First Decent Attempt at Imaging

DavidTrap (David) · #1 18-10-2009, 10:48 PM

Howdy,

Here is my first real attempt at digital astrophotography.

Taken on a Meade LX-90 mount
Imaging with Nikon D200, through William Optics 70mm FS scope
Guiding through 8inch LX-90 at 1200mm, F6.3 using Orion Startshoot Autoguider and PHD.

5 x 300sec images at ISO400, stacked with DSS (only 2 dark frames)

No flats as yet - next project is a light box!

Pretty stoked to have such success straight off the bat!!! I was amazed to see the gas clouds in the Pleiades!!!

Thanks to Chris & Geoff for their advice.

Cheers
David T

dpastern (Dave Pastern) · #2 18-10-2009, 11:01 PM

That's a very good start David, congrats. Impressive to see dust clouds from M45 on such a short exposure.

Dave

batema (Mark) · #3 18-10-2009, 11:02 PM

Congratulations on a wonderful shot. There will be many more to come I am sure. Definately go a light box.

Mark

multiweb (Marc) · #4 19-10-2009, 08:45 AM

That is really very nice David.

You probably have more nebulosity in there than you first thought. Your image was slightly black clipped in your processing. Try to go back to the original and stretch the data again. It will bring up a lot more of the faint stuff. Your focus and tracking are impeccable. Well done again.

DavidTrap (David) · #5 19-10-2009, 12:00 PM

Thanks for the replies.

Second project is to start the long task of learning how to process these images...

DT