First DSO's with new mount.

mg (Mitchell) · #1 02-09-2013, 07:55 PM

Hi everyone.
I recently became the proud owner of an AZ EQ6 GT, and here are my first few tries at using it. They were taken with 102mm doublet, and a canon 600d.

So far I have just used the mount in alt az mode, as I'm waiting for an illuminated reticle to arrive for polar aligning.
The mount is easy to set up in alt az and tracks objects nicely - I just need to put up with field rotation and keep subs short.
The M17 neb was near zenith so lots of rotation happening there.

Question: In the NGC253 pic, my background has a patchy speckled appearance. Is this from pushing the data too hard (ie: too much levels/curves), or caused by something else?

Would love tips on improving so whatever comes to mind, please let me know.
Cheers.

LightningNZ (Cam) · #2 02-09-2013, 08:22 PM

You images look good, except that you're jpeg compressing them far too hard to really tell what they look like. Reduce the image size instead to a more web-friendly 800x600 or something and keep the image quality to ~70%.

As they are compressed so hard I can't see any detail and can't really give any advice (if any is needed). You really don't need the polar alignment scope though to do better with tracking than driving in alt-az mode. DAAV alignment (as seen on CloudyNights.com) will get you very close to aligned in less than 10 minutes.

Best of luck,
Cam

mg (Mitchell) · #3 03-09-2013, 06:13 AM

Thanks for the tip. I was compressing them heaps to get under the 200k, but should have reduced the size first like you suggested. I re-uploaded them.
The mount came with a polar scope, but I'm waiting on an illuminated reticle eyepiece to help with aligning. Reading up on DARV alignment now.

Rigel003 (Graeme) · #4 03-09-2013, 07:28 AM

Very good results for altaz mode and nicely processed. Good colour balance and levels for background sky and subjects. The polar alignment will enable you to go deeper and reduce the background noise. Consider a photo hosting site where you can display them at a good size without compression. Post the small ones here and include a link to the real thing.

naskies (Dave) · #5 03-09-2013, 01:51 PM

Nice work!

Backyard EOS is a program that can connect to, and control, your DSLR for astro imaging. One of the really cool features is that it has a digital reticle for drift alignment. It uses the Live View mode of your camera and lets you rotate a digital reticle to do drift alignment like with an illuminated reticle, without having to swap between the camera and eyepiece

http://www.backyardeos.com/product_backyardeos.aspx

The down side is that you need a computer near your scope... but you'll probably need one for autoguiding anyway once you start long exposures. Good luck!

PS - the poor man's way for drift aligning using a DSLR is to use Live View on the back of the camera, slew the scope in RA, and use a Post-It note to mark the RA axis on screen. You can then drift align as if you were using an illuminated reticle