First night of photos - NGC3372, NGC5139, M42

[Belsamber]

I bought a 10" Skywatcher Synscan dob with no intention of doing photography, but from my bortle 8+ skies the deepsky targets are pretty limited and the planets aren't up at "human hours" at the moment. So I thought I'd take a crack at some photos. First clear night also happened to be a full moon - lovely :-)

Camera is an Olympus E-P3 (10 year old micro 4/3) at prime focus.

Eta Carinae nebula (or a portion of it anyway) was 100x10s subs at ISO6400

Omega was 50x10s subs at ISO 6400

M42 was 50x10s subs at ISO6400 and 75x1s subs at ISO6400 to get some core definition.

50 darks, 50 flats, 100 bias, processed in Siril with a little touch up in Pixelmator after. Quite amazed at how they turned out to be honest, though hardly perfect... I would guess the main thing they all need is more exposures to get the noise down. I'll have to experiment a bit more to see if I can get longer subs and lower ISO also without too much field rotation creeping in.

Any other thoughts or feedback?

[Kuz]

3 very nice captures especially eta carinea. Top effort with a dobsonian :question:

[Mickoid]

Well you certainly chose the worst conditions to introduce yourself to astrophotography but you've pulled off a very successful set of images. Great job in taming the Light Pollution and moonlight with clever consideration to lots of short high iso exposures to accomplish this. Well done! You will obviously improve your outcome without the moon, not much you can do about the Bortle 8 skies unless you change your location. Also, investing in a Coma Corrector will eliminate the elongated stars at the edges. You have a T-Ring to connect your camera to the telescope, I assume? The CC will screw into this and then slide into the 2 inch eyepiece holder. Good luck! :thumbsup:

[Belsamber]

Thanks heaps!




Oh is it pretty certain that's coma? I had wondered exactly what was causing it. I attached a single frame capture if it helps. I had been resisting spending on a coma corrector so far, but might need to bite the bullet I guess ;-) Thanks so much for your feedback.