Orion - First ever deep sky

[cazza132 (Troy Casswell)]

My first ever attempt at deep sky work using an Astrotrac.
5DII, 70-200L f2.8 II @ 200mm/f2.8
ISO1600
Light frames - 18x120s+13x30s+3x15s+5x120s
Dark frames - 5x120s+15x30s (needed more at 120s)
Three crops provided. Feedback welcome.
Cheers, Troy

[Larryp (Laurie)]

You've done well, Troy!

[ving (David)]

nice. i need guiding so i can get longer exposures

[cazza132 (Troy Casswell)]

Thanks ving and Larryp

ving: I never could have done this without guiding. About 2.5s without tracking for 200mm. I was able to do 120s with the AstroTrac without accurate setup!

I didn't accurately line up celestial south because there were trees in the way. Used a dodgy compass and set up the incline for my latitude. I tried 8 min exposures, and the stars trailed and therefore unusable, so I found my limits for the night.

The setup worked great, but sensitive to vibration - even touching the remote timer. Lucky there wasn't to much breeze

[ving (David)]

i need to get a laptop me thinks... and another scope for guiding... sighs!

[cazza132 (Troy Casswell)]

ving, I wish I have that too! No guide scope or laptop on site for me. Just set and forget, and hope your calibration is right! You will find out after the first few exposures.

The AstroTrac is just a device mounted on a tripod that you mount a camera to and will track the stars. It does have a finderscope (optional extra for only a few $$) to find the south or north celestial pole that should be set first (I'm still yet to do this part though), and then you go! Well worth checking out their website.

There is another option that's called Vixen Polarie also worth looking into.

[alexandre (Alexandre)]

That starts very well Troy!!
@lex

[multiweb (Marc)]

I really like #3. You're doing very well with that rig. Those 5Ds certainly pack a punch when it come to resolution and image scale in widefields.

[Ross G]

Great captures Troy.


Good luck.

Ross.