Meru
03-04-2012, 10:22 AM
Hellooooo,
So I wanted so share my experiences at astrophotography, in hope that I can show others it's really not as daunting as it may seem, and also to get feedback :D Sorry if its a bore to read, Skip to my next post which has the details of the images I've taken to date :P
3 months ago, i had a 8" newt on a Eq5 mount, which I never even learned how to properly polar align and collimate (Yes I know, dont judge me!). I have a vast amount of experience in photography but never through a scope. I wanted to get into astrophotography and guiding, and considered a 'GOTO' upgrade but for $900 - I just cant justify it :( After doing research I heard about the 'DIY ST-4' hand controller (www.store.shoestringastronomy.com/eq_mod.pdf), so I decided to buy the hand controller and using my experience in electronics, wired up the ST-4 port. Though mind you, all it requires it just soldering wires to the switches, so its nothing advanced if you dont have much experience in electronics :)
I bought the Orion's Awesome (The name always crack me up) Auto-guiding package. It includes everything you need to get into Autoguiding. It was very simple; Strap the ST80 to the back of your current scope, and plug your SSAG into your laptop/ST-4 Handcontroller and Viola - Autoguiding on a budget :D For the imaging device i just used my trusty Nikon D80. Its old, extremely poor high-ISO performance - but I wouldnt trade it for the world :thumbsup: All i needed was a t-ring and that's it! Though mind you, took me about 2 hours and a (very embarrassing) trip to bintel to work out where on my scope i mount the t-tring :rofl:Turns out my 1.25" adapter unscrews into two parts, and theres a thread on one of them where you attach the t-ring.
I've spent many late hours trying to perfect this system, and also the steep learning curve in post-processing. Luckily I have good experience in Photoshop so most of my post-editing is done there, and to stack it I find Deepspace Sky Stacker (DSS) very good. And its free! :D I researched for days about darks, lights, flat fields, experimenting with stacking settings. Only after my first images and all this effort - did i realise, i had no idea if my newt was even collimated! The last time i tried collimating was about 3 years ago (yea, i really am a beginner huh?) and to be honest just pretended I knew what I was doing but in reality i didnt know :confused2: So I spent a whole day reading up about all the reflections you can see through my Cheshire collimating eyepiece. it took me a while but eventually i got the hang of it and now collimating takes me no more than 5/10min :)
Since then I've also bought an 80ED, which is so amazing, I think everyone needs to buy one :eyepop:they're that amazing! So what was the result of all this effort and money and late nights? I've attached images of my hard-work. They are by no means as stunning as some of the more dedicated astronomers here, and other beginners probably have taken better images than me. But i'm very happy with how far I've come with all this, its just so rewarding knowing how hard-work pays off. I've attached images of my setup, and in my next post I'll number the images in order of date taken, and a brief description about them.
So I wanted so share my experiences at astrophotography, in hope that I can show others it's really not as daunting as it may seem, and also to get feedback :D Sorry if its a bore to read, Skip to my next post which has the details of the images I've taken to date :P
3 months ago, i had a 8" newt on a Eq5 mount, which I never even learned how to properly polar align and collimate (Yes I know, dont judge me!). I have a vast amount of experience in photography but never through a scope. I wanted to get into astrophotography and guiding, and considered a 'GOTO' upgrade but for $900 - I just cant justify it :( After doing research I heard about the 'DIY ST-4' hand controller (www.store.shoestringastronomy.com/eq_mod.pdf), so I decided to buy the hand controller and using my experience in electronics, wired up the ST-4 port. Though mind you, all it requires it just soldering wires to the switches, so its nothing advanced if you dont have much experience in electronics :)
I bought the Orion's Awesome (The name always crack me up) Auto-guiding package. It includes everything you need to get into Autoguiding. It was very simple; Strap the ST80 to the back of your current scope, and plug your SSAG into your laptop/ST-4 Handcontroller and Viola - Autoguiding on a budget :D For the imaging device i just used my trusty Nikon D80. Its old, extremely poor high-ISO performance - but I wouldnt trade it for the world :thumbsup: All i needed was a t-ring and that's it! Though mind you, took me about 2 hours and a (very embarrassing) trip to bintel to work out where on my scope i mount the t-tring :rofl:Turns out my 1.25" adapter unscrews into two parts, and theres a thread on one of them where you attach the t-ring.
I've spent many late hours trying to perfect this system, and also the steep learning curve in post-processing. Luckily I have good experience in Photoshop so most of my post-editing is done there, and to stack it I find Deepspace Sky Stacker (DSS) very good. And its free! :D I researched for days about darks, lights, flat fields, experimenting with stacking settings. Only after my first images and all this effort - did i realise, i had no idea if my newt was even collimated! The last time i tried collimating was about 3 years ago (yea, i really am a beginner huh?) and to be honest just pretended I knew what I was doing but in reality i didnt know :confused2: So I spent a whole day reading up about all the reflections you can see through my Cheshire collimating eyepiece. it took me a while but eventually i got the hang of it and now collimating takes me no more than 5/10min :)
Since then I've also bought an 80ED, which is so amazing, I think everyone needs to buy one :eyepop:they're that amazing! So what was the result of all this effort and money and late nights? I've attached images of my hard-work. They are by no means as stunning as some of the more dedicated astronomers here, and other beginners probably have taken better images than me. But i'm very happy with how far I've come with all this, its just so rewarding knowing how hard-work pays off. I've attached images of my setup, and in my next post I'll number the images in order of date taken, and a brief description about them.