Hoping to shoot Andromeda tonight, any tips?

[PhoenixRising]

Hi all,

Im hoping to get some shots of Andromeda Galaxy tonight, any tips?

I tried last night with a hyperion zoom and a nebular filter on a Skywatcher 150PL but as you can see, the results are poor, I've tried Prime Focus and the results are similar. I polar align as well as I can, check my motors are tracking accurately so what am I doing wrong? Is the scope not up to it or am I missing something blindingly obvious!

Some Results from last night (stop guffawing!)

Andromeda, 24mm Hyperion zoom, 60 sec exposure, UHCIII filter, is that a huge amout of coma I see?? what did I do wrong? The image is very similar prime focus, just without the swirly accomanying stars

Part of Orion. 60 sec exposure, Prime Focus. Is the blurring just poor set up?

My Kit:

Canon 350d,

Skywatcher 150PL,

Motor Driven EQ 3/2 Mount,

Hyperion Zoom 8-24 or Prime Focus,

Baader UHC III Filter,

Antares 0.5 Focal Reducer,

18mm Meade WA Plossl,

Mk1 Eyeballs,

Lots of tea.

[kookoo_gr]

given the equipment you used the andromeda photo is very nice. the problem you face is the mount. sorry to say it but the eq3/2 mount is not good enough for tracking the target accurately for astrophotography. you need a better mount e.g. heq5 pro or neq6. the second problem that you face is that the mount has to track the target in order not to have star trails. there are two major ways to achieve this. either use a second telescope with a second camera mounted on your primary telescope or an off-axis guider at the same telescope.

the second photo of orion has too much light pollution maybe if you reduced the iso on your camera you could get some nebulosity. also start the timer on your camera so you won't have any vibrations the time you press the release button of the camera

[dark knight]

Try ISO 800 or even 400, 30 sec exposures at prime focus, also loose the filter. If you have a remote shutter release, use it, if not I'd get one. If the camera has a shutter delay setting, use it if not use the camera timer function.

There are many factors that could cause your problems,,,was it windy, anyone walking around your tripod etc can all cause vibrations which get transferred to the telescope and camera.

Your mount should be up to 30sec to 1 min exposures imho, that said a poor telescope on a good mount is better than the best telescope on a poor mount.

Also ensure your collimation is spot on....

Carl

[mdstuart]

I also recommend an umbrella

[dark knight]

Hiya Mark,,,what's the forecast for the rest of the month??

[mdstuart]

Not good..showers or longer spells of rain, pretty much as its been recently. Then a cold spell at the end of the month...snow in Scotland etc..

Sorry.

Mark

[Whippy]

The UHC filter is designed for emission nebulae so it's useless for galaxies, imaging or observing. You'd be much better off using a light pollution filter.

I think the things you need to work on are polar alignment, collimation of your scope, focus and balance. I'm pretty sure you could manage 60 second exposures with your current setup, just work through everything step by step and get everything spot on.

Tony..

[PhoenixRising]

Thanks for the advice guys. Ill lose the filter. OK, I always collimate before every session and think I may have found the problem. I have a remote shutter release and always polar align and balance mount as best as I can every session. However, the motorised-focuser on my 6 week old scope stays collimated when I zoom out. But when I zoom in, there's a bit of play which pulls it out of collimation. I think this may be causing the problem, tried to tighten loosen various screws with no joy. Not impressed. Anyway, ideally I think I can get 45-60 second subs from this set up with an iso of 400-800. Basically, before eating beans on toast for 6 months to upgrade, I need some more decent pics other than the one good one Ive done to persuade the Missus to let me upgrade! Hoping to get anything to do with the Orion area and Plaeides. Is there any other targets I can go for that I can expect reasonable results from (DSOs basically)??

[Beardy Bob]

Yes, it's possible. Check out this link.

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/78978-first-dso-what-next.html

This is what I got of the orion nebula at prime focus on a motor-driven EQ2 mount with a 350d. Lots and lots of 20s to 30s exposures stacked with Deep Sky Stacker (DSS). Polar aligning it, focusing it and using a remote shutter release are all essentials. You could also get pretty good results with M13 in hercules (although you have to catch it early as it is setting in the west quite early now). But andromeda will always be a fuzzy patch with such short exposures. I've also got some pictures of M81 and M82 and the lagoon nebula using an EQ2 with only 20 second exposures, so there's loads of cool stuff you can get pictures of.

The second image you posted with the non-round stars are due to periodic error in the gearsof the mount. Every so often the mount 'skips' a bit because the gear cogs aren't completely, perfectly identical all the way around. All mounts do it, but the really expensive ones have fancy electronics in it to detect it and correct for it. The only way to get around it is to take lots of shorter exposures and stack them.

[PhoenixRising]

Ok,

So I managed to get out for an hour on Thursday night. Got what I could before the clouds rolled in. Am now getting 90-120 second subs, occasionally 180 second, but rolled back to 90 for quality & quantity of subs. Balanced Scope, collimated,, visual polar aligned, (I must learn to drift align), yadda yadda. So:

Eq3/2 motor driven,

Skywatcher 150PL,

Prime Focus, no filters,

Canon 350D @ ISO 800

6x 90 sec subs, 2 darks.

It's a start, right?

Oh, has anyone got or used the Astronomik Canon EOS filter, how'd you find it and what's it best used for. I only have a 1.25" Skywatcher LP which is nice but no use for Primne Focus, any advice please?

Also, I think I'm going to upgrade (already!), and wonder what the best scope and mount I could get for Imaging would be in the 400-800 price range, new or second hand. I want a motor driven mount that I can autoguide at some point but thats it, open to suggestions. Please help me out on this one, I bought the 150PL instead of the 150P in error, not realising that I love DSOs (and 2" eyepieces and Crayford Focusers now inc with the 150P as standard(!)) far more than planetary imaging and dont want to make an expensive mistake. I'm open to any brand as long as I can start to attack M31, Horsehead and the Crab Nebula with my new(?) setup. I think this is a great forum and spend far too much time reading posts here! Thanks for any help guys and humble apologies for the long post.

[dark knight]

To be honest I'd invest the money in an EQ6 Pro if your gonna get into imaging and put your existing tube on that. The mount is much more important than the telescope...

[dark knight]

Sorry, mean't to say well done on your image, some nice dust trails starting to appear, keep adding the data....

[kookoo_gr]

wow the picture is amazing and the improvement is great from your first pics. did u notice the satelite track from the middle right of the pic towards the bottom left? also you should try the next time to use dark, flat and bias frames. it will improve even more the pictures you will take

for equipment first go for a good mount. my suggestion, although i have the heq5 pro mount, is to go for the neq6.

[PhoenixRising]

Thanks for that Kookoo , but I dont know how do do flat or bias frames and the info I can find online might as well be in French! Could you possibly explain what I have to do to get these frames?

[kookoo_gr]

in order to find out more go to this page and click at the faq link

DeepSkyStacker - Free

you can download the Deep sky stacker software also to help your processing