First imaging session

[nutter241]

Hello guys and girls, im hoping to get my first proper session of imaging tonight (wed 26th), and i thought id have a crack at m33, as this is conveniently placed in the sky,  and my focal length plus the 2x barlow on my dslr just to acheive focus means andromida is too big for my sensor.

The issue i have is i have no idea how many subs and for what length of time i should be aiming for, preferably id like to go for lots of short subs as im not 100% confidant with the capabilities of the mount yet, will 100 at 30 seconds be enough?? is their a rule of thumb when trying to figure these numbers out?

Any help as always will be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Thomas.

[Stefan73]

There's certainly lots of theory about how long each sub should be to make sure it swamps the noise of the sensor but doesn't get overwelmed by light pollution which you could work out based on your light polllution and camera sensor but, given you're not guiding and are using a DSLR, I'd go for as long a sub as you can get away with as many as you can manage before you want to go to bed or the clouds roll in!

30s subs ought to be fine if that's all you can manage;  it's better to have lots of short good quality subs than long marginal ones.  You can always stack sessions across multiple nights to build on earlier data as long as you've got calibration frames (flats) from each session.  There's a law of diminishing return with adding more and more subs but you'll see more detail emerge as you add more. 

 

[AstroMuni]

On 26/10/2022 at 02:39, nutter241 said:

The issue i have is i have no idea how many subs and for what length of time i should be aiming for, preferably id like to go for lots of short subs as im not 100% confidant with the capabilities of the mount yet, will 100 at 30 seconds be enough?? is their a rule of thumb when trying to figure these numbers out?

You have a very stable NEQ6 mount so you should be able to get 30-60s easily unguided. As you have the ASI120mc I would have used that instead of DSLR (without barlow) to capture M33. I have the same scope and here was what I managed to get using ASI224mc which has similar sensor size to 120mc. As I used 120s, depending on longest exposure you can get, you would need more images to get to this level of detail. Good luck!

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by AstroMuni

[nutter241]

On 27/10/2022 at 11:29, AstroMuni said:

here was what I managed to get using ASI224mc

WOW, id be amazed if i could anything close to that, if only the damn cllouds would stay away on my days off lol.

[AstroMuni]

On 29/10/2022 at 07:03, nutter241 said:

WOW, id be amazed if i could anything close to that, if only the damn cllouds would stay away on my days off lol.

We both share the same problem ...those fluffy things up there. 🙂 And I have noticed that they tend to disappear mainly on 2 occasions - mid week and when its close to full moon.

Edited October 31, 2022 by AstroMuni

[Elp]

And also after meteor shower peaks.

[Nicola Hannah Butterfield]

On 31/10/2022 at 20:11, Elp said:

And also after meteor shower peaks.

I was on Skye Nov 99, the flashes behind the clouds were amazing, following day clear as a bell.