Absolute Beginner , any advice?

[nitram100]

Hi guys, been meaning to get into astrophotography for a while now.

I managed to pick up a Meade DSI 2 Pro mono from ABS for £25 the other day, I know it's an old camera but thought it best to try something super simple first.

I am a complete noob, literally haven't got a clue so just went outside last night with the scope in my sig, laptop and nebulosity 4.

I have my 2inch focuser, then a 50mm 2inch extension tube,1.25" conversion adaptor and then the camera attached to that and for some reason I just couldn't get things to focus even with the focus tube all the way down.

Maybe I need to use a 35mm extension tube, the 50mm is too long not allowing the camera to focus?

Here are my very first images, it was one single 10 second exposure. Don't laugh haha , m42 and m31.

Any advice would be appreciated because despite the awful awful pics I had a lot of fun.

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by nitram100

[PeterCPC]

I am not familiar with any of this equipment but you obviously have a focus problem. If it gets better as you go out then it needs an extension.

[vlaiv]

Indeed - both images look like they would be otherwise fine - except for the focus issue.

That is the first thing to sort out.

[nitram100]

managed to fix focus a little bit but my mount wasn't tracking properly so got a little bit of trails going on.

The image is a solid 2 out of 10 haha but wow this is addictive! I have mad respect now for astrophotographers, this is very hard work!

 

[Notty]

What did you use to get the mount polar aligned? If that's off then it won't track, also very important to make sure it's all in balance. Sorry if I'm telling you to suck eggs but I went through all this pain  too!

[ollypenrice]

Of the million things you might want to adjust, start by aligning your camera along RA and Dec. It's dead easy: eyeball the camera in the scope then take a 10 sec exposure while slewing slowly in one axis. You'll get star trails. Are they parallel with one or other side of the chip? Repeat and rotate till they are. Mark you gear (Tippex?) so that the camera always goes back in the same way. Once you've done that you'll know where your tracking errors are, in RA or in Dec or in both. You have to start somewhere, so I suggest you start there.

Olly