Widefield plans

[Andrew*]

For the first time in ages, it's a clear night, I'm not too tired, and I don't have work at 7 tomorrow morning, so I've got my scope on its new mount in the best place and have just taken a peek at the stars.

Meteors flying about everywhere!! I saw three in the space of 5 minutes! So I'm going to have a little experiment with the SLR. I want to capture them, but seeing as I haven't got the motors working properly yet, I'm going to have to make do with a bit of a unconventional method.

I'll mount the camera on the telescope, pop in a 15mm EP and point at a suitable bright star, click the shutter for 30 seconds, get the star back in the center of the FOV, put another exposure on top of the first, realign, another exp... etc. Will this work? Any other suggestions?

Also what area will the meteors be most concentrated in?

Andrew

[blinky]

Why not just leave the shutter open? Sure you will get star trails but might look quite cool with the star trails and a nice bright meteor flying through them!

[Andrew*]

okay, fine! not a bad plan at all! Also saves a bother, and I can get on with observing in the mean time.

Where will said meteors be?

cheers.

Andrew

[blinky]

Gemini (hope thats spelt correctly) Not even sure what/where the constelation is!

[FLO]

Look in the East/Southeast, about 35-40 degrees above the horizon.

[Andrew*]

well, here are two digital results from this fantastic night. I know they're far from decent, but I want to show them anyway

probably the most successful widefield 15 secs at ISO 800 and f4):

one of the better of 11 15 second subs (4x zoom, ISO 800, f5.5)

I have 10 more of these ^ and I want to stack them. How best to go about it?

Andrew

[geppetto]

They are good for 15 seconds shots Andrew 8)

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

To stack them use either Registax or Deep Sky Stacker (both free).

Should come out OK.

Captain Chaos

[FLO]

I think you will need Deep Sky Stacker as Registax doesn't stack DSLR Raws.... Could be wrong?

[Andrew*]

I've been trying to get Registax to stack the 10 subs, but can't work out what all the settings mean and can't seem to see the difference at the end. I managed eventually, but just by doing it totally basically. What settings to I need to alter to get the most out of these images?

Also, I've had to compress the files to a ridiculous degree so it doesn't use up too much RAM!

Andrew

[AndyM]

Andrew, have you tried Deep Sky Stacker? As someone who is fairly new to all this I find it much easier to use than Registax.

Andy.