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Old 14-09-2013, 12:48 PM
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brettd (Brett)
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First Try - Moon + Lagoon Nebula?

Hi Everyone,

I'm very new to this whole Astronomy thing, I acquired my first telescope just 1 month ago (and its been mostly cloudy since).

It is a 6" Skywatcher (750mm f5) on an EQ3 mount (with the steel tripod) and dual axis motor drive.
I have a 5d MK3 as I've been into "normal photography" for a long time.

While pretty pleased with my early efforts I'd like some honest feedback to get an idea of what is achievable with my current equipment.

The moon is taken through a 2x Barlow (1/160 - ISO1000)

It is a single image. Am I likely to get better results with a more complicated setup like a laptop - backyardEOS - live view video and stacking from my 6" scope?

Nebula - (this is ther Lagoon Nebula isn't it?)
I don't know how I got so lucky, I used sky safari to work out roughly where it is, and manually slewed via the 7x30 finderscope, took a picture, and it was right in the middle.

This is 3 DSS stacked images (30 seconds each @ ISO1000) without the barlow.

Thanks for looking.

Brett
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Old 14-09-2013, 01:31 PM
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lazjen (Chris)
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Yes, that's the lagoon nebula.

If you haven't discovered "astrometry.net" yet, let me introduce you to it.

Using your pic, here's the Astrometry Net annotated result
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Old 14-09-2013, 03:36 PM
jr_simpson (Australia)
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Impressive !
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Old 14-09-2013, 10:34 PM
carlstronomy (Carl)
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Welcome to the forums and great first images.

Carl
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Old 18-09-2013, 06:34 PM
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brettd (Brett)
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Thanks for the positive comments (and the link to astrometry - I had not seen that before)

Does anyone have any hints as to how much more is achievable with my current equipment?
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Old 18-09-2013, 06:59 PM
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cometcatcher (Kevin)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brettd View Post
Does anyone have any hints as to how much more is achievable with my current equipment?
Is your EQ3 the goto type with guider interface or standard? Either way it can be used for deep sky with longer subs if you mount a guide scope to it. If standard you will have to guide with an illuminated reticle eyepiece manually. Most people find that gets a bit tedious after a while, although that's how I've been doing it for the last 33 years. Who needs pilates? Then you can go much deeper with longer subs and more of them.
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Old 18-09-2013, 10:34 PM
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LightningNZ (Cam)
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Beautiful lunar image and a very impressive start to deep-sky astrophotography. I think that a reflector like yours is a great place to start as you're not going to have chromatic aberration to worry about, which stumps everyone with a cheap refractor.

To try answering your question. I'd definitely try capturing a movie of the moon and then using Registax http://www.astronomie.be/registax/ to create a single image. Look up tutorials for it though on youtube cause it has a steep learning curve IMO.

As far as your Lagoon image goes, it's really quite superb for a first go at deep-sky work. Your focus is very good, which is much of the battle. Longer subs are always good but try capturing 10, 30, 50 or more shots and stacking them, you'll see the extra detail starting to come out.

You'll also want to take some flats. Point your scope at your computer monitor set to white and image this 10 times with an exposure long enough to get the histogram peak roughly mid-way. Then puts those images into DSS as flats and you'll be able to correct for the vignetting at the edges of the frame, as well as dust and crud. If you can't image your computer screen like this, then try a twilight sky. If the result has some stars in it then just Gaussian-blur them out.

Hope this helps,
Cam
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Old 19-09-2013, 06:43 PM
raymo
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hi Brettd, The best possible images of the moon are not usually taken
with a DSLR, owing to vibration from the mirror, and to a lesser extent,
vibration from the shutter. Your lunar image is very good, great job.
Try again with the mirror locked up[I'm assuming that it wasn't before].
You could try reducing your ISO to 800 and 400 with appropriate shutter speeds. The barlow might tend to soften the image very slightly,
depending on it's quality.
raymo
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