Back date to Christmas 2021 my wife bought me a telescope for visual observation. I quickly became hooked looking over the moon and all its craters, seeing the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter. I decided to look online to see what else was out there I was able to observe when I came across this forum. I looked in the deep space section and my mind was blown. People are able to take photos of nebula/galaxies/star clusters etc from their own back yard??? This was something I wanted to be able to do. So for the past several months iv slowly being buying parts to make a kit.
WO z73 with flattener
50mm Guide scope and asi120mm
Heq5
Antlia Filters
ASIAIR plus
ASI533mm
The last piece of the puzzle was the camera which came this Christmas. After a night of just working out how the asiair worked and practicing polar alignment which I found relatively easy with the asiair experimental “all sky polar alignment” I took my first subs of M42. Around 5 hours. They didn’t work out. Haha! Abit disheartened but determined to try again I decided to change my target to Eta Carina. After many attempts of trying to post process, watching more tutorials, post processing again . This is the end result.
30x300s Ha
30x300s OIII
20x300s SII
I realised after I had finished editing that there is a thing called back focus. I had used most of the adapters that came with the camera which is probably why the m42 subs I took didn’t turn out well. No idea why Carina worked a lot better when nothing had been changed, but I’m happy with it anyway.
Thank you all for inspiring me to get into this hobby and thanks for looking.
I think you're a very brave man to jump straight into the "deep end" of mono imaging without the usual DSLR -> OSC -> Mono progression.
For a first image, it's a ripper. Good detail, round stars, and good contrast between the brighter core and the darker clouds.
I'm not a mono imager, but I suspect adding some Luminance in there would help bring the stars out a bit more. Either by shooting Luminance directly, or by substituting the Ha layer for it. No doubt more knowledgeable people will chime in here...
A great start, and I can't wait to see more of your work.
Hey Adam for the time you have been in the hobby that is exceptional...when I started it was a couple of hours for polar align, half an hour for focusing, some time to find your object...etc..Thanks Asiair plus.
Keep up the great effort..you are a natural.
Alex
I think you're a very brave man to jump straight into the "deep end" of mono imaging without the usual DSLR -> OSC -> Mono progression.
For a first image, it's a ripper. Good detail, round stars, and good contrast between the brighter core and the darker clouds.
I'm not a mono imager, but I suspect adding some Luminance in there would help bring the stars out a bit more. Either by shooting Luminance directly, or by substituting the Ha layer for it. No doubt more knowledgeable people will chime in here...
A great start, and I can't wait to see more of your work.
Cheers,
V
Thanks Steve! knowing myself too well, if i had bought a DSLR within a month i would of wanted to 'upgrade'. So im basically trying to save myself some costs in the long run .
Iv tried making a luminence layer with Ha but every time i combined it to the image the colours would become all scuffed. Obv doing something wrong and i need to look into it more.
Hey Adam for the time you have been in the hobby that is exceptional...when I started it was a couple of hours for polar align, half an hour for focusing, some time to find your object...etc..Thanks Asiair plus.
Keep up the great effort..you are a natural.
Alex
Thanks for the kind words Alex. The ASIAIR plus really is great!
Really nice work Adam, especially for a first, it's fantastic. It's probably the jpg but to me it might be your focus is slightly off, do you autofocus? You will have to verify your back focus/tilt arrangement by doing test shots. On one setup I had an extra 2.1mm to get back focus properly. What are you using for processing?
Really nice work Adam, especially for a first, it's fantastic. It's probably the jpg but to me it might be your focus is slightly off, do you autofocus? You will have to verify your back focus/tilt arrangement by doing test shots. On one setup I had an extra 2.1mm to get back focus properly. What are you using for processing?
Gday John,
I used the bahtinov mask that comes with the telescope for focus. I had used most of the adaptors that came with the camera as i didnt realise there was also backfocus. After reading up on it i realised mine was about 11mm out but decided on post processing the image anyway. Iv since corrected it(i hope).
I used pixinsight to process with a few final touches in photoshop.
