Weird reflection? ZWO 533 (color)

[gcooksley]

Hey!

I will preface that I am EXTREMELY new to photography, especially Astro photography, so I hope this is the right spot to ask this. 
 

I am currently in the process of getting a new telescope for Astro photography, but I have to wait a few months, so I’m the meantime I am using my first scope I bought and trying out what I can do to make it work, which is a heritage 150p, and I have made some steller modifications to this beast. Anyways, I got the ZWO533 color version camera, and I wanted to test it out and see if it works bc I just got it. So I went out and threw my telescope on the mount and attached the camera, etc etc. 
I did 15 and 30 second exposures and got these images. Am I out of focus or ? Something seems odd to me and I have been scratching my head trying to figure it out. It looks like my mirror is being reflected back into the image? It was pitch black out when I did this and I have a made shift shroud cover the sides of the telescope. You guys would know wayyyy more abt this than me and I would appreciate any feedback to a beginner like myself. Any help would be awesome, thanks 

Edited September 15, 2023 by gcooksley

[sharkmelley]

It looks like the scope is VERY out-of-focus.

[StevieDvd]

As you have ASIStudio already I'd suggest doing a daytime focus on a distant object. If you have SharpCap it may set the exposure automatically for you which helps.

With the camera during the day use short exposures well under half a second may need to be as low as 1/1000.  That should help getting the focus almost right for night use, as you'll know roughly what position the focuser needs to be.

Once in focus you could swap to an eyepiece, but don't change the focus - instead pull the eyepiece out a little at a time until it's in focus and note how far out the eyepiece is. You can mark this with a felt tip or use a parfocal¹ ring or even a zip lock.

¹ A parfocal ring is used on eyepieces of different focus needs so they can be swapped without refocusing.