Orion - a beginning

[davidpretorius]

Ok, posting some shockers here.

It is the toucam in long exposure mode.

No darks, taken at 50x. It is wierd, my 2 min trap video at 208x stayed so still i hardly needed to touch the hand controller. As soon as i put a 40mm eyepiece in, away we go......................

1 raw converted to colour

4 images converted to colour, aligned, median stack, gaussian filter and stretched.

and thats that.

I do see lots of potential here with the toucam in long exposure mode. lower gain etc. Once the calibrations are done, then i am going to have a loveley time doing some dso's until the time comes for that major upgrade a few years done the track

[ving (David)]

thats a fine start dave! you have plenty of shape and colour in there.

and the pink matches my dress

[asimov (John)]

WOWEEE! The potential is there!

Great stuff Dave!

[xelasnave]

Hey Dave dont be too hard on yourself its always the equipments fault
Looking at the trails I think you may be dealing with a balance issue causing your RA to move a little too fast or a little too slow.. maybe. I have only tried the following once so it is not a proven method but to get polar alignment I turned off the drive motors with the scope pointing at the pole taking exposures long enough to see circular trails, after each shot I adjusted the mount closer to where I determined the centre, the final shot showing parts of circles with the centre in the centre of the photo, I expected to have to adjust further with individual stars but it seemed spot on when I tried to do that. AND just take heaps of shots with the focus either side of where you think it is spot on ... the harder you work at something the more good luck you enjoy.
alex

[xelasnave]

Hang on.. are you using a dob? If so you are already doing the impossible
alex

[TidaLpHasE]

Great first effort Dave, heaps better than my first 42.

Now the fun and frustration begins, you will lock onto good tracking and get some great shots, perfect focus, no trailing of stars, and be happy as pig in.......

Then you will have clear sky again, and set up all the gear and do exactly the same image, and you will get star trails, blurring, camera shake, and anything else that can go wrong, welcome to the world of imaging

It has been for me, the most rewarding part of this new hobby, i would have never learnt as much about my camera if i wasn't trying to get distant objects 1600 lightyears away.

I hope you can soon post pics with jawdropping quality, it's just as good seeing a fellow newby get things together and sharing their excitement

Keep em coming, well done.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Davo,

Nice start to DSO's mate!
How did you get such a wide angle shot with the fixed mag Toucam? Focal reducer? Afocal?

[Robert_T]

Ah DP, branching out from the planetary camp eh? I'm amazed at the colour, might have to give the long exposure mod a go at some point too, but I'll wait till Mars has given it's last hurrah


cheers,