The more you practice the more good luck you have.
Do you have a remote for the camera thats necessary unless you can hold the shutter open with your hand, and yes there is trailing there I meant to draw your attention to it.
Good luck tonight take a few shots to dial in focus thats the bug bear with the camera..make sure its on manual focus. Think of an illuminated reticle its a necessity and you will pay accordingly..build one if you can using a cheap ep. Here is a cropped one on the fly with the 300mm
alex
alex
WOW now that's a top picture, I would be very proud to produce something of this quality. No I don't have a remote yet, I'm fixing to go to a camera shop this Friday and purchase a few things, battery charger, release cable, dust cover (mine is broken), and so on, I might even touch a large lens and if it doesn't cost an arm and a leg, might even buy it.
I know I am putting the cart before the horse, but that's how I have always lived my life, wild and impetuously
I can be patient whilst I'm waiting for my essence to accrete into the next planet formation
Thanks and you will take better I have no doubt about that not necessarily the first one..
Now dont get carried away but remember when on your death bed you wont regret the days you did not go into the office or that there is not enough money in your bank account. Get a second battery as there is nothing more frustrating than geting on a roll and having to recharge the battery.
I wish I had shares in the shop you are going to on Friday. Download deep sky stacker I have just started using it and wow it sure works.
alex
Thanks and you will take better I have no doubt about that not necessarily the first one..
Now dont get carried away but remember when on your death bed you wont regret the days you did not go into the office or that there is not enough money in your bank account. Get a second battery as there is nothing more frustrating than geting on a roll and having to recharge the battery.
I wish I had shares in the shop you are going to on Friday. Download deep sky stacker I have just started using it and wow it sure works.
alex
I wonder if there is anymore free software out there that is suitable for astronomy generally, not only astrophotography.
Thanks for the kind words.
I only downloaded rawstacker this time last week. I lost the canon disk which had a raw converter got it on my wifes machine (we live apart and I can use her machine but I needed one for this machine).
If you find a free focuser please let me know I have not looked yet, got a few fish to fry at the moment the closest I am getting to astronomy is flapping my gums here. Hope to get up home in the next day or so to get a dark run on the new gear. I am buying a 200mm lens for the mate ( one of the four ..citizens of Nova Zembla) he has given me some cash to spend for him ..and a remote.. and think the nikon with a 200mm should be very good.
Thanks again
alex.
Welcome aboard, I've been setting up for astrophotography now and had my first bit of success last night on M42 in Orion.
I totally agree that a great mount is probably your best asset. You also need to learn how to polar align and drift aling for a german equatorial mount.
My set up at the moment (which is limited by my mount) is:
Cartes Du Ceil (CDC) for my sky map (rather than Meade Autostar or Celestron NexStar)
Ascom drivers to let CDC drive my mount
80MM Meg Refractor piggybacked on a 235mm Celestron SCT
Celestron CG5 mount on a home built permanent pier in a home built astro lab
Meade Motor Drive -> JMI USB connector for fine focus of the SCT
PC for sky map, telescope control, camera control, focus control and auto-guiding
Meade DSI used on either scope normally as the Auto-guider (using PHD Guide freeware software and a Shoe String Astronomy Parallel Port cable adapter)
Canon 400D for photography connected by a Canon adapter and teleconnector
Canon shutter currently controlled over USB but I will move to a shoe string astronomy "Bulb focuser" cable for shots > 30 seconds under the control of either DSLR Shutter or DSLR focus
Canon picture parameters (ISO, piccy quality, white balancing etc) controlled over USB by Canon EOS driver remote software
Canon picture acquisition using their Zoom Browser software
Adobe CS Photoshop for image processing
Registax - for still stacking.
So alot of wiring and proprietary hardware and software to integrate.
The key things I have found is
1. you need a really sturdy mount, very carefully aligned to the South Celestial Pole (SCP)
2. focus is critical - it will take time to master
3. auto guiding means you can take longer shots. An autoguider is a feedback loop where one of the two cameras tracks a selected star falling on a selected pixel, and it keeps it there for the duration of your shot, addressing all minor mount movements cause by errors in your mounts mechanical gears or SCP alignment
4. you need to operate without having to touch the scope to avoid vibration once you are on target and gathering light onto your CCD.
Welcome aboard, I've been setting up for astrophotography now and had my first bit of success last night on M42 in Orion.
I was out last night also and looked at M42 for a good while through my binoculars, it was truly stunning, crystal clear, stacks of nebulae gas around the major stars, I would love to see your shots of it, given the equipment you have described.
I attempted to take a couple of shots, handheld and of course decided that I am so far off the mark that I am going to wait till I join the amateur astronomy club next week, then make friends with some astrophotographer and get him to show me step-by-step what I have been trying to read.
I might as well wait and learn it properly, I know I don't even have half the gear I need, but I do have some of the items, so eventually I will take a shot
Whilst out last night I saw about 4 fantastic clusters, they were awesome and so clear, I saw Saturn for a good while and made out two moons, my old favourite of course M42 plus some other interesting views, I had an absolute ball, this is an amazing sport
With Meg a 30 second shoot at ISO 1600 looks like this (guided) - note the focus was out and no photoshoping has been done on this at all - just (lossy) recursive JPEG compression to take the3MB JPEG down to 145KB using SmartSaver Pro.
Tonight I'm playing with the C9.25 with motor focus to help me.
There is a little cloud here and there at the moment, but I reckon you will do ok, your image looks just like I saw it last night, without the colour of course
Well tonight I play with Registax and photoshop on a series of images of M42, NGC 104 and Saturn to see what can be done.
I learnt last night that I was glad I purchased extra long cables, but you have to be very careful that cameras don't fall out of the eyepieces or diagonals - especially when bumped in the dark - as there are alot of stresses there on some very small bolts.
Counting cables other then the RA and DEC power / signal cables and hand controller and mount power supply
1. Cable from serial port to hand controller to run ASCOM drivers from CDC
2. Cable from parllel port to autoguide input
3. Cable from DSI used for auto-guiding into PC's USB
4. Cable from Canon 400D into PC's USB
5. Power cable into Canon 400D
6. Power Cable into Meade Motor Focus unit
7. Signal cable from Meade Motor Focus into JMI converter -> USB into PC ot split into hand controller override
8. Comming shortly - bulb cable for Canon to take shots > 30 secs into ShoeString Astronomy's DUSB coverter into PC's USB
So that's about 12 cables to avoid tripping over in the dark!
I think I'll delay remote viewing over IP for a while later! I'm still paranoid on each slew that the Canon may get cluncked, I think I'll get tube extenders for the MEG and SCT and ignore diagonals!
PS
Even with careful sky align (less that 1 minute of error from SCP) and no appreciable drift in short exposures - most GoTo's didn't place the target right on the CCD slight adjustment in the dark was required! I think Software Bisque sell TPoint which can used to improve pointing behaviour, so I'll look into that too!
now that's a top picture, I would be very proud to produce something of this quality. No I don't have a remote yet, I'm fixing to go to a camera shop this Friday and purchase a few things, battery charger, release cable, dust cover (mine is broken), and so on, I might even touch a large lens 
and if it doesn't cost an arm and a leg, might even buy it.
