First Photography light!

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #1 27-01-2009, 04:49 PM

On saturday night i went down to chittering in hopes of helping my mate "Leinard" to take some awsome guided shots being a nice dark site and all, though after many hours trying to get eqmod operating smoothly both of us had given up on the show.

Some friendly help from a man name gary i belive it was had seen that my scope was very close to being polar aligned, and then at about 2am another friendly chap called Shane viewed my pictures taken of Centurus A, he asked what i had taken it on and to his surprize the scope without the guide scope was the culprit.!

A bit of checking and fiddling and the polar scope was cracked out and to our surpize octanis was very close to the astrism seen!!! so i though why not align the polar scope to the astrisim and see how we go.

Well... I thought maximum unguided exposures where 2 minutes anything above that and your lucky. 5 minute subs on the Pinwheel galaxy no problems Sombreo, Centuras A and Eta Carina area.

What more can you ask for? Unguided Eq6 running no PEC just Polar aligned balanced with 1 SW weight and a Paver held on by G clamps... There is a bit of Coma noticeable but running at f#4.7 this is to be expected, also daniel helped me a fair bit with operation of the dslr (as it is his) but its all in the name of knowledge sharing

.

Pinwheel 5x5min subs bin 1x1 Cannon Eos 350d, Stacked in DSS, Darks and Flats subtracted
Eta Carina 5x 2min subs bin 1x1 Cannon Eos 350d, Stacked in DSS, Darks and flats subtracted
Centuras A 5x 3 min subs bin 2x2 Cannon Eos 350d, Stacked in DSS, Darks subtracted
Sombreo 5x5min subs bin 2x2 Cannon Eos 350d, stacked in dSS, Darks subtracted

DJDD · #2 27-01-2009, 05:06 PM

Great photos, brendan.
I would like to have seen a photo of the telescope and counterweights!

rogerg (Roger) · #3 27-01-2009, 05:15 PM

Looks good brendan

What scope, the 10"? Un-modified 350D? Pretty impressive for a first light

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #4 27-01-2009, 05:24 PM

yes the 350d has the IR filter mod, thats it i belive and it was done on the EQ6 with the 10" SW. I also did a video of the culmination on a star test, it was the close to being perfect it wasn't funny.

and yep ill post a picture of the counterweighting system.

leinad (Dan) · #5 27-01-2009, 05:46 PM

Twas' a great night!
and; Great first light pics.

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #6 27-01-2009, 06:08 PM

Hazzar!

Hagar (Doug) · #7 27-01-2009, 07:13 PM

Very nice first images Brendan. Better get yourself a few more jobs as you have committed the astro sin of imaging and from here on your bank balance will never be the same again.

Nice start.

theodog (Jeff) · #8 27-01-2009, 07:17 PM

Great set Brendan & Co.

Well done.

peeb61 (Paul) · #9 27-01-2009, 07:41 PM

Done deal Brendan, love the set and nice to see some 350D images.

Paul

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #10 27-01-2009, 08:23 PM

well here it is, the balancing system, highly complex, incredibly well thought out and executed.!

Screwdriverone (Chris) · #11 27-01-2009, 09:52 PM

Those are pretty damn awesome Brendan!

My favourites are the M104 and Centaurus A, in fact that Cent A shot is GREAT!

Well done fellow Skywatcherian!

Still waiting for the clouds to part here, hey its only been 3 days

Cheers and congratulations, they're tops!

Chris

wysiwyg (Mark) · #12 27-01-2009, 10:45 PM

Love the bush mechanics Brendan, I once taped a rock to the counterweight that I found nearby and it worked very well.

Great images for unguided as well, you are off to a great start there buddy!

Well done

RobF (Rob) · #13 27-01-2009, 11:12 PM

Another vote for Centaurus A here. Congrats on an awesome photo first light!

Jeff · #14 27-01-2009, 11:21 PM

Nice captures Brendan, and great drift alignment by the look of things.

Matty P (Matt) · #15 28-01-2009, 03:55 AM

Awesome first light images Brendan. From the look of your images, its seems like you are a seasoned astrophotographer.

Well done and looking forward to more.

P.S. love the paving stone counterweight.

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #16 28-01-2009, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff

Nice captures Brendan, and great drift alignment by the look of things.

Theres no drift alignment here

Just using my method of Digital inclometer, Compass and finding the sheperds Crook to get it in the ball park then move to the polar scope. you cant beat it and theres no guessing! if its in the astrisim in the polar scope your dead eye d1ck!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matty P

Awesome first light images Brendan. From the look of your images, its seems like you are a seasoned astrophotographer.

Well done and looking forward to more.

P.S. love the paving stone counterweight.

Yes bush mechanics paving stone! i had donated my other counterweight to the more complex 3 scope setup of Daniel (3 scope balancing oooh thats gay). I then thought.. hang on i need 3 CW to blance my scope... You should have seen the first effort

that was spectacular too bad it was too heavy

And no im not that seasoned, though i have torn my hair out trying to image with the 12" meade LX200R and a Guide camera

that was interesting, got some results but nothing to write home about.

Dan did give me a bit of a hand actually handling the data so cred has to go to him aswell.!

All i have to say at the end of the day and what i have told many people the 10" on a EQ6 is a potent imaging setup as it has the aperature to capture some really good data at a very short F# followed up that its not to heavy for the eq6 to handel well. Sure its not the best optics on a losmundy or Tak mount but hey for 2200 total its a dyam good start

HAZZAR.

Hagar (Doug) · #17 29-01-2009, 09:26 AM

Brendan. This will never work. Not enough wires. LOL

Time to change your avatar, Scares me every time I open it. You need a little hat with a propeller to finish it off.

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #18 29-01-2009, 09:44 AM

hahaha, no i cant change my avatar, its my WTF are you looking at one

i think its great!

Oh and a development, Daniel in his insomniac tendancys figured out why our bin 1x1 captures of eta carina and the pinwheel where in black and white so heres a big thanks to daniel for extracting what was there all along!

5x5min subs bin 1x1 cannon eos 350d stacked in DSS tweaked in CS3 Darks,flats subtracted

leinad (Dan) · #19 29-01-2009, 10:58 AM

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #20 29-01-2009, 03:54 PM

okay now i have got over the initial wow of colour galaxy's, i have noticed that there are quite a few other galaxies spotted around the pinwheel. one at 1 oclock, 2 at 4-5oclock, and another one at about 3 oclock, can anybody tell me at what mag these are at, it would be great to know this information that is all.