Orion and LMC Widefields

[bmitchell82]

well after a sinking feeling of the 10" not focusing, i turned my sights to a bit of Wide field imaging. Though the clouds, and dew that fell like rain :S (carefully placed cardboard boxes :D) i shot a wide fields of the LMC 8x 5 min @ iso 800 imaging with the Canon 40d (modded) and a 250mm lens, guided with the DSI and a 120mm achro refractor on the EQ6pro. Orion was 2 x 10min shots iso 800. lost a few shots due to the box moving and covering the lense :( enjoy

http://s700.photobucket.com/albums/ww3/brendanmitchell1982/Wide%20Field%20shots/

[multiweb]

Pretty cool mate. The LMC came up real nice. Focus is excellent. Can make up the HH in the orion shot. :thumbsup:

[Benny L]

not a bad effort at all mate :) be nice when all the clouds piss off.. :D and us Perthites can get some decent imaging time

[Lester]

Nice LMC and a is that a bit of Barnards loop showing in the Orion image?

[bmitchell82]

Thank you all for the words its kind of an offset to the crap night i had with the 10" :),

Multiweb Pretty cool mate. The LMC came up real nice. Focus is excellent. Can make up the HH in the orion shot. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/../vbiis/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

Yes the HH was a very nice surprize i cant wait to attack it with the 10" barlow setup should be very nice

- Benny not a bad effort at all mate http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/../vbiis/images/smilies/happy19.gif be nice when all the clouds piss off.. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/../vbiis/images/smilies/happy04.gif and us Perthites can get some decent imaging time

I was out with ASWA SDSO group thats run by Roger Groom (rgroom on IIS) Twas a very mediocure night but still proved quite good plus its like Jesus was walking though the camp site, the clouds parted over head and stayed pretty much like that till about 4am. oh and last i looked the temp was down to 4 degrees. :) everybody felt cold for me at 8 deg still in my shirt, stubbies, and runners :) ahhh refreshing :)

- Lester Nice LMC and a is that a bit of Barnards loop showing in the Orion image?

Im not sure if it is barnards loop, i thought it might of been cloud, but cloud only shows up red with LP, and being 2 and a bit hours from perth and shooting towards the east (away from perth)??? Barnards loop quite possibly.

[lesbehrens]

i like your LMC.

[multiweb]

Sure is Brendan. That's a portion of the Barnard's loop alright.:thumbsup:

[bmitchell82]

very interesting, i think i might attack orion with a slighty wider FOV to incorperate good old Barnards loop. i didn't think it was that bright, but it sure is.

Thanks les, i think its quite nice for a Wide field but sure can do with alot more data

[Hagar]

Two very nice images Brendan. Orion has come up beautifully. Focus etc looks very good. Looking forward to seeing some imsges taken through your scope.

[bmitchell82]

you and me both mate.... i havn't seen much out of this scope since early in the year before the weather piked on us west aussies. :( and then the 10" i have in advertedly most likely tilted the focuser when servicing it :( but all good next new moon im booked in for Tammin which is a nice dark sky hopefully spring is in full swing :)

[rogerg]

Good to see you made something of the nigt Brendan, unlike myself who ended up with no images to speak of :)

You've got good focus and tracking on those images, that's for sure. I think you should be able to get more out of Orion in 5 min with your modded DSLR ...what f/stop you at?... but then I guess conditions were ordinary.

What software do you use for capture? .. meant to ask you on the night.

Roger.

[bmitchell82]

Im new to the whole lens business. but on the 250mm canon lens it it was sitting at approx 75mm on the lense.

I use nebulosity 2.0 works a treat and you can utilize dithering though PHD with it too.

The problem with Orion was that out of the 5 shots i took, i only used 2 10 min subs becaues the cover for the lens kept falling off without me seeing so :(

It looks like Shane, Dan and I will be out there this weekend aswell as they are predicting clear weather, the moon sets at just on midnight so it should't be too much of a issue. :) allows a bit of a feed and check that everything is nice before I set for a run of 20 x 10 min shots or something silly like that.!

[rogerg]

ahh.. that's focal length, not focal ratio. Focal ratio affects how much light you're getting (f/2, f/4, f/5.6, etc). If nothing else you'll want to check you're at the fastest focal ratio you can set the camera to for the lens (probably something like f/4) unless you specifically want to stop it down to a slower focal ratio to improve image quality.


Ahh crap, I should've come and looked at how you use it. I use nebulosity too, but dislike it's saving of seperate FITS files and have the occasional problem with it functioning now and then. I'd just started to think about ditching it for something else, but fact is Nebulosit2 is affordable.


ahh, fair enough.



Nice. Very envious. I'll have to meet this Dan fellow sometime :) Hopefully I'll get a chance to use my obs one night in amongst other commitments. I agree, when the moon sets at 11pm-midnight kind of timeframe it's good, having that first few hours to get things going often works better in the end, less pressure to get it going quick and then mess something up.

[bmitchell82]

Bugger you should have had a look, im getting quite good at using it.!

It should be a good night like you said, i don't mind the moon setting in the early evening, bright objects it doens't matter as the moonlight doesnt affect that much, so i normally snap out a few GC's or Bright star fields to get my focus nice and tight! All i have to do is fix this damn focuser.!