M31 @ 50mm

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Here is a pic from a few days ago of the Andromeda galaxy I took with the nifty 50 lens, 450D and Polarie.

I was blown away so much detail is possible from such a wide view, it's definitely one of my best astrophotos so far.

It was 1 hour 44 mins worth of 2 minute exposures stacked with a load of darks at ISO 800 and f/4.0.

I'm thinking I can stretch the battery life on the DSLR to 3 hours worth of shots, do you think I'd be likely to see much more improvement with that?
Also after 2 minutes there is a decent amount of LP on the subs but would it be worth going for a bit longer or a bit shorter subs?

[Danny_86 (Danny)]

good work, yeah I've been doing astrophotography for a short time now & with my shots I've done starting off small & working up I get better detail with a longer total stacked image.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Yeah generally it's a good rule but at 50mm I wonder if it's worth the extra effort. I'll give it a go anyway when the Moon is down.

I might try with my 70-300mm too even though it's an awful lens, maybe it can redeem itself?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Oh oh oh, did you know, that you can fit both M31 and M33 into the same FOV using the Nifty 50?
The camera needs to be on a diagonal and they both fit very nicely into the opposing corners.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Oooh, I did not know that but am certainly going to give it a go.
Thanks for the tip.

The more targets I can come up with the better.

[Lee]

Nice.... looks like Hubbles famous plate....

[Nathan76 (Nathan)]

Nifty 50, that's unreal.

How much of the image is cropped?

I read that someone used a stepdown ring to fit a 2" LP filter to the front, might be worth looking into, stretch those subs.

Nathan B.

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Cheers all.

The second image, the widest one is only just cropped around the edge to remove the stacking artefact. It wasn't done well as you can still see it if you look hard enough but still it's pretty much the full photo.

The first one I just cropped a nice little area and that allowed it to show it at 100% size with no need to resize it to fit on forums or screens.

Here is my flickr link for a different look.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55409962@N02/9516147794/

I do actually have a clip in LP filter but I would rather see how far I can push it without adding anything else to the processing afterwards.

[Danny_86 (Danny)]

Hey Jarrod,

So how does the Vixen Polarie go is it worth getting for the price.
So what price can you get them for?

Cheers

[JB80 (Jarrod)]

Hi Danny,

Personally I love it and especially now that I have darker skies at home so I can use it from home and not just on travels. When aligned right you get nice round stars which is really all you want.

I'd say it's good value but then everyone has a different idea of what value is.
Price wise if you already have a decent tripod then realistically all you would need is the Polarie itself and a good ball head or two, if you don't then you need to factor these into the cost too.

I'm not totally up on what price the Aussie dealers list it for but one shop has it at $485.