After years of reading and watching youtube videos about astrophotography, I finally got hands on my first telescope last week. And of course I went straight for the beloved Orion Nebula. Being inexperienced and with poor visibility of the south, getting good polar alignment is frustrating . I couldn’t even get PHD2 to properly perform drift align, RA and DEC lines kept jumping either straight up or downwards.
After spending several nights outside trying to make the thing work, out of boredom I opened the old PHD1, calibrated and started guiding right after, and surprisingly it worked like a champ! I spent the rest of the night capturing as much as I can, and ended up with 125 subs at 25s ISO 800, 40 darks and 30 bias.
Being excited, I couldn’t resist the urge to immediately stack them up in DSS then stretch using photoshop. The result is not perfect as there certainly is room for improvement, but I’m happy with this and thought you guys might like it. Opinions and suggestions are more than welcome
You've hit that over the fence for six with you first shot!
Wow Lam you certainly have put all that learning into practice with this one.
Smoothness and colour balance excellent, bright stars and refraction spikes look speccy. Keen to know like Atmos, what scope are you driving etc...
Welcome Lam
Great effort.
Print it out and frame it.
You will do better but that is an incredible start.
But its your first frame it.
I wish I had my first capture.
Alex
Cheers guys, thank you all for your warm welcome and kind comments.
Have to admit the main reason I went straight to processing the data at the end of the night without spending more time gathering more lights and other calibration frames is that after failing to get polar aligned and the guiding to work for a few nights in a row, I have the gut feeling that I was just lucky to get it right this time, and won't be so until I really master my gears.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
What setup do you have?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anth10
Keen to know like Atmos, what scope are you driving etc...
Anth
Thanks guys, I took this with an un-modded Canon 60D on an 8" f/5 Skywatcher reflector, driven by HEQ5 mount (which I think I'm pushing the weight limit because it's slightly off-balanced even with the two counterweights sitting at the end of the shaft). All guided by Orion StarShoot with 50mm Orion mini guide scope.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
Welcome Lam
Great effort.
Print it out and frame it.
You will do better but that is an incredible start.
But its your first frame it.
I wish I had my first capture.
Alex
Thank you Alex, great idea! I didn't think of it until now. I'll definitely frame it nicely
Really nice Lam. As said below, wish my first one was that good.
Great idea processing straight away. A few times now I've collected a bunch of subs only to find its all rubbish (poor guiding etc etc). I take flats after every session no matter what (well, maybe the next day if too lazy).
I can only repeat what everyone else has said but also a very confident and successful start to your astrophotography journey. I too have tried that same scope on an HEQ5 and have noticed the shaft is not long enough to extend the weights to balance it properly. I'm sure there are extension shafts available that will screw into the end of our existing ones. The 60d is also a reasonably heavy camera.
Great debut Lam, it can only improve from here on.
You need either an extension shaft, or a 1kg weight placed above the
2x 5kg ones. You can also gain a bit by inverting the bottom weight
so that the knurled retaining screw that stops the weights falling off disappears up inside the weight[allowing the weight to be a little further
out along the shaft. This together with the 1kg weight should be about spot on.
The scope should not be perfectly balanced; it should be balanced a
bit against the drive direction in order to eliminate any backlash in
the gears.
raymo
We've got a basic scope, basic mount, standard dslr, 25 sec exposures (so who really needs to guide), poor polar alignment......and this is the result.
Just a lucky shot (....or should I say 125 lucky 25 sec shots) or is Lam's setup the new 'goto' setup for astrophotographers across the world?
Where is M42 at the moment?
M42 is rising in the east, visible after sunset. The Orion nebula is the brightest nebula and as such the easiest to capture with short exposures. In saying that it is hard to get a great pic, due to the range of brightness from the core to the wispy outer gas fields.
Not really lucky, it was guided and technically there's plenty wrong with the shot, but shows that you can get pleasing results with out all the bells and whistles. You don't need guiding for most targets but it does make it easier to get consistent results.
PS that's a great result Lam you have done well to get such a nice result, and as for the counter weight issue, I got a set of dumbbell weights from Kmart , around $50 with 1 and 2 kg weights just slip one between the 5 kg ones.
Pop down ro your local tyre place and ask for a couple of kilos of old wheel weights.
Melt and pour into a suitable container which you can remove later. A beer tin works well. Drill and place between the other weights.
and as for the counter weight issue, I got a set of dumbbell weights from Kmart , around $50 with 1 and 2 kg weights just slip one between the 5 kg ones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jenchris
Pop down ro your local tyre place and ask for a couple of kilos of old wheel weights.
Melt and pour into a suitable container which you can remove later. A beer tin works well. Drill and place between the other weights.
Rick and Jennifer's solutions are simple yet very effective, props to you guys! But before putting more weight on the system I'm also thinking of getting an extension shaft. Can anyone tell if the extension of the NEQ6 would fit onto HEQ5 shaft?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Imme
So based on the setup it's a 'lucky shot' in your opinion?
Hello there Jon I'm sorry if my bad wordings created any sort of confusion . When I said lucky I was referring to my aligning problem which I mentioned in the first post.
I had no idea how to correctly align the mount without seeing anything in the polar scope. I did roughly point it at the south using compass, then tried to correct it with PHD2's drift align. But the drift lines kept switching from almost vertically up to almost vertically down, even after very small adjustments in the mount's DEC and RA.
Out of frustration and boredom I opened PHD1, calibrated, clicked a star and then started guiding expecting it to fail just like the drift align in PHD2, but it didn't! I wasn't sure (and still not up to now) if it is the PHD1's guiding or whatever I did right in setting up the mount that night that made it work. And I consider it lucky because I have near to 0 confidence that I'll pull that alignment off again next time.
Rick and Jennifer's solutions are simple yet very effective, props to you guys! But before putting more weight on the system I'm also thinking of getting an extension shaft. Can anyone tell if the extension of the NEQ6 would fit onto HEQ5 shaft?
Hello there Jon I'm sorry if my bad wordings created any sort of confusion . When I said lucky I was referring to my aligning problem which I mentioned in the first post.
I had no idea how to correctly align the mount without seeing anything in the polar scope. I did roughly point it at the south using compass, then tried to correct it with PHD2's drift align. But the drift lines kept switching from almost vertically up to almost vertically down, even after very small adjustments in the mount's DEC and RA.
Out of frustration and boredom I opened PHD1, calibrated, clicked a star and then started guiding expecting it to fail just like the drift align in PHD2, but it didn't! I wasn't sure (and still not up to now) if it is the PHD1's guiding or whatever I did right in setting up the mount that night that made it work. And I consider it lucky because I have near to 0 confidence that I'll pull that alignment off again next time.
Picture to be proud of Lam........stars aligned for u that's for sure
I'm sorry if my bad wordings created any sort of confusion 
. When I said lucky I was referring to my aligning problem which I mentioned in the first post. 
