EQ Platform Widefield from Lostock

[iceman]

Hi guys.

On the Thursday night at Lostock, I took some widefield images with my camera on a tripod, on top of my EQ platform.

This is the first of the lot, others are coming but they are still being processed.

- Canon EOS350D with 18-55mm Lens @ 18mm f/3.5
- Single 90 second exposure @ ISO800

Dew was a problem and the lens kept dewing up! Had to hit it with the hairdryer inbetween shots!

This shot is of the crux/carina region and has been cropped/resized for forum.

Many thanks to Rocket Boy who is helping me with the processing of these.

The sky is so dark at lostock! Even with 90+ second exposures there was just no skyglow!

More to come next week.

[atalas]

Very nice Mike ,looking forward to seeing more of them and good onya RB .

[xstream]

You would have to be happy with tracking of the platform Mike.
Nice shot!

[janoskiss]

Confetti!! :)

Got a larger one, Mike?

[[1ponders]]

Nice shot Mike. :thumbsup: It's a surprise how much colour you managed in EC with such a short shot

[Robby]

Very nice work Mike. How long do you reckon you can go with the platform before you get drift/field rotation?
Cheers

[Hitchhiker]

Nice shot, Mike. Well done! :thumbsup:

[davidpretorius]

i like it mike, well done!

[iceman]

Robby, I won't get field rotation because it's not alt/az, it's EQ. Drift will depend on how accurately I've aligned it.

I spent a fair bit of time that night making sure the platform was aligned. Some of the shots to come next week was shot at 37mm for 122s, and even at full resolution there's only a tiny bit of evidence of star trails.. when it's reduced it won't be noticeable.. unfortunately though the lens lets it down around the edges with the shape of stars getting quite distorted..

Steve, i'll post a larger version next week.

Thanks for the comments.

[Thiink]

Theres bugger all noise in that shot for ISO800. Anything over a few seconds on my camera at IS800 is horrible. :sad:

Was it run through neat image at all?

[iceman]

Simon,

I used in-camera NR as well as mirror lockup. With bulb mode set, I just used the remote to start the exposure, and then again to stop it.

RB tells me he used a light application of NeatImage.

I'll post a raw (ie: unprocessed) shot next week so you can see the (lack of) noise in the image, and how much was visible with just a single exposure, thanks to the dark skies.

[tornado33]

Yes a nice dark sky in that shot. Nice distinct Coalsack too.

[JohnH]

Mike,

You could mark that one up and post to beginners forum to enable recognition of the SCP, the Octans asterism (is that how you spell it?) is nicely visable as are all the cues for hopping to it at this time of year....

Congrats