Taking pictures of the Messier 42

[Digi-Steve]

Hello,

This will be my first attempt on taking pictures thru a telescope.

The camera I will use is a Canon 50D (Live-View)

The telescope I have is a Skywatcher Skymax 127 SupaTrak.

(http://www.opticalvision.co.uk/documents/79.pdf)

How do I start? ( I read about darks and flats but I'm very confused)

GreetZ Digi-Steve

Merry X-Mas everybody!!!!

[Bizibilder]

How are you going to attach the camera to the scope?

[Digi-Steve]

With this

Adaptors - T Rings

Adaptors - 1.25" T mount camera adapter

[Bizibilder]

Ok First you have an altazimuth mount so you will need to keep exposures shortish to avoid field rotation. Also no guiding so ditto for exposures.

Therefore set the thing up and get the best focus that you can - use live view and take your time over this as it is critical (first hurdle!!). Focus on a brightish star - its easier - then find M42 without touching the focus - lock it if you can. Set the mount to tracking and check that it is working.

Set the camera to record RAW (+JPEG if you can)

Take a short pic - say 10 secs exposure - just to check alignment and focus.

Then you are ready to go!! Set the camera for something like 30secs and start clicking away! Do you have a remote cable release? Use it. If not set the camera to have a 5 sec delay before opening the shutter or you will be photographing the vibrations in the mount!!

Take LOTS of "subs" - 60-70 at least as quite a few will not be up to scratch.

Then "flats" - Don't bother at this stage - simples!!

Then "darks" - put the lens cap on the camera and take around 20 pics of 30 secs (or whatever you used for M42) exposure of the inside of the lens cap!! .

Then come in from the cold and enter the dark and murky world of photo processing!!!

Hope this helps.

[Digi-Steve]

Thnx Bizibilder!!!

What ISO and F-number do I pick?

I guess ISO 1600 or higher?

Lowest F-number?

What are lights?

Thnx

[Quatermass]

Theres a lot to learn I am just starting down this road myself having got a t adapter for my Lumix G1 and an RA drive control for my EQ5 mount. I good sturdy mount and a good polar alignment followed by the RA drive switched on is a good start a bahtinov mask will help with focus, easy to make one.

Wrap up warm it gets cold taking lots of photos lol:)

[Bizibilder]

Oops - two mistakes!!!

Use ISO 800 or 1600.

I have corrected my first post as I should have used the term "flats" - silly me!! "Lights" are actually the exposures of M42 that you take ie the "data" photographs.

F number is irrelevant as you are using your scope as the "lens". My camera shows "F00" as the f-ratio.

[Quatermass]

When imaging with my camera I set it to an ISO of 400 first with a 60 second exposure this has been the most used settings with the picture format on raw.

When taking shots of the moon the ISO is normally 200 with a fast shutter speed.

The hardest thing is getting the focus right so I take several shots and then zoom in to check the focus and refocus using my live view on the LCD display.

Making sure I do a good polar alignment first is very important so I take my time with that then attach my camera and get the focus right. After that I attach the RA drive and engage the drive cogs one last check and then were ready.

I dont have shutter release cable yet so I use the self timer set at 10 seconds this gives any vibration time to settle down and then the shot is taken.

I plan to set up a second guide scope camera later on but for now this set up gives me plenty to get on with.

I use deep sky stacker for stacking the subs and then finish them off in Photoshop CS4 using level curves colour adjustment and layers. The last bit takes the longest but its nice to be in the warm working on your hard earned images for the final shots.

Heres my latest one of the Orion Nebula and the lunar eclipse.

[Digi-Steve]

Will I be able to take pictures in color? Or is that just something I can hope for?

[Quatermass]

Sure you can but you will get more colors out when you put the images through photo shop as this allows you to work on the colours that you capture. I am no expert on all this but your camera looks much like mine in terms of what it will capture. The image of the Orion Nebula took several attempts to get right and with a longer exposures will show more detail and colours. Taking the picture is easy getting the polar alignment and focusing right takes much longer. The more of this I do the more I am thinking of converting my shed to an observatory so I can do my imaging in the warm. After an hour or two outside on a freezing cold night it gets pretty cold.

[M42]

Just a word of warning if you are using a laptop or a DSLR outside in cold weather. Turn it off before you take it in to the warm and then leave it for at least 2 hours to reach ambient temperature. In fact leave it off until the next day to be sure. Condensation will start to build up inside the camera or laptop and could short it out if you turn it on. Not likely to happen but it can and it has done on me a few years back. Luckily the only thing that did go wrong was the speaker on my laptop went.

Keith Morris

[Quatermass]

Thats a good tip Keith specially on these damp winter nights when you consider how damp and wet the telescope gets when its really cold and frosty out there. I need to build myself an observatory this year for sure.