My first imaging - 300D

[Iddon]

47Tuc
Some nasty star trails there - guess I will have to figure out that wedge!! 12mb down to 125k - though this jpg doesn't look to far from the original image taken at prime throught the 8" Meade. Stacked 15 x 15 sec images at ISO 1600 in Registac and sharpened/contrasted in PS.

[ballaratdragons]

Well done for a first shot!!!!

Call me stupid, or my eyes are playing tricks on me but the star trails seem to be rotating around 47Tuc, not the celestial pole! That's weird.

[TidaLpHasE]

:thumbsup: Great for a first image, it can only get better from here.

[mick pinner]

good start, now for the fun and frustration of astrophotography, a wedge is next.

[[1ponders]]

And away he gooooes. :D Good onya Grant. Yes its rotating, but you've collected light and quite a bit of it too. :thumbsup: You'll find once you get the hang of focusing you won't need to use the sharpening as heavy either

Ken the circling is brought about by field rotation (which is more than likely from not being polar aligned accurately enough)usually in longer exposures. But in this you will notice there are also double stars. As each double looks pretty similar I'd hazard a guess at poorly aligned by registax, rather than a gear or movement problem. I found I had quite a bit of that when I first started processing DSOs with Registax. IMHO I think its result of polar misalignment. Between each shot the stars rotated just a bit and what Registax may have done is aligned and stacked the first half ok but when it got to the second half the rotation had gotten so much that it aligned the rest on a diffent "centroid" (if thats the word) star. Grant try registaxing again but do it in batches of 5 images only or 3 images only and then stack the results and see how it goes. Don't do any waveletting at the end of each bunch. Either that or take each batch result into Photoshop and stack them there. See if that makes a difference.

[Iddon]

thanks for the advice - will try that. This was on the forks, so I believe your are right Paul - star rotation confused Registax. I have the 300D hack done - so I might try ISO3200 and 5 sec images on the forks - might be noisy ??

Neat idea there Paul of stacking a stack - didn't think of that. Thx.

[[1ponders]]

Ok I thought you might have had the wedge on. Then definately field rotation. The longer your focal length the quicker rotation starts up. The further way from 0 dec you get the quicker you'll get field rotation when fork mounted. Though ironically the worst is right on the meridian at 0 dec. If you look at how your fork mounts work you'll see why. There are other areas of the sky that you may also get a bit longer but I can't remember where :P

Check out this link (infact check out the whole site, its a good one) http://www.allaboutastro.com/Articlepages/fieldrotation.html for details about field rotation

Try the 3200 but I think you'll find it really noisy

[avandonk]

You could also try using Registar.With any field rotation it handles stacking much better than Registax.Send me the images and I will use Registar on them if you want.Registar also produces what are called registered images which very nicely stack since they are corrected for orientation and scale.

Bert

[beren]

:thumbsup: Congrats ,nice start :cool: ....get the wedge out too

[[1ponders]]

The other thing you can do with registax Grant is Rotate them first. On the Alignment page of registax on the far right hand side at the top in the options bar is a "Rotate" Button. Ir requires you to make two alignment selections before performing the alignment process. It sometimes helps in these situations

[iceman]

I've tried it, it's marginal at best.. It never does a great job with rotated images unfortunately. I agree with Avandonk that registar is tonnes better at handling field rotation.

Download the trial and try it. Take a screenshot of the final result and paste it in your other image editing software.

great first shot grant!

[Striker]

Good to see you have made a start Greg....nice job

We can play around on Saturday night.

[astro_south]

I don't know who Tony's talking too, but good one Grant :thumbsup:

I'm purely a visual guy, but from what I've read your on your way to years of learning, fun and reward - all the best for the journey (there is no turning back now!) :D

[ving]

great shot. :)
I am a visual guy too and therefore dont see field rotation thru the EP... so its nice to know what it looks like :P

fine first effort! :D

[Striker]

Greg - Grant....they both start with G......close enough

[atalas]

Hi Grant and congrats on your start !

Louie :thumbsup: