First success taking a DSLR image

[Black Knight]

After numerous problems of one sort or another, this is my first real victory taking an astro image. It's just a star field in the vicinity of NGC7000. I was quite pleased. I Haven't been able to get my alignment good enough for 60 second exposures before. Anyway:

- SW 200p on an EQ5 unguided using an unmodded Canon 500D using the direct camera connection

- 24 x 60 second exposures stacked in DSS

- Some processing (not much) in Nebulosity 2

Any advice welcome. I'm not really up on these things yet, but I think I have coma around the edges? If so would a coma corrector sort that out and still allow me to achieve focus with my DSLR?

[Digz]

Nice attempt. Thats what I was trying last night. Ill post my results later. Not the best shots but I like them

A coma correct will help with the coma, something like a MPCC. I have one of these but yet to try it out to see if I can still achieve focus with my DSLR.

[Black Knight]

Yeah, thanks Digz. I know this image is nothing special, but I was really chuffed to get *something* out of it. The direct camera connection worked. \0/

Do you have the Baader MPCC? I'd be interested to know if you can still get focus with that bad boy in place . I'm a bit reluctant to shell out the money until I'm sure I'm not going to get more problems

[Digz]

Thats the one I have Andy, next time Im out with my scope Ill see if what the crack is and whether I can get it working. I know what it feels like to finally get something no matter what the results are its very satisfying isnt it.

[Black Knight]

Yes, it is satisfying .

I'll lookout for an update (and some pics) when you've used your MPCC then

[Sparrow]

Nice clean image - you need to get yourself on to a deep sky target now - that will really make it fun for you - I'd start with something reasonably bright like M42 - 1 minute exposures should give you a reasonable image of M42 and it is appearing in the sky now in the early hours.

As for coma - I've tried a couple of correctors on my scopes - one wouldn;t let me achieve focus and the other didn't seem to make that much difference. For the moment I'm using the Lense correction filter in Adobe CS3 on my processed images. It does go a long way to correct coma in the images.

[Digz]

I never thought of trying the lens correction filter in PS. Ill have to look into that.

[Cloudwatcher]

That's a rather nice star field........ not too busy and some good colour showing when you boost the the saturation.

(I didn't add the spikes by the way.... already there.)

[Black Knight]

Nice! I didn't want to overdo the saturation

[lukebl]

Hi Andy.

Nice start! I have an older SW200, and found that the Skywatcher Coma Corrector really transfomed the images, losing the elongation of stars at the edges almost completely. Definitely worth getting one. I think focus could be a problem, although it's fine with my Skywatcher low-profile focuser.

[Black Knight]

Thanks Luke. Yeah, it's the focusing with a coma corrector that concerns me. My 200p has the Crayford focuser with the alloy wheels . I've no idea if I'll be able to achieve focus with a corrector in place. I could do with trying one out first before I buy!