D800 first light in Saggitarius.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Here's a single 5 minute exposure@ iso1000 through a D800, no long exposure noise reduction. No processing or dark subtraction, NEF file converted using ViewNX2, and the jpgs resized by MS outlook. Scope was an FSQ106ED - polar alignment using the G11's PAS in less than a minute. The Trifid pic is a crop of the main one - no processing either.
Autoguiding by GPusb, with a DMK41 and an Orion ST80.
Dew was an issue, with the fog rolling in at 3:00am.
I think the camera shows some promise.

[Mighty_oz (Marcus)]

Hey thanks for posting !
That looks very good for just 5 mins. What does the pixel size come to with that camera ? Hope to see more

Marcus.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Originally Posted by Mighty_oz

Hey thanks for posting !
That looks very good for just 5 mins. What does the pixel size come to with that camera ? Hope to see more

Marcus.

According to what I have read, the pixels are 4.88 micron square, which gives 1.9 arc sec/pixel with the Tak. The fov is about 155x233 arc minutes.
I've got an hours worth of M8 and M20, and a similar amount of dark frames, which I've run through Deep Sky stacker. I also took an hour on the SMC. As usual- these results look worse than the subs on the camera, but once it's all stretched I'll put up a pic.

There's some nice features on the camera, like the little shutter that blocks off the viewfinder, and the camera ran the entire night on two batteries with plenty of juice left in the second.

[h0ughy (David)]

looks pretty good

[Meru (Michael)]

Wow, that's a great shot! Such little noise too. Certainly looks promising if you're a terrestrial photographer by day and astrophotographer by night! Good job I'd love to see what the stacked subs look like!

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

I'd like to see it too!
Thanks for the positive comments - I'm trying to process these, but am running into the limitations of compute power. Looks like my 3 year old cheapie laptop is not up to the job! Might have to buy some time on the Fornax cluster they just commissioned...
I'll try the machine under the Telly, I think it's got a bit more grunt.
Cheers,
Andrew.

[Meru (Michael)]

Haha! Well not sure if I can help much, but I have a very fast computer at home I built for some research I used to do in fluid dynamics. I'm more than happy to help out with stacking or anything if you like not sure how to transfer the beasts of a file the D800 produces though!

[Ross G]

Great looking photo Andrew.

The camera shows a lot of potential.


Ross.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Right - done. The final images after stacking and minor tweaks in PS are 210 Mb. How on earth do I share those? I don't have my own webpage, and I've no interest in creating one!
I've added the 200K version of the final file here, but it doesn't really do it justice..

[StarLane]

Hi Mate, are you using the 800 or 800E??

[StarLane]

Forgot to mention, love the final result, well done

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Mine's the 800.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

Thanks to the good folks at astrobin, I've found somewhere to link the images.

http://astrobin.com/users/alocky/

The Lagoon and Trifid shot is 20Mb, but the SMC is 'only' 8Mb.
Comments welcome, I'm certainly finding my limitations as a processor!

[gregbradley]

That link doesn't work.

Greg.

[alocky (Andrew lockwood)]

I won't insult your intelligence by asking if you're sure, but I've accessed it from at least three different PCs and an iPhone. I'll have a dig about, but try it again as I noticed the site had a minor glitch.
Cheers
Andrew.