First attempt at astrophotography

[Gundary5 (Shane)]

This is my first attempt at astrophotography, with an Explore Scientific ED80 mounted on a HEQ5 Pro, Canon 7D. I have a 5D but my wife isn’t letting me use it in the telescope just yet. Only one image, 2 minutes at ISO 1600 unguided. My polar alignment is a little off and there is some movement but I am quite pleased with this image of the Trifid Nebula.

[Regulus (Trevor)]

Surprising what you can get even using just the basics.
I'm thinking that the mount for the camera isn't perfectly aligned to the front elements because of the 'comet' appearance of the stars in the top right quadrant. Otherwise it's good for an unguided 2 minutes.

Trevor

[Imme (Jon)]

Great work for a first effort.
Next challenge - take 10 x 1 minute shots and stack them in deep sky stacker. You'll be amazed at what it spits out!

[leon]

Excellent attempt for a first time, keep at it and you will master it in no time.
You do realise of coarse that from this point on you will be financially poor

Leon

[PKay (Peter)]

Well done

It was only mid last year for my first attempt. Look out mate, you might get hooked

[sil (Steve)]

Originally Posted by PKay

Look out mate, you might get hooked

If you don't get hooked you're doing it wrong!

[Anth10 (Anthony M)]

Top effort, Congratulations on a terrific start in this inspiring hobby. It reminds me of my very first DSO image except yours is a pearla! I recall saving my shot of the Triffid on my phone picture album and constantly staring at it in amazement. I've been hooked that's for sure as many of us are on this forum. Best of Luck

Happy Astro imaging!
Anth

[Gundary5 (Shane)]

Thanks everyone. Yes I am quite addicted already. I have a long shopping list. It’s amazing to see more than we can with the eye, and while it’s all been done before there is something special about creating your own.

[Imme (Jon)]

Originally Posted by Gundary5

Thanks everyone. Yes I am quite addicted already. I have a long shopping list. It’s amazing to see more than we can with the eye, and while it’s all been done before there is something special about creating your own.

.....and you know what?

You’re one of only a very small number of people doing these kinds of shots in Australia.

24 million in Australia
16000 people on this forum
Possibly 50 who are regularly posting pics? (I’m sure there are more people doing it but you get the drift)
I think we all often forget that the pictures we take, no matter how they compare to the other people’s pics on this forum are, at the end of the day, much better than the pics that aren’t taken by 23,999,950 other people in Australia!

You’ve stepped in to a very exclusive hobby......

[xelasnave]

Great effort first time or not.
Heck if you stack a few of them you will get a surprise...you need Deep Sky Stacker and download Gimp to process for free.
Great work.
I look forward to more.
You must have great sky down there..it makes a huge difference.
Alex

[raymo]

Agree with everybody else, but if you had limited your subs to 45-60 secs
in order to get round stars, and stacked half a dozen of them in DSS
[as mentioned earlier] you would be gobsmacked by the result,[also as
mentioned earlier.]
raymo

[Gundary5 (Shane)]

I’ve been looking at the recommended software and alas, there isn’t a lot of love for Macs!

[raymo]

Can you pick up an old laptop with XP or W7 or W8, and use it solely for
astro?
raymo

[Benjamin (Ben)]

Also possible to run Windows as a virtual machine on a Mac. I use Virtualbox on my MacBook Pro to run Windows 10 and have no real problems - once its all setup correctly. Virtual box is free but can be a bit fiddly initially and you still have to buy Windows. A dedicated Windows laptop would be much simpler but I really only use the Windows VM to capture data. Processing can be done on the Mac side :-)

[Gundary5 (Shane)]

Yes I’m looking into a laptop for windows, just for Astro use. I don’t want to go down the emulation path!