Unmodified 450d Recommendations

[Jackal1258]

Hello, I'm currently trying to photograph different nebula with my unmodified canon 450d. My current telescope is a Skywatcher 500/102 on an az g02 mount. A few nights ago I tried photography the running chicken nebula, but after taking a photo I saw no sign of any nebula. The settings I used were an exposure of 30 seconds, and an ISO of 1600 which is the max my DSLR can go to. I haven't done any dark, or bias frames as this was my first time doing deep sky astrophotography. I've attached the photo to this article. Can anyone give me some advice on which I can do to help increase the visibility of nebula.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Using just a single exposure on an H-alpha target is rarely going to show a lot of detail, except in very bright nebulae like M42, certainly in a non-modded camera at just 30s exposure. However, I think I see some hint of H-alpha emission in the centre, so if you take a long series of 30 s exposures and stack them, you might get a lot more out of this combination

[Budgie1]

Your stars don't look too bad for a 30 second exposure, so tracking is good. If you live in an area with light pollution then try ISO 800 for 30 seconds and take lots of images, as said above. Once stacked, 60 x 30 second images will give you the equivalent of one 30 minute exposure on your target and you should see some nebula in that image.

You can download free stacking software, called Deep Sky Stacker, which will put all the images together and give you the final image. 

[Albir phil]

Hi yes there's something in the middle of the image .As already been said you need more images.I usually use iso 800 at 30sec this to me keeps the sky glow down Abit specialy this time of year,but that is just my preference,each to there own.Good luck👍

[Albir phil]

Just another point when I started imaging I did not do any darks etc ,I just concentrated on getting some kind of image then I new I was getting some where after that I did start doing darks etc.

[Elp]

For emission nebulae rich in ha and o3 the optolong lenhance and lextreme work wonders. Your camera however does need the 656nm ha sensitivity, if it still has its factory IR block filter on it might not get sufficient signal to the sensor. With your camera, star clusters and galaxies will be better with a lot of images stacked.

[Jackal1258]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm sure it will help me get better images.