My first few pics ...

[CarlJoseph]

A few of my first few shots. Certainly not wonderful but I'm pretty glad I managed to capture something. Haven't used any "darks" or anything like that. Keen for any feedback, advice, etc. on how I could improve.

All were taken with my Stellarvue 105 f/6.2 Triplet APO + Canon 450D.

Moon
15th March @ Home
8 x 1/25 second, ISO 400
90850


Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070)
5th March @ The Briars
2 x 5 seconds, 5 x 30 seconds, ISO 1600
90849


Eta Carinae (NGC 3372)
5th March @ The Briars
9 x 30 seconds, ISO 1600
90848


Cheers,
Af.

[renormalised]

Lower the ISO down to a max of 800 and lengthen your subs, say to 2-5 minutes. You'll see a big difference then....less noise, more piccie:):)

[CarlJoseph]

Thanks Carl :D I intend to try longer exposures now that I have a intervalometer thingi for my cam. Reminds me, I must practice polar aligning a bit more too. :rolleyes:

[jjjnettie]

You can get by in the mean time by taking many subs.
150x 20secs will give you 50 minutes of good data to work with.
Don't forget to put the lens cap on and take darks as well, for the same length of time.
But most of all , HAVE FUN!!

[EddieDog]

Brilliant pics Carl. Make me want an EQ mount.....

Eddie

[EddieDog]

Me again, Carl. I note there are multiple pics. Do you use stacking software, if so which. Or how did you get the pics.
Eddie

[CarlJoseph]

Thanks Eddie. I used Deep Sky Stacker to stack the deep sky images. I used Registax to do the moon image. Registax still confuses me but I'll get some more practice and slowly learn more about it.

[EddieDog]

Thanks Carl, have downloaded both. I can set my Olympus for a short burst of multiple exposures so if clear Friday night, will do some testing
Eddie

[midnight]

Registax also took me some time and still buggers me occassionally. I was recently pointed to a tip with Registax in that if you are doing a moon stack and you have some field rotation (ie you just point your mount roughly south and basic align and off you go) then it is important to ensure if you multi point align, ensure alignment point 1 and 2 are diagonally opposite your image. It took me 6 months to work out why I was struggling to get any decent stacking. BTW, ensure you check "de-rotate" if you do go this way.

Anyway, just a little pointer I found very useful in stacking the moon in Registax if that helps you :). It's also in the manual which quite often I don't read until I'm knackered :D

Cheers,

Darrin...

[CarlJoseph]

Excellent. Looking forward to seeing your results Eddie. Make sure the exposure isn't too short though (unless it's of the moon). You really need to keep the shutter open for a while for any of the deep sky images to register.



Great tip! Thanks for that Darrin. I've been wondering about that side of things so good to know how it works now. :)

[EddieDog]

Thanks Darrin, sadly can't test on Friday as called in for a night shift! Not sure if Sat is on as have a party, and footy on Sunday....ahhhhh
Eddie

[CarlJoseph]

Here's another version of the Tarantula I took last night.

10 subs of 2 minutes each @ 800 ISO

My focus is getting better but I think I definitely need to add some darks to get rid of that (reddish) noise.

Thoughts?