I swear it's not my fault!!!

Zincberg (Andrew) · #1 08-03-2011, 09:53 PM

Well after 4 months of kicking myself in the face over polar alignment, I finally have "something" to post.
Good news is, It would seem that not all of the frustration has been my fault as my scope has had a fault in the RA drive causing it to track inaccurately.
Last night I decided to give it one last go before taking my scope to the hospital to have his innards transplanted.. and this is my result.

Considering I was unable to track for more than 25 odd seconds, I think I did ok.

bones · #2 08-03-2011, 10:10 PM

Andrew, don't blame yourself. Mind you we haven't had many clear nights this summer so taking a while for this image is understandable. I think you're doing great. Keep them coming.

Tony.

FlashDrive (Poppy) · #3 09-03-2011, 01:06 AM

Andrew ... That's a good shot .... love the color in it ..

cybereye (Mario) · #4 09-03-2011, 07:14 AM

Andrew,

A nice shot!! What camera, etc are you using and was this one 25sec image or a stack of several images?

Cheers,
Mario

Zincberg (Andrew) · #5 09-03-2011, 01:54 PM

Hey Mario,
Sorry, i did mean to post all that info..so here goes:
Photo was taken through an ED80, piggybacked on my LX90 (polar mounted on the ultra wedge). Camera is a Nikon d7000.
ISO was 1000 (I wanted to go lower but at 25 sec, i didnt have a lot of room to go down). I took 30x25sec images...but 23 of them were unusable, so 7 x25sec stacked using DSS (5 darks, 5 Bios, No flat), edited with photoshop with a little help by a few of Louies tutorials. I still have a lot to learn from his site, but up till now have had little that was even worth playing around with.

irwjager (Ivo) · #6 12-03-2011, 07:50 PM

That's a cracker of a shot - good focus and very nicely processed. Now maybe frame it a little better and you're more than ready for the Deep Space section!

starfinder (Russ) · #7 13-03-2011, 08:54 PM

Hi Andrew. You should be really pleased with that result. Shows you're heading in the right direction in the key aspects of astrophotography. I note you had to throw out some images. It happens to the best of us and it can be a steep learning curve. Do you know what went wrong with the unusable images, ie, some learning for next time?

Cheers. Russ

Zincberg (Andrew) · #8 20-03-2011, 09:09 PM

Thanks for the replies guys, really helps build the confidence.

The framing issue was originally semi intentional, due to my lack of knowledge of the sky (particularly in regards to distance perceived through my ed80), I was hoping to capture what I now know as ngc1999 underneath. I thought it was a little further to the right. I should have cropped the image in the end.

I am still learning about what went wrong with the other images... its primarily either a faulty lx90 or my lack of understanding of its use thats causing the problem.
The telerscope has had major RA tracking issues since I got it... Initially I thought it was my alignment, which I have since learnt is not responsible. But...even after having the RA motor/encoder replaced, the fault was still there....so, this week I purchased a counterweight set in the hope that will make a difference and fix the inaccuracies I am having to reduce the amount of images I am losing.

midnight (Darrin) · #9 22-03-2011, 04:45 AM

Andrew, I would be very happy with that image considering your exposure times.

Well done and at least your image doesn't have the shakes like mine at the moment

Cheers,
Darrin...