As the title suggests, I snapped these two before moonrise last night. First time at putting my 8 inch f5 Newtonian on the Heq5 mount. The GOTO made framing the objects easier but my polar alignment wasn't up to scratch for unguided 40 second subs at 1000mm focal length. The eggy stars tell the story of rushing to beat the rising moon. I got up to the viewing site a little later than I wanted to. By the time I had set up to photograph, I only had 1 1/2 hrs of total darkness before the moon would creep over the horizon.
Started with the popular NGC 253 ( 50 x 40sec subs at 1600 and 3200 ISO ) and finished off with NGC 104 ( 10 x varying exposures between 10 and 40 secs at 800 ISO ), processed in DSS and PS. Canon modded 550d using UVIR cut filter. Tracking seemed better on 47 Tuc.
Great shots Mick, I've thought of a 8 inch on my heq5 and wonder the shots I'd get. Thanks for showing me
Thanks Karl, if your OTA and camera weigh the same as mine, you'll end up having to add a bit more counter weight to balance it properly. The two counter weights that came with the mount weren't heavy enough. I added a 1.25 kg plate used on a dumbbell which I got from a sports store, balanced it nicely!
Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanJones
Beautiful pics there Michael
Another galaxy is defiantly my next target
Thanks Ryan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gavin1234
Nice work Mick, the colours are great and the core is very nicely exposed.
Thanks Gavin, I tried not to oversaturate the colours for a more natural look.
Really nice Michael, no elongation that can be seen in those images. I do like a bit of saturation with globular clusters as it helps see the different spectral stars in there
Nice captures, you’re work is near on perfect Mickoid, I guess you’ve hit the ceiling with your gear producing the best results possible. You may consider the line that Kevin had taken with guiding to eliminate the tracking errors but hey, taking the plunge will open up a whole new ball game won’t it hehehehe
Anth
Nice captures, you’re work is near on perfect Mickoid, I guess you’ve hit the ceiling with your gear producing the best results possible. You may consider the line that Kevin had taken with guiding to eliminate the tracking errors but hey, taking the plunge will open up a whole new ball game won’t it hehehehe
Anth
Thanks Anthony, as you know we're both still playing with our DSLRs but with improved seeing and dark sky sites, there is always more to extract. I probably got the best out of my equipment on the night but another night............
Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
I believe working unguided will help you know your mount.
Have you trained it yet?
Alex
Thanks Alex, it will fetch but won't drop the ball at my feet yet, I still have to chase it!
Thanks Anthony, as you know we're both still playing with our DSLRs but with improved seeing and dark sky sites, there is always more to extract. I probably got the best out of my equipment on the night but another night............
Thanks Alex, it will fetch but won't drop the ball at my feet yet, I still have to chase it!
Have you given it PEC training as that is a real big help.
Alex
Thanks Jon, can't wait to see your effort on 253, should come up a treat with your gear and location. Sunday night was a good night, I'm on leave at the moment, otherwise I would have given it a miss too.Hopefully with another new moon approaching, there will come a good night as well.
Very Nice Michael. Great for such a short capture - come on give us a few more hours of it!!!
I've had a few false starts at NGC253 myself but have been battling with tilt between my coma corrector and camera. Hopefully sort it out by the weekend.
Thanks Chris, I'd love to have given it at least an hour but that moon was sneaking up on me so I didn't want to waste time in shooting subs with moon glow. I can always add more later. I have another 20 (wow!) subs I took of it last year, I could add a few of those maybe but they were taken from suburban Melbourne. I travelled out to the fringe for these ones, you could actually see the Milky Way from here! I wish I had a coma corrector, I cropped the dodgy stars out of these shots as much as I could. I hope you sort your issues out for this weekend.
Thanks Chris, I'd love to have given it at least an hour but that moon was sneaking up on me so I didn't want to waste time in shooting subs with moon glow. I can always add more later. I have another 20 (wow!) subs I took of it last year, I could add a few of those maybe but they were taken from suburban Melbourne. I travelled out to the fringe for these ones, you could actually see the Milky Way from here! I wish I had a coma corrector, I cropped the dodgy stars out of these shots as much as I could. I hope you sort your issues out for this weekend.
Startools has a great tool to combat the coma mickoid.......works pretty well
Wow! NGC253 is one I want to try and work on. I managed 20 minutes of 2 minute subs at ISO 800 with my unmodified 550D the other day before clouds and it appeared so noisy after a quick process I didn't bother spending much time on it. Your shot is really nice, I might have to try upping the ISO and adjusting exposure to suit and see what I get.
I hope you sort your issues out for this weekend. 
