Dumbbell attempt

[Feebix]

This was my second ever go at long exposure photography, the Dumbbell nebula. Not the best shot ever but I thought this was just magical considering it was my second ever go at it ! I was amazed to see this result and hoping up and down with excitement....

[Doc]

Another great shot.

For a beginner these are very good.

[Tim]

Yes, it is very exciting the first times you start to see deep space objects coming to life on the screen before your very eyes. To be honest, I've been doing this for a little over 2 years now, and I still get that buzz when the first pic comes in with the target on it

Well done.

TJ

[Feebix]

I don`t think that buzz will ever go away for me, I`m almost hopping with excitement when I`m having a good evening.... Oh cheers Mick

[jnp]

This and Andromeda look very good considering these are early attempts.

What equipment was used to take and process the images?

cheers

John

[Psychobilly]

Just needs more subs really everything else is basically there already...

[Feebix]

Couldn`t get much red though! I used an eight inch LX90, Cannon 350D unmodded, and stacked with deep sky stacker then processed with CS2 I think it was... Yeah I was happy with them for first goes, I`m going to get a little more serious now though, I`ll spend whole nights just trying to do the best single image I can I expect....

[Psychobilly]

If you modded the 350D then it would become a Ha Hoover... the older canons really benefit from filter remoaval or replacemebt the laster ones do as well but not by so much having a better Ha response straight out of the box...

The fact your prepared to sepnd a whole night ona single target is a good sign.. as theres no substitute for exposure to get the best out of a target once you have the tracking and focus sorted out which you clearly do.....

I tend to pick a few targets so that i can grab 3-4 hours of data a night on each as they are optimally placed for imaging... one advantage of a fork mounted SCT is you can Image through the Meridian without the gymnastics of a Meridican flip...

Peter...

[Sam]

Great image! You can also add more data to it on subsequent nights.

[Feebix]

Yeeeeeah I probably will at some point. I wonder if that`s what everyone else does then? If they do something a second time, adding all the data to the first lot?

[Sam]

yep, that's what happens. The more data the better and it allows you to be more selective with your subs to only stack the best ones. For my set up the Dumbbell needed about 2 hours worth of data to get a pretty good result, often I image over a period of two or three nights. It doesn't matter going over a few nights as the objects don't change (except comets, planets and the moon). Some folks on here even add images taken over a few years.