Help needed

[Maclean156]

Hi all. 

After being out of stock for ages I've finally received my t adapter for my celestron edge hd 8 so I can now start taking photos of galaxies etc. 

I've am going to attach my nikon d5100 to the scope and was wondering what are good settings as a start point. 

ie how long should my exposures be?

How many? 

General settings for this camera?

What software to use?

Plus any other useful advise thanks. 

I have an intevalometer I'm going to use with it. 

[Maclean156]

Scope is on an avx equatorial mount with starsense. 

[Laurieast]

I use the Canon version of this and like it a lot: https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/4-backyardnikon/

As a starting point for DSO's I would go for ISO 400 and 120 to 160 seconds and see what you get, an hour at least on most things.

 

 

[Maclean156]

Thank you. 

How does this software connect to my camera? Thanks

[Grant93]

29 minutes ago, Maclean156 said:

Hi all. 

After being out of stock for ages I've finally received my t adapter for my celestron edge hd 8 so I can now start taking photos of galaxies etc. 

I've am going to attach my nikon d5100 to the scope and was wondering what are good settings as a start point. 

ie how long should my exposures be?

How many? 

General settings for this camera?

What software to use?

Plus any other useful advise thanks. 

I have an intevalometer I'm going to use with it. 

Hello! I'll answer for what I can haha, take it with a pinch of salt, I'm also still a beginner!

How long? Limited to two factors! Star trailing and light pollution - If your stars start to trail, either improve your polar allignment or shorten your exposures need them stars nice and round. When it comes to light pollution, try to keep the peak of the histogram on the left of the centre, if your images are too bright you need to shorten your exposures. The more light pollution, the shorter the exposures you will have to take.

How many? As many as possible, simple The more the better SNR (Signal to noise ratio)

Settings? Idk, I use canon personally

Software? DSS to stack, StarTools and Gimp to process, they are what I use. But theres a lot out there that people use, such as Pixinsight, Photoshop, Siril, and loads loads more.

Other advice? Look around the forum and youtube, loads and loads of advice, people to ask who will help you with anything you need

Regards,

Grant

[Laurieast]

25 minutes ago, Maclean156 said:

Thank you. 

How does this software connect to my camera? Thanks

USB cable, and set up the software, I forget how you set it up, but there is just a connect button.

Always take astronomy photo's in RAW format. 

I then stack all the images in Deep Sky Stacker, and process the final output image in photoshop. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Laurieast

[Maclean156]

Thanks so much. It's really helped. 

[Maclean156]

Hi again.....

So I've read some threads and now a bit confused. Is the following right? I unscrew my diagonal and thread the t adaptor on then with my camera and t ring i attach this to the t adaptor. The reason I ask is because I've read that I've got to get a certain distance made up from where the t a adaptor joins to the sensor on the camera for it to focus properly. Is this correct? So confused now lol. As you can tell I'm new to this. 

[Maclean156]

Oh and I plan to get the 0.7 focal reducer at some stage so will I be getting more problems?

[Fegato]

It's all a bit complicated when you get started - like you I started by sticking a DSLR (in my case Fuji) onto my 8 Edge HD.  You're correct though - take off the diagonal, attach the T adapter to the telescope, and the camera with correct T ring to the T adapter.

The space between scope and camera is critical to getting good focus across the whole of your camera frame / sensor. With the above, this should be correct (133.35mm for the 8 Edge at full FL). You'll notice that the T adapter comes in 2 pieces. By removing the shorter extension, you then get the correct distance for the 0.7x focal reducer (105mm). Easy as that! For long exposures (galaxies etc.) - the focal reducer gives you the advantage of halving exposure time (with a lower resolution bigger field - which might be advantage or not!).

Which mount have you got the 8 Edge on? You may find you're quickly frustrated, as without guiding, you will probably find that the mount tracking is not good enough to give you tight stars for more than 30-60 seconds. And if you have an Alt Az mount (e.g. Evo, like I had), you will get some rotation in the field beyond this sort of exposure (stars trailing in a sort of circular pattern around the field). 

Anyway, that's how I started...   but then I got a dedicated astro CMOS camera, an OAG for guiding, a Hyperstar lens for fast wide field shots, upgraded mount to a Eq mount, and then got a RASA 11 with an even bigger Eq mount etc etc. Addictive, expensive business, astrophotography! (but fun...)

 

 

[Maclean156]

Thanks for reply. I've an equatorial avx mount so hopefully that's good enough. So with my camera the focal length is correct with the t adaptor but if I connect the focal reducer I only use one part of t adaptor. 

I plan to use the nikon for a month or two then get a zwo camera. 

[Fegato]

Yes that's right. AVX should avoid the rotation problem certainly. I think you will probably decide you want to guide though at some point.

My current setup with the 8 Edge is a ZWO ASI294MC Pro using the Celestron OAG (and another ZWO camera to guide).  Standard ZWO and Celestron adapters that come with the camera and OAG provide the correct back focus distance.