Quote:
Originally Posted by HunterGeo
Hi Steve,
A really great shot there. I am new to imaging through a telescope (I have been doing old-fashioned tripod-mounted astrophotography for a while, but only just bought a telescope). I have an ED80 like yours, mounted on a HEQ5 Pro GoTo.
I took it out the other night and couldn't get the camera to focus (I needed an extra centimetre between the primary and the camera, damn!) but managed a 30sec exposure of M42 and it was a lot smaller than yours, despite using the same 'scope.
Could you please explain how you constructed this image? How did you stack your exposures?
Thanks in advance,
Dave
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Hi Dave. I have attached 2 pic of the setup with the 500D. The first is with the focus tube all the way out. That pencil line you see about 20mm from the white housing is the point where it focuses. The second pic is a close up of the t ring screwed onto the 2"-1.25"adapter.
This image has been zoomed in and cropped therefore looking larger. Straight out of the camera, it is a wider field like yours.
Along with darks, I found flats really important as well. I took the flats at just before sunrise with a white tshirt pulled tight over the end of the ed80 held on with a rubber band. Used same iso and exp as lights and darks.
With DSS, I made sure I had the latest version , loaded up all lights, darks and flats ( although in this case the flats did not equal the same exp time as the lights and darks...still seemed to work) and stacked the images.
It took many attempts at processing and looking at it now, there are things I would like to improve on. Main things were brightness, contrast, levels, curves, saturation... The main ones really. Making small adjustments without blowing out the data you have. I find it really easy to push it too far and he result is less than satisfactory and often more data is required. There are some good tutorial on you tube about processing and thinking now, I don't remember exactly what I did ... I really should start taking notes.
I hope this has helped and the pics help and if there is any thing else I haven't covered, let me know and I will do my best.
