What I see is types of 2 aberration (excessive shperical and chromatic) and if I am correct I would take the lens back to the seller and demand an exchange under warrenty.
The focus point seems to be half way between Phi(1,2,3,)-Ori and M42. The star near this centre there seems reasonable round. Please observe the distortions around this point and you will see what looks like a comatic blurr that extends radially and with increasing chromatic aberration. Perhaps this is field distortion.
Take a couple of test wide angle terrestrial pics of straight objects and examine the pics.
Answers to all of the issues in this thread are thoroughly and sensibly addressed by Jerry Lodriguss in his ebook "A Guide to Astrophotography with Digital SLR Cameras" Highly recommended.
In camera noise reduction does its own darks of the same length as the light frames and subtracts them automatically. You shouldn't use this as well as subtracting your own darks. In general if you want the best results and are combining lots of frames, shoot raw and do your own darks - it gives you better control of the calibration process afterwards, and it's a more efficient use of exposure time.
If you are shooting easy subjects using single frames or a just a few combined and not planning any post processing calibration techniques, then the in camera noise reduction is definitely worth using.
DSLR Shutter is working from PC's USB cable into a ShoeString Astronomy DSUSB converter (around AUD $90) with a three pin 3.5mm jack output that is stepped down into a 2.5 mm three prong jack that goes directly into the camera's Bulb function socket above the USB slot on the camera. DSLR shutter sees the Camera only via the Bulb cable. The Canon EOS control software see the camera, and that its in Bulb mode, but it can't send an open/close command to it!
The Canon 400D can be put into Manual + Bulb using the two dials on the camera, and their software recognises this - but it can't send a Bulb command along that same USB cable for some unknown design rationale - the camera appears to be limited / designed into only accepting bulb commands on the bulb in port - sigh, I wish it worked on either port!
Here is what I consider the best shot of the evening / morning, from light drenched North Ryde, a 2.5 minute shot of Omega Cluster at ISO 800, which I then imported into MaximDL and riased the Histogram's white cut-off from 23 to 33 to darken the background sky more. Then I took this good looking output and imported it into SmartSaver Pro and turned it from a JPEG to a recursive JPEG to shrink it from 4mb down to 900k. I did this again and shrunk it to a 14% quality to fit it to under 150k to post it here. Visually I think its my first "real" shot that I'm still proud of this morning!
I think I can step up and say finally, I'm an amateur astro-photographer now - with alot to learn!
I am amazed that the C9.25 CF XLT + Meg 80mm piggy back on a CG-5 - loading it to probably just over 15kgs - its absolute maximum - has performed this well. I'd much rather have a real mount (Tak, G11, Atlux, CGE) but this little beaut has done me proud last night. And all my gotos where almost spot on the centre of the CCDs of the Canon and Meade DSI chips! A perfect night just about, and the astrolab kept all the dew right off till I packed it in at 3:30am.
Finally to add to my pleasure MyAstro had sent me a Vixen 13mm LVW eyepiece that I used on Saturn and Omega - blew me away how good this was, Omega leaped out at me - in moderately poor viewing skies, and Saturn was easy to see the Cassini division and the cloud bands of Saturn.
Score 10 out of 10 for satisfaction recieved last night!
This was taken with a cheap 80-200mm lens I picked up cheaply, so wasnt expecting perfect results with it. it will do me until I get the adapters etc to hook up the camera to the scope.
g__day, great shot! To look better for the forum, you should reduce it to 800px (or so) wide BEFORE saving as jpeg. That way you won't compress it so much to get it under 150k, and the whole image will look tighter and better!
I was going to ask that question shortly. Can you please spell out in a bit more process how this is done please?
I have been taking shots as jpegs (rather than raws) and using Smartsaver Pro to turn them into recursive jpegs (at 75% quality 4mb squishes down to around 600 - 800 kb) with no apparent quality loss. But shrinking these down to 15% quality to hit 150kb does kill the image quality.
Can you spell out the steps from capture to compression for me and what software you suggest to do it and I will give it a whirl!
Meanwhile - M42 - overbright (given the high dynamic range witihin the shot) and I'm playing with Photoshop and MaximDL - just to see what they can do without reading the manual) - upon compression here's my 2 minute shot.
DSLR Shutter is working from PC's USB cable into a ShoeString Astronomy DSUSB converter (around AUD $90) with a three pin 3.5mm jack output that is stepped down into a 2.5 mm three prong jack that goes directly into the camera's Bulb function socket above the USB slot on the camera. DSLR shutter sees the Camera only via the Bulb cable. The Canon EOS control software see the camera, and that its in Bulb mode, but it can't send an open/close command to it!
The Canon 400D can be put into Manual + Bulb using the two dials on the camera, and their software recognises this - but it can't send a Bulb command along that same USB cable for some unknown design rationale - the camera appears to be limited / designed into only accepting bulb commands on the bulb in port - sigh, I wish it worked on either port!
Here is what I consider the best shot of the evening / morning, from light drenched North Ryde, a 2.5 minute shot of Omega Cluster at ISO 800, which I then imported into MaximDL and riased the Histogram's white cut-off from 23 to 33 to darken the background sky more. Then I took this good looking output and imported it into SmartSaver Pro and turned it from a JPEG to a recursive JPEG to shrink it from 4mb down to 900k. I did this again and shrunk it to a 14% quality to fit it to under 150k to post it here. Visually I think its my first "real" shot that I'm still proud of this morning!
I think I can step up and say finally, I'm an amateur astro-photographer now - with alot to learn!
I am amazed that the C9.25 CF XLT + Meg 80mm piggy back on a CG-5 - loading it to probably just over 15kgs - its absolute maximum - has performed this well. I'd much rather have a real mount (Tak, G11, Atlux, CGE) but this little beaut has done me proud last night. And all my gotos where almost spot on the centre of the CCDs of the Canon and Meade DSI chips! A perfect night just about, and the astrolab kept all the dew right off till I packed it in at 3:30am.
Finally to add to my pleasure MyAstro had sent me a Vixen 13mm LVW eyepiece that I used on Saturn and Omega - blew me away how good this was, Omega leaped out at me - in moderately poor viewing skies, and Saturn was easy to see the Cassini division and the cloud bands of Saturn.
Score 10 out of 10 for satisfaction recieved last night!
Woe is me! Seems I've got a lot of s/w and equipment to get before I can start getting the results you have, g_day. I've had a look at the Diffraction limited site and although very good, their software is a bit beyond reach at the moment (since I bought the 400D!) I know you can get a demo (already done that) but by the time I've ordered the cables/adapters et al, and fluffed around a bit, my trial will be up!
However, I will persevere. I want to move on from being an Astronoob to an Amateur Astrophotographer!
Woe is me! Seems I've got a lot of s/w and equipment to get before I can start getting the results you have, g_day.
I wouldn't say that.
What equipment do you have Marc.
You don't need lots of software, and high end equipment to get results.
If you learn the basics, you can do adjustments with most imaging software although I'd highly recommend Photoshop as your main imaging software until you get a good understanding of the principals of astro imaging.
You can mount your 400D on a tracking EQ mount and use your camera lens to start off with. This would give you an idea of the in's and out's of astro imaging before you jump in the deep end.
What I do have is the 400D, an 8" Newt (Celestron G8N, short) on EQ5, with dual axis drives (not goto), X-Cel 5mm, 32mm Nexstar and stock 20mm plossl, Omni 2X Barlow, Thousand Oaks OxyIII, Celestron Polarising kit & Neutral density filter (25%). You could say I'm a fan of the Orange and Black!
I have been doing a bit of regular DS observing, not astrophoto, for the last 4 or 5 years. I bought the G8N with the view (boom! boom! ) to do a bit of Astro-photo in the future.
My ideal setup is to have a solar powered roll-top observatory with a concrete pier mount.
All in due time of course. I am pretty sure the cosmos will still be there when I get my act together.
What I do have is the 400D, an 8" Newt (Celestron G8N, short) on EQ5, with dual axis drives (not goto)....
Great !
You don't really need goto, to get started.
Mount your 400D on the scope, use a wide-ish lens, say 50mm and do some piggyback imaging first.
You'll learn a lot from piggyback imaging that will prepare you for prime imaging when you get you observatory underway.
Seems I've got a lot of s/w and equipment to get before I can start getting the results you have, g_day. I've had a look at the Diffraction limited site and although very good, their software is a bit beyond reach at the moment (since I bought the 400D!) I know you can get a demo (already done that) but by the time I've ordered the cables/adapters et al, and fluffed around a bit, my trial will be up! 
) to do a bit of Astro-photo in the future.
