Last night I got home early from my folks place and decided to do some imaging. The scope is currently setup in my little back yard and covered in tarps as I tend to take over an hour to get drift alignment done.
So I set up and took M42
2 x 2.30 mins
5x 3.00 mins
Stacked in registax 3
processed in Photoshop
filtered in Noiseware
Comments most welcome. I think that these shots are the sharpest and the tracking is near perfect. This will be my last M42 for this season as it is now hiding behind a big tree in my next door neighbours yard. Still all shots were unguided as my LPI does weird things when it is used as an autoguider, it goes off track within a minute and causes bad trailing. Any suggestions why this is happening?
Don't worry Gary, I have just had 5 days straight of cloud and yes I have seen the cloud cover over the land of the long white cloud. Sorry mate but I needed to do something. Unfortunately the seeing for Saturn was really terrible. So the 800 shots I captured are next best thing to useless. Anyway thanks guys for the compliments and yes I am very happy with the images, guiding is good and so too is focus.
Think you might need my brain also, it contains all the knowledge that makes these shots possible. The scope alone is not enough. Don't know if my other half would like me giving away my brain much. Then again she might want me brainless. LOL.
When you get to do some astrophotography I will be more than happy to help you with the learning curve.
Many thanks btw for the incredible compliment, but I think Gary's shots are better than mine. He has better equipment and much more experience than I do. Thankyou anyway.
Dam...you mean you needs some brain's and a wallet full of money aswell.....
Cant wait too see how shocking my first photo is going to look like...I have a back up plan....if its really bad I am going to scan a Fantastic photo out of a magazine or of the net and claim it do be mine.......lol....but dont tell anyone.....hehehe
Don't worry my first shots were with a 5700 I had and it was totally black, then slowly but surely I got better and better. Might need to go to a tri colour camera soon, as I am about the limit of the D70 now. But be assured your first shots will look aweful and part of the fun is getting the satisfaction from improving.
Paul,
whoa, not sure if that is correct. I definitely think your M42 is a ripper. Nice tight stars for a start. This means the guiding is spot on, as is the focus. 7 exposures total is probably as few as I would dare, and maybe the only real thing you can do now is seek out a truly dark site. This will have the benefit of getting round the offending tree as well, although I do have a chainsaw which can help with that.
Keep at it, and start tackling other deep stuff. Above all don't be so modest, they are fantastic. Maybe a good time to revisit some of the old ones, the ones you took at the beginning, and were not overly happy with. Retry them, and see what huge progress has occured.
Gary
Got the dark site, having my new beach house built on it too. So roll on end of April. Going up in about five weeks to set the new pier in also, just need to find someone to make the pier. Dont have any plans do you for a pier?
I do want to start other photo projects now, I have just about done myself to death with these two. Wanted to go for crab nebula but that is blocked by my pegola. Anyone got any suggestions of galaxies or other targets along the milkyway from Orion down to Carina. I can see that area all night.
And yes I have looked at my old shots today and these are out of sight. It took six months but I finally have started to get some great results. Still I think your work is better.
Paul,
is the Carina cluster the same as the one in my "Christmas Comet" posting (NGC2516 or similar)?
A pier is simple.
Get a piece of steel tube, mine is about 150mm with a wall thickness of about 5mm.
It is only 600mm tall, but with the SCT you will need more, obviously.
In my case I welded a flat plate to the bottom, and drilled four holes at the corners.
I dug a significant hole, and poured a "plug" of concrete, throwing some old steel pipe etc in as reinforcing. As the concrete was setting I placed four bolts in the stuff, with the threads exposed. Once set I place the plate and hols over the bolts, and tighten it down with nuts/washers. Simple.
OK the top in mine is open, and similar in size to the G-11 base, but you could simply weld another flat plate onto the top for the LX base, or wedge, whatever.
Need some pictures?
Gary
Gary when I was referring to Carina I meant the constellation, I know the cluster you are talking about and it is exactly 180 degrees from the direction I was talking about. Between the shed, pergola and tree I cannot get any thing past Orion in RA at the moment. Am working on that with the design of the pier, will be much taller and I will have a deck to stand on. This should put me up above the gutter line and thereby increase my FOV.
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