Finally after months of relentless clouds we have had a couple of clear nights here in Mackay. Here are a few of my first proper attempts at auto guiding.
Centaurus A, 15 X 120sec at iso 1600 guided
NGC 4945, 14 x 120sec at iso 1600 guided
Leo trio, 12 x 90sec at iso 1600 unguided
Scope GSO RC6, HEQ5 pro mount, ASI120mc guide camera on 50mm finder guider.
Good work, nice tracking. I reckon you could go for longer subs too.
Good on you for taking the plunge adopting guiding, I'm still yet to try.
Thanks Anthony, auto guiding has not been as easy to set up as I thought it would be, lots of things to tweek to get everything playing, but it's a bit like goto, makes life easy when you get it to work properly. Looking forward to some clear winters nights, clouds really mess auto guiding up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cometcatcher
Good looking galaxies Rick. I'm thinking of the asi120mc also for guiding. How do you find it?
Thanks Kevin, I found that the asi120mc is a great little camera once I finished the head scratching and worked out how to set it up, there's a bit more adjusting than the DSLR's that I'm more used to. I would like to try some deep space with it but haven't worked that one out yet, bit more googling and youtubing to do yet.
It makes a good planetary camera as well. These were taken at prime focus with my 180mm mak cass.
Those Jupiter pics are super! I wanted to get something for planets as well. My Newt is still a bit on the short side though and I hate barlows. The best ever view of Saturn I had was from a 180mm Mak.
The 180mm Mak certainly lives up to its reputation as a planet killer, its nice to be able to get good detail without using barlows or tiny fl eyepieces. I did try to push the Mak to the max on Jupiter with the asi120mc, but I think that one of those rare super seeing nights will be needed to get a good result. The things we to for an astro fix when the weather is not the best.
Jupiter @ 13,500mm fl at f75 (2700mm + 5x barlow)
With a 6" scope and 120 sec subs @ISO 1600 the Cigar Galaxy should have
the light brown colour from whence it got its name; maybe you need to look at your processing, Rick.
raymo
With a 6" scope and 120 sec subs @ISO 1600 the Cigar Galaxy should have
the light brown colour from whence it got its name; maybe you need to look at your processing, Rick.
raymo
Processing is definitely not my strong point. I still shoot jpg and just stack in DSS and have a quick play with a few sliders in photoshop. I am totally out of the loop when I read about the type of processing those in the main photo section do. I cant ever see myself joining the multiple hour integration time club. I just like to get pics of stuff that I can barley see through the eye piece.
That's why I like comets. I usually spend a max of 15 minutes on them. Instant gratification! How often do we get multi hour clear nights in Mackay anyway? Not many.
I have attached a pic I took some years ago, which was "processed"
solely in DSS. If you synchronise the RGB curves in DSS you will get
pretty pleasing colour balance.
raymo
A bit off topic, but in reply to your comments, I did film and manual guiding AP for over 55 yrs, and by the time digital turned up, I was not able[or
willing] to put in the effort to learn all the new skills. I therefore stuck with
a DSLR, noise reduction enabled, JPEG, generally 1600 or 3200 ISO,
unguided [30-120secs], no separate darks/ flats/ biases. Almost all processing
carried out in DSS; PS is too much for me, I wasted my money getting it;
almost never used it, same goes even more for BYEOS which I never used.
I was reasonably happy with my results at such a basic level. All my gear is now gone, and I enjoy looking at the results that newbies are now getting.
raymo
