Mickoid
06-04-2016, 08:23 PM
Hi there,
I'm holidaying on the south coast of NSW and would have liked to have brought my 8" Newtonian along with me but obviously the size and weight of this outfit would have taken up too much room in the car.
Looking forward to dark skies, I took away my Saxon 4" f5 achromat refractor which is extremely portable. However, this is really only suitable for visual observing and it's imaging capabilities are known to be below average. Consequently, my expectations of producing a quality image were far from high but I love the challenge and just being out there under the stars away from city lights was too tempting.
After eight days of cloudy night skies I eventually got a clear near perfect sunny day. A perfect day for the Department of Primary Industries or whichever government department they were decided to do some controlled burn offs in the local national park.
That night there was smoke haze hanging over where we were staying so I headed up into the foothills away from the coast and smoke haze to find an isolated sight to set up for some astrophotography.
The sky was clear of cloud but there was a slight smoke haze that reduced transparency.
The clearing I found to set up on was not flat and had a moderate slope with long grass so getting the mount level took some time. The gentle breeze started to blow the smoke away so despite this creating stability issues I had to be grateful it was doing some good.
So here's the result of the night's efforts. Plenty of coma and noise ( sensor too warm and not enough subs) but I managed five subs to stack.
5 x 30 second lights 1600 iso. Canon 550d full spectrum modified.
3 x 30 second darks.
Unguided Bresser EQ3 mount with RA motor.
I now know why no one uses these scopes for astrophotography!
The sacrifice I made to fit the family and all our luggage in the car. I'm still happy with the result and it's a nice memory of dark skies away from city lights.
I'm holidaying on the south coast of NSW and would have liked to have brought my 8" Newtonian along with me but obviously the size and weight of this outfit would have taken up too much room in the car.
Looking forward to dark skies, I took away my Saxon 4" f5 achromat refractor which is extremely portable. However, this is really only suitable for visual observing and it's imaging capabilities are known to be below average. Consequently, my expectations of producing a quality image were far from high but I love the challenge and just being out there under the stars away from city lights was too tempting.
After eight days of cloudy night skies I eventually got a clear near perfect sunny day. A perfect day for the Department of Primary Industries or whichever government department they were decided to do some controlled burn offs in the local national park.
That night there was smoke haze hanging over where we were staying so I headed up into the foothills away from the coast and smoke haze to find an isolated sight to set up for some astrophotography.
The sky was clear of cloud but there was a slight smoke haze that reduced transparency.
The clearing I found to set up on was not flat and had a moderate slope with long grass so getting the mount level took some time. The gentle breeze started to blow the smoke away so despite this creating stability issues I had to be grateful it was doing some good.
So here's the result of the night's efforts. Plenty of coma and noise ( sensor too warm and not enough subs) but I managed five subs to stack.
5 x 30 second lights 1600 iso. Canon 550d full spectrum modified.
3 x 30 second darks.
Unguided Bresser EQ3 mount with RA motor.
I now know why no one uses these scopes for astrophotography!
The sacrifice I made to fit the family and all our luggage in the car. I'm still happy with the result and it's a nice memory of dark skies away from city lights.