My first DSO

[JDStellar]

This was my first try at shooting DSO. Obvious target was of course was M42 The Great Orion Nebula.

This was basically my first time shooting with the Star Adventurer properly, took my Wedge and ball head adapter out of the box on location, so needless to say I had no experience with setting up and shooting long exposures of such distant objects. My polar alignment was off a little, but surprisingly the best I have achieved since purchasing the Star Adventurer, attempts since have been between 15%-30% out.

This was shot with a Canon 6D, an archaic (will not be using for this again) Canon EF 100-300 4.5 - 5.6.
86x Lights, 0x Darks (couldn't locate lens cap), No Bias, No Flats (still pretty unsure as to how to do them).
60sec exposures, ISO 250, FL: 300mm f/5.6

Still kind of proud of what I was able to capture, but the aberration and the poor allignment really ruin it's potential. I think I will sacrifice the 300mm for the 200mm so I can shoot through better faster glass.

Any advice is always appreciated.

http://i.imgur.com/CZUyPvY.jpg

[JDStellar]

I clearly have no idea to post on forums...

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Focus Focus Focus

Oh, and up your ISO somewhat. I happened to be playing with my 5DMkII on a Star Adventurer with 100-400 L series lens at 200mm, iso 6400 and single 30 second exposure. It is a bit noisy, but there is still a lot of data in there.

Your lens may be introducing some other aberrations of course, I assume the image is cropped so we may be seeing coma and chromatic issues, especially if it is off centre, but make sure you get a really perfect focus before worrying about anything else.



LOL, this time with the correct image!

[glend (Glen)]

JD as a first attempt it is ok. Your camera is obviously not tracking the DSO properly as evidenced by the tail on the stars. Don't worry about the blue halo effect right now. The Orion,colour looks pretty good. Re bias frames, just set your camera to a fast shutter speed (like 1/4000th) and shoot with the cap on - it is suppose to just pick up the sensor native noise, pixels (hot and cold), and will be stacked with darks (capped subs of the same duration as your lights). You need to create a Master Dark and Master Bias but DSS will do it for you if you just put the files in the right category when you list them.
Good luck.