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M31 Starting again


wornish

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Sold all my astro gear earlier this year and have now gone back to basics.

 

This image of M31 was taken using my OM-1 camera with 40-150mm f/2.8 lens + MC-14 teleconverter so an effective focal length 210mm. (420mm FF equivalent). F/4.

153  x 10-sec lights at ISO 8000. plus 10 Darks.

Used a Benro Polaris mount on my cheapo camera tripod.

 

Setup time 2 mins!

 

M31-smaller-stars.jpg

Edited by wornish
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That's fine image!  I'm not familiar with the Benro Polaris.  I presume it offers some form of tracking.  If so I wonder if you could go longer than 10 seconds.  This would allow you to use a lower ISO which would help when it came to processing.

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Yes, the mount does do tracking. I am taking it one step at a time and will up the exposure time in stages to see where the star elongation cuts in. I have tried my 300mm lens (600mm FF equivalent) and using that I still get round stars at 10 sec. So will go to 20 secs next.  Just need clear skies as the clouds have heard I have a new toy so they come out to look😀

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1 hour ago, wornish said:

Yes, the mount does do tracking. I am taking it one step at a time and will up the exposure time in stages to see where the star elongation cuts in. I have tried my 300mm lens (600mm FF equivalent) and using that I still get round stars at 10 sec. So will go to 20 secs next.  Just need clear skies as the clouds have heard I have a new toy so they come out to look😀

Is it tracking in alt-az or equatorial?  If alt az you should be ok at 20 seconds.  Field rotation starts to show itself after 20 to 30 seconds. If equatorial a rough polar alignment should be good for 30 secs

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On 17/02/2023 at 10:29, MartinB said:

Is it tracking in alt-az or equatorial?  If alt az you should be ok at 20 seconds.  Field rotation starts to show itself after 20 to 30 seconds. If equatorial a rough polar alignment should be good for 30 secs

Tracks in equatorial. It doesn't need Polar alignment it does a single-star alignment at the moment but 2 star is promised. Although I always start with it pointing roughly North out of habit.

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On 14/02/2023 at 21:52, wornish said:

Sold all my astro gear earlier this year and have now gone back to basics.

 

This image of M31 was taken using my OM-1 camera with 40-150mm f/2.8 lens + MC-14 teleconverter so an effective focal length 210mm. (420mm FF equivalent). F/4.

153  x 10-sec lights at ISO 8000. plus 10 Darks.

Used a Benro Polaris mount on my cheapo camera tripod.

 

Setup time 2 mins!

 

 

That's a wonderful image.

I'm seriously considering the Benro Polaris Astro and read a few reviews. The other alternative might be the Skywatcher Star Adventurer GTi

Would you say this is good for a relative beginner? I've done a lot of photography over the years and some astronomy observing, but very little astrophotography. Planning to use my Olympus e-m1 mark ii.

Mainly hoping to do relatively easy subjects such as M31, M45, the Moon and possibly Milky Way.

Have you needed to make any adaptions to make it work?

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No adaptations are needed for the Benro. The Skywatcher Star Adventurer is a lot cheaper and does a great job. It was the very first tracking mount I got about 10 years ago and I was using an EM-5 back then.  The only thing is it needs to be polar aligned first and that means you have to be down on your knees to look through the polar scope. After a while, that became something that put me off from using it. But otherwise it does a good job.

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  • 5 months later...

Hi, I think you maybe in the Egroup form for Oly aswell. I’m toying with replacing my skywatcher with one on these, mainly for multiple row panorama etc, plus I think it may have more day to day use as well. 
how are you getting on with it now, have you had any issues - I have the em1 mkiii and OM1 and read about some issues with the OM1. 
 

thoughts would be appreciated. 
 

simon 

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