Hi everyone...... After posting a few pictures of the Moon a while back, my wish was to post some images on the 'deep space' page. That was very hard with the 12 inch dob and standard camera. After much overtime at work I now have the mount (HEQ5 PRO), telescope (8" Skywatcher) and camera (Canon 40d) capable of this. After getting alignment and the general telescope use up to speed I am now at the point of taking images, so I thought I'd post this image of the Lagoon Nebula. It is only 15 second exposure at ISO 1600 with a lot of image editing, so don't be to hard on me guys! Tonight I will go out and try and get some decent exposures and then do some stacking and proper editing using the correct file format (ie not JPEG). I am hoping to give a more refined and larger image tomorrow, instead of a quick slap dash (forgive me for being too eager to post an image!!!!). Any comments or advice would be much appreciated as I am aspiring to get to your level one day. STEVE.
The image is scaled down to fit under 200kb, but looked good at around 300kb from memory. The next challenge is to make an image look good at much larger sizes!
Hi Steve ... great 1st shot .. really ... my trouble when I look at it though is it brings back some less than enjoyable memories ... from a time when I had the exact same equipment ... and I had the exact same star trails etc. I nearly tore my hair out trying to get the setup to track right, but in the end I gave up. F15 Was just too hard to manage with the HEQ5 PRO mount. I bought a focal reducer and got it down to F8 .. still couldnt begin to get an image that .. in your words ... was going to match a higher level. So my friend, Im not trying at all to dampen your enthusiasm, cast dispersions on your ability, crikey, its a great first image, or knock the equipment for that matter, it just may help to keep this in the back of your mind though.
Welcome to this crazy, patient and when it all goes right, much rewarded club.
It sounds so easy to go out the next night and take a few pics and tweak them and then have the image of your dreams, as i may have sort of said in my original message! But this is bloody hard, time consuming and damn cold! I guess I will just have to be patient and keep trying, thanks for your positive comments. ps... I can't wait for the warm Spring to arrive, and i live in sunny Brisbane!
Very nice start Steven, keep at it and have fun
