Got my mount : Ring Nebula

[Catanonia]

Eventually I got my mount and spent a few hours getting to know it.

Jeez complicated, but eventually managed to roughly polar align and then calibrate it on Vega. (That took ages, why the **** do they put spotting scopes showing upside down images. Lost over 1 hour trying to work out why I couldn't see Lyra :( )


Anyway, played a bit, moved to the ring and Vega and back a few times, got to know the mount and then decided to attach the dslr to the ED80 for some pictures.

I also attached a 2x teleconverter to give me the focal range so effectively turning the ED80 from 600 -> 1200

Took 13 second stacks with a few darks and processed them About 6mins in all.

Here is the result.

Now I definately got the ring this time :)

Just need to learn polar alignment properly. Know the principles, but need to get setup in daylight to calibrate the aligment scope. Then should be able to take longer than 13 second subs without trails.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

YEP! You got the ring alright! Congratulations and extremely well done!

Now you know where it is and how to capture it, go to work on critical focus, longer exposures and get your tracking and guiding right. Don't get greedy and try to image every object in the sky in one night.

Spend the whole night on one object. Spend two if you have to. I know guys who spend weeks gathering photons from the one object to combine and build the image.

Well done mate, keep going.

Baz.

[Celestron]

Yes indeed you definitly did good ! Incse you don't know that area is full of stars also so the longer the exposer the better and more detail ! Heres a nice example (http://www.astropix.com/HTML/SHOW_DIG/087.HTM) from Jerry Lodriguss .

[troypiggo]

Excellent! As Baz suggests, keep adding more data and longer exposures. To do so you'll need to get that polar alignment sorted.

[chris.bailey]

Yep you got it this time. Its not an easy target to start with and considering you were working at 1200mm its a very fine effort.

[Catanonia]

Cheers guys,

I couldn't believe it when I looked at the 1st sub and saw the faint ring :)

Wow what a difference the tracking (even though it was rough) made to my exposure length.

Without the mount I was looking at 1 -2 second exposures absolute max for 1000mm. Now with just rought polar align at 1200mm I could have got away with 15 seconds. Amazing difference and amazing how much the stars actually move at these zooms.


I deliberately darkened the picture to show the ring more and hence lost a few fainter stars. Really was hoping to see more stars in the ring.

Need to work out how to add in a Barlow to the image between the dslr and the scope would be nice to take me to 2400mm and then get some proper tracking and long exposures done.


Has anyone managed to get decent shots of the dumbbell nebula recently on amatuer kit such as a EQ5 / ED80 or is it too faint / far ?

Many thanks all, I feel i have come on leaps and bounds with your help.

[chris.bailey]

Has anyone managed to get decent shots of the dumbbell nebula recently on amatuer kit such as a EQ5 / ED80 or is it too faint / far ?


http://ukastroimaging.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=45260.0;topicseen you may have to join to see it (well worth doing as there is a pile of info there) but shows what a 130mm f7 refractor can do.

[Catanonia]

Barlow 2x on the way for me along with a 40mm focus extender...

So if I place between camera and the scope by reading should give me 3x

That combined with my 2 times teleconverter = 6 times.

So effectively my ED80 600 will turn into a 3600mm :)

Just got to get this software box calibrated now, having all sorts of problems with it....

2 nights of nothing as I try to work it out.





Worked out proper polar alignment now with polaris in the outer ring dependent upon time and date.

Managed to get 30 second subs without drift, 1 min was pushing it with my accuracy. Just need to get the software calibrated and working now....

[jmx]

I deliberately darkened the picture to show the ring more and hence lost a few fainter stars. Really was hoping to see more stars in the ring.


Has anyone managed to get decent shots of the dumbbell nebula recently on amatuer kit such as a EQ5 / ED80 or is it too faint / far ?


I was just out for my first night of imaging a week or two ago with a cheap mount (CG5, which I think is our equivalent to a EQ5?), and I got both the ring nebula and the dumbbell. I think you should be able to have lots of stars and keep the nebula bright. Maybe you need to change how you're processing? Do you have photoshop available? The curves and levels sections of photoshop is pretty much all you need, and it helps to work with raw 14 bit data (or whatever bit your camera takes).

http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/thumbs/m57.jpg
Fullsize: http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/m57.jpg


http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/thumbs/m27.jpg
Fullsize: http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/m27.jpg

These are through an 6" reflector, and both are around 5 or 6 minutes of total exposure. The camera was a Canon DSLR, with no modifications performed. Each of my exposures was 25-30 seconds, and I only took 6-7 shots of each (thus the noise I have).

I've posted other shots with my "cheap" equipment in another thread just a few down in this forum if you're curious what the mount can do in the hands of a 100% total amateur. Spend more time on the polar alignment, and practice it even when you arent going to take photos.