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Hello From Lincolnshire

fatjon

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fatjon

fatjon

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Hello all. Just finished building my observatory near Gainsborough. Anyone else near me, I’m going to be in need of all kinds of advice?

I have a Pulsar dome and a Celestron 8SE with an EQ6 and EQMOD. ZWO 1600MC Cool, filter wheel etc. Quite new to this but the doc says I have to give up pies and beer so here comes a new hobby!

Computers, science and electronics are my area and astronomy fascinates me so I think I chose the right one.

 

 

 

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LandyJon

LandyJon

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Welcome to the hobby, you'll find lots of info here with a quick search and plenty people willing to help/advise if you ask a question.

I'm not local, but having learned from beginner using a 6SE on an EQ6 with a small 183 sensor, my 1st advice would be get a reducer lens in there if you haven't already.  You'll need to set the back focus from it to the sensor (165mm if memory serves but look it up), but it will widen the field of view so you'll be able to image some of the bigger/brighter/easier stuff, it also brings the acquisition time down so you won't spend so long getting good images to begin with.

Youll also want to be guiding on these long focal lengths, so again, if you haven't already, get a little planetary type webcam on a finder scope and look up PHD2 guiding.

Its a learning cliff you've jumped off with a long focal length but persevere, its worth it.

Clear skies

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fatjon

fatjon

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Hi Jon, thanks for the tips. I already put in an F6.7 reducer/flattener to improve the image at the edge of the field, which if my maths is correct takes me to about 1300mm focal length. I plan to start with some planets and big bright things.

I have a guide scope and PHD2 but I need to learn how to make best use of them, when I get some weather luck. I watched some youtube videos and I think I get it but theory and practice are likely to be different.

 Tomorrow is possibly looking promising to at least get an hour or two of playing around. Sure I’ll have a few questions after that.

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LandyJon

LandyJon

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Sounds like you're about set, just make sure you've got the sensor the right distance from that reducer, as a field flattener it converges the light path so it is flat at a set distance from the lens, anything closer of further away and it'll distort the stars at the outer edge of your sensor.

It all takes practice, a lot of your first few attempts will be figuring out how it all works, what capture software are you using ? I find Sharpcap really easy to use, the pro version for a little over £10 for the year includes some great tools for polar alignment and recommended exposure/gain settings based on your target and current viewing conditions.  Others rave about Nina but I haven't tried it.

Oh do you have a light pollution filter of some kind ? You'll likely get a lot of glow unless you're in low bortle skies, bortle 6 here so I've just got a tri-band for nebulae, my broadband LPF wasn't quite enough but I'll keep it for galaxies.

You'll get the hang of it, if polar align is good, you can expose 3min without guiding, get to grips with your capture and calibration frames and stacking (DSS- deep sky stacker) then start thinking about guiding to perfect the data once you know what you're doing to get it.

Also look up plate solving if you haven't already. As I said, cliff of a learning curve, but you'll need that to centre your target.

Good luck tomorrow

Edit: oh and you mentioned planets, thats a whole different kettle of fish, I'm only just scratching the surface of.

Edited by LandyJon
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wesdon1

wesdon1

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On 17/09/2023 at 18:27, fatjon said:

Hello all. Just finished building my observatory near Gainsborough. Anyone else near me, I’m going to be in need of all kinds of advice?

I have a Pulsar dome and a Celestron 8SE with an EQ6 and EQMOD. ZWO 1600MC Cool, filter wheel etc. Quite new to this but the doc says I have to give up pies and beer so here comes a new hobby!

Computers, science and electronics are my area and astronomy fascinates me so I think I chose the right one.

 

 

 

@fatjon Hi John, welcome to SGL. I'm miles away in Liverpool, unfortunately.

You have quite an expensive setup there, really great gear. I would suggest you work on getting your guiding as good as possible, as at such a relatively long focal length, guiding will need to be good. So make sure you balance your rig really well, have your tripod as close to perfectly level as possible. Also make sure you get your mount polar aligned properly, and do a 3 star alignment, it all helps your guiding be more precise. Once you have good guiding, your only limiting factor will be local light pollution and the filters you use to determine how long your sub-exposures can be before light pollution starts creeping in significantly. 

I see you have a reducer so that's definitely a big help in more ways than one. 

More than anything else though John, take your time and try enjoy the experience. This hobby takes a lot of practice and perseverance. One big advantage you have over someone like myself is your knowledge of computer software, because a lot of the hobby involves using various software programmes to process your data/images. I have struggles with that side of the hobby but i'm getting better all the time.

best of luck John, this hobby is a wonderful one...

Btw good for you trying to lose some weight, my dad is doing the same thing, he's really struggling with it but he's persevering, Bless him.

Clear Skies, Wes.

Edited by wesdon1
missed a bit
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  • 1 month later...
Kev M

Kev M

Posted
Posted
On 17/09/2023 at 18:27, fatjon said:

Hello all. Just finished building my observatory near Gainsborough. Anyone else near me, I’m going to be in need of all kinds of advice?

I have a Pulsar dome and a Celestron 8SE with an EQ6 and EQMOD. ZWO 1600MC Cool, filter wheel etc. Quite new to this but the doc says I have to give up pies and beer so here comes a new hobby!

Computers, science and electronics are my area and astronomy fascinates me so I think I chose the right one.

 

 

 

Literally just down the road from me ( Heapham )

Happy to help where I can.....I can get rid of the pies & beer for you....😀

Kev

 

 

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teoria_del_big_bang

teoria_del_big_bang

Posted
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On 17/09/2023 at 18:27, fatjon said:

Hello all. Just finished building my observatory near Gainsborough. Anyone else near me, I’m going to be in need of all kinds of advice?

I have a Pulsar dome and a Celestron 8SE with an EQ6 and EQMOD. ZWO 1600MC Cool, filter wheel etc. Quite new to this but the doc says I have to give up pies and beer so here comes a new hobby!

Computers, science and electronics are my area and astronomy fascinates me so I think I chose the right one.

Welcome to SGL 🙂 

WOW, you really have jumped into this hobby with both feet, not many people start with an obsy.
I am sure you will find it fascinating and be in it long term but it really is a marathon and not a sprint so be ready for some frustration and time spent getting everything to work just right, and also the weather in UK generally tends not to help.

But, joining SGL you have made a great move, I am no veteran of this hobby only starting in my late 50's and without this forum I do not think I would have managed in imaging.
But take your time, step by step and you will get there. When the weather is not playing ball try to improve your processing skills, getting the images is only half the task as yu have a lot of processing to bring out the very feint nebulas and galaxies and that take time and a fairly steep learning curve so getting 3rd party data and practicing your processing is important.

But most of all enjoy it, ask plenty of questions, if you do not already have it get the great book "Every photon counts" and read, several times, again this really helped me on my journey.

We probably cannot help with the Beer and pies issue, well SGL never helped me much 🤣

Once again welcome 🙂 

Steve

Edited by teoria_del_big_bang
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