Don't you hate it when...

[Frostyvegi]

You spend an hour typing out a huge, introduction post then when you go to submit it find out your log in has timed out or something and you cannot go back to retrieve your long winded post?

Well, I do..

TL;Can't Be Bothered To ReType It Just Now

Hi everyone.. recently bought my first 'scope.. 254mm (10 inch) Carbon Fibre f/4 Skywatcher Newtonian with a HEQ6 Synscan mount (yes, bold move for a newbie).

Below are my efforts for my first and second night ever doing telescope astrophotography..

https://www.dropbox.com/s/167u9fr46cxs8hw/IMG_0029.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uenqwd5sqdnifyg/10518710_875196115845380_7886227722 912496000_n.jpg?dl=0

Don't get me wrong, I'm still stunned I got what I got on my first tries, but now that I've learnt a few tricks from more research, hope to get better results, hopefully starting tonight if the skies stay clear!

[pluto]

:welcome:

Those are great images for your first go!

[Scorpius51]

Hi Justin :welcome:. Those images are not too shabby at all for a first go. Well done!

Cheers
John

[leon]

Excellent for your first attempt, a bit more exposure time and your on a winner, well done indeed.

Leon

[OzStarGazer]

It happened to me too, but I seem to remember that if you log in from the page where it says that your session has timed out and it asks you to log in again, your post is there again when you log in and you can resume what you were doing.
Welcome, and nice first images!

[cometcatcher]

I've been caught like that myself a number of times. Had enough of that so now when I type a big message I select all and copy to clipboard before submitting. Has saved me a couple of times!

And yes welcome and very nice images to start with.

[Frostyvegi]

Thanks for the welcomes everyone.

Did have a session on Tuesday night, but haven't been bothered to look through the photos I took.

A few questions that I've been meaning to ask.

I have a Canon 450D that I'm using with my 10 inch f/4 Newt and I've got it hooked up to the laptop running the Canon EOS remote program that came with the camera. There is a timer option that allows you to set up a shooting 'schedule' so you can set and leave it to take however many photos at whatever settings.. however for some reason the option to use this is greyed out when using anything but the auto settings on the camera (which means you are unable to set your ISO or exposure time). Is anyone aware of a work around to get this to work?

The alternative I've been looking at was a mouse macro program that I can set up to just click the button for me on the screen to essentially do the same thing.. but have yet to find a free one that works.

Next question, is there any printable resource which contains a essentially full listing of deep sky objects with their magnitude (so it's sortable as such) so I have something to work through, as opposed to printing out the many separate 'catalogues' to target?

-third edit-

Just regarding my first two shots, the first one was the best of a few straight shots, no stacking or editing done.. just played around with exposure times and ISO settings at the camera (not hooked up to the laptop at the time). The second was probably a dozen light shots at two different exposures and ISO's, and about 6 darks of each with a bit of cropping and adjustment in DSS. Finally located my version of Paintshop Pro that can be used to give even better post-processing.

[Manav]

Welcome to IIS! Having gone through the same learning cycle that you are starting below are my suggestions:

1. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/161385980041?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=107&chn=ps

2. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/projects.html (look at astronomy and observing section)

On a side note are you using auto guiding?

Here is my post when I started :) http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=55636