Just thought I would say hi. This is my first time on here after stumbling across this due to all the chat and pics about Lovejoy. As a keen photographer (although I have never done any astro photography) I though it might be fun to head out into the dark and see if I could capture my own image of the comet. I was pleasantly surprised by the result. Any tips would be gratefully accepted.
Canon 1100D with tripod
ISO 3200
Focal Length 28mm
Aperture f/4
Shutter Speed 30sec
This image is two identical shots stacked with Photoshop CS5
Welcome to IIS good to have you here. That is a great first effort not much I can pick on if anything infact it is as good as anything I have produced of the comet well done. The only thing I could suggest is stacking more images and downloading a free program called DSS(Deep Sky Stacker) and learning to use it.
Thanks everyone. I looked at DSS but it seems it is only available for PC and I am a Mac user. Has anyone used it on a Mac running Parrallel or similar?
and how many images should I be stacking? I get the impression that More is best.
Matt, you could also try Nebulosity, which runs on a Mac. Not that expensive and a very good bit of kit.
Start off with about 5-10 and see how they go. If it's still dimmer than you like, try 20 or so. It's really a matter of taste and what you want to achieve from the shots.
That's another way....use a virtual machine and run them there. Funny thing, they'll most likely run better in VMWare or Parallels on the mac than natively under Windoze
Lynkeos is a free stacking software that runs natively on a Mac. But from an Astronomical image software basis I think a Parallels or VMWare is the way to go.
infact it is as good as anything I have produced of the comet well done. The only thing I could suggest is stacking more images and downloading a free program called DSS(Deep Sky Stacker) and learning to use it
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to IIS 
