Wide-field Orion and Cassiopeia

[DaveNicko]

Hello all,

 

It has been while since I last posted here, but now I have a little more time I have started to get out with the telescope a bit more. I have also started down the path of variable star observing with some excellent help from the BAA. While outside I have decided to have a bit of an experiment with a bit of wide-field photography with the equipment I have. This probably comes as no surprise to people here, but I was astounded with my results. This really was a lazy effort, with the camera set to take 200 photos while I was doing something else. No tracking, just on an old (slightly broken) gorrilapod with a cheap tripod head.

 

Details:

Camera: Fuji X-T1

Lens: Fuji XF 35mm f2

 

Pic 1 – Orion

Date: 11^th January

Lights: 200 (2 seconds @ f2)

Flats: 23

Darks: None!

Biases: None!

 

Pic 2 – Cassiopeia

Date: 16^th January

Lights: 100 (10 seconds @ f2 – originally 200 but there were some bad lights so I chose a random 100 in the middle somewhere and hoped they would be OK)

Flats: 23

Darks: 42

Biases: 80

 

The key here for me was the lights (no surprises there) and also the background extraction. I used SIRIL on linux manually for Pic 1 and with the script for Pic 2. I would be interested in what people think – and what I could do to improve (longer subs and some darks for Pic 1 I think would help). Both images are cropped slightly to avoid the bad coma from the corners of the 35mm, but quite honestly I am blown away with what I have captured here. I never expected to pick up Barnards loop on an un-modified camera (and with 2s subs no less)!

 

Dave

Pic 1 - Orion

 

 

Pic 2 – Cassiopeia

Edited January 19, 2022 by DaveNicko
Fixed typo