3-2 mount £120 which he says used just waiting on pictures.... 

I know its not the best combination bit heavy bit flimsy but have seen decent pictures done with same set up.... 

My main query is, is £310 for both a little bit too much considering I can wait till mid February and get a new set for £70 more? 

Should I go for it or not!?!? 

Thanks

Shaun

Edited January 15, 2021 by ShaunyC

[happy-kat]

Have you looked at the for sale section on here.