The Heart Nebula + bonus shot

[jmx]

Another one of the 7 targets I shot on the 17th of this month.

Skywatcher Equinox 80 w/Televue 0.8x flattener
Unmodified Canon 50D
CGEM Mount
21 x 2 min (42min total)

http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/200910_ic1805_alt.jpg


And just for fun, right before I shot the heart nebula I re-shot Andromeda to see how it looked at 500mm f/6.25. It finally fit in the field of view...its a big one. This one used the AstroTech 1.0x flattener (which doesnt work well with this scope), and is slightly cropped. It also uses data from my previous month where I shot it with a 6" Newtonian, in order to add extra details into those dust lanes. Check the bigger version for the extra detail.

http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/200910_m31_100kb.jpg
Larger Version: http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/200910_m31_1280.jpg

[lighthalo]

the first shot is amazing! so many stars!

[Nighthound]

Outstanding shot, very deep for 42 minutes and the color looks great too. This is one of my favorite DSOs.

You're well on your way with this one, just keep adding time if you can.

[troypiggo]

Both wonderful. Excellent.

[FarmerDave8N]

That's an amazing heart - lots of red for an unmodded camera!

David

[jmx]

Thanks guys.

Nighthound, I think I will try to give this one a couple hours sometime. I've never spent more than an hour on a target, so I'm not really sure what I'm missing out on yet. :)

FarmerDave, yup, the totally unmodified camera works great. I'd say camera modification is a luxury, not a requirement for general astrophotography. One day I'll switch over to narrowband imaging and then I'll have to consider going modified.

[Nighthound]

Nighthound, I think I will try to give this one a couple hours sometime. I've never spent more than an hour on a target, so I'm not really sure what I'm missing out on yet. :)

By all means spend the time, you'll be pleased at what you'll see. There's a lot of dark/dense dust in and around the Heart. 3 hours starts to reveal a lot of subtleties, at 5 hours it looks like this with an unmodified 5D. I haven't gone beyond 5 hours on any object yet:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y67/Nighthd/Astrophotography/Heartnebclrcrctlatestccre.jpg

PS-I didn't see your Andromeda shot the first look, it's a beauty! Well worth a look at the larger file everyone.

[Celestron]

Two more great shots jmx ! I detect some dustlanes in M110 .

[Adam B.]

Wonderful!!! You have a magic touch.

[DSLR AstroMod]

Superb shots for under 1hr exposure, and excellent processing, very smooth, I like :)

[brownbugger]

really amazing shot , i loved the 2nd one specially !

[msclman99]

quick question, how do you take these awesome shots without getting star trails?

[troypiggo]

quick question, how do you take these awesome shots without getting star trails?

Specialised mounts (tripod and head) that are aligned with the axis of rotation of Earth and are motorised to rotate at the same (sidereal) rate.
They're known as German equatorial mounts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_mount#German_equatorial_mount).

[jmx]

quick question, how do you take these awesome shots without getting star trails?

This is the rig that is used:
http://jmx.ls1howto.com/pics/setup_labeled.jpg

[troypiggo]

Nice rig. Are you sponsored by Celestron? :p

[Celestron]

Cheap scope but a great setup !

[Nighthound]

Nice set up jmx. Location looks pretty remote.

I used to ride my Sky 90 on top of my Vixen Newtonian(R200SS) and 4 things I did greatly improved my imaging while autoguiding(Phd) or shooting unguided.

1) Selecting one, maybe two objects to shoot per night. When I got started I was bouncing from object to object trying to get as many as I could in a night. While I did get variety, I never got enough time on any of the objects to really go deep and do them justice.

2) Learning to accurately drift align made my tracking much better but also made my guiding more consistent. Phd guiding didn't struggle once my alignment was tighter. Once I'm able to keep a star on the cross hair of a reticle for 4 to 5 minutes, I know I'm set. Drift align takes about 20 minutes once rehearsed. If I shoot with the Sky 90 alone at 407mm I can go 5 minutes unguided very consistently. With the Newtonian I guide through the Sky 90 using an ATIK IC CCD mono camera.

3) Switching from the top-to-bottom stack of scopes to a side-by-side plate. My biggest problem at set up was always getting perfect balance on RA and DEC with the scopes stacked and the DSLR hanging off the side. The side-by-side configuration completely changed that. I can now perfectly balance the rig on both axis' and what a difference it makes.

4) Because the rig is now perfect balanced a slight amount of bias weight should to be applied on the east side of the mount at certain times(I'll explain shortly). This slight bias applies a minute amount of resistance on the gears which keeps them meshed and prevents teetering within the tolerance space of the gears that is required so they don't bind. Teetering can look like periodic gear error and makes autoguiding frustrating. When my mount is leaning back a good bit(aimed fairly high in the sky) less bias weight is needed, most nights none at all. But when the scope is pointed lower in the sky and consequently the counterweight shaft is very low, in this position more bias is needed to apply pressure to the gears. When I say pressure I mean a very slight amount, nothing that will cause excess stress or harm to the gears. I use a 2 pound ankle weight(I've see BB shot weight packs attached with velcro used as well) that I drape(loop the weight strap) on the counterweight shaft, usually high up for the least resistance. If the scope happens to be on the east side then I drape the weight up near the scope(s) on or around the side-by-side plate. I use a Losmandy G-11 and this method has proven to work very well with this unit. The toughest part was finding out when and how much bias weight to apply. By watching my exposures for egg shaped stars(watching for two frames in a row to be sure it's not periodic error) I know when I need to apply some bias and most times the next exposure after that is right back on track.

Grant it I have never used a CGEM, which looks like a great mount BTW. But balance of the entire imaging load is so critical regardless of which equatorial you use. I image with a friend that uses a Takahashi NJP mount, which is an incredible piece of machinery and very expensive. It's necessary for him to bias his mount as well, although slightly. Takahashi makes it easier with the NJP with their threaded counterweight system, you just turn the bottom weight enough to bias when/if needed on that side. He rigs bias weight for the scope side(when needed there) similar to mine.

I realize you're just starting out but I thought maybe some of this might be helpful now and possibly some later on down the road.

[msclman99]

Specialised mounts (tripod and head) that are aligned with the axis of rotation of Earth and are motorised to rotate at the same (sidereal) rate.
They're known as German equatorial mounts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_mount#German_equatorial_mount).

geez, i kinda figured. that's insane! thanks for the reply!

[jmx]

Nice set up jmx. Location looks pretty remote.

etc...


Whoops, missed your response somehow.

The location is about 90 miles from the los angeles area. It's a green or yellow zone. Definitely worth the drive out from the thousand+ square miles of city that is the LA area. 14 million people generate a lot of light, so imaging from home without narrowband is not all that rewarding.

1) 2 targets per night. Yeesh. I'm gonna have to slowly work my way down from 8/night to 2. This month I plan on only shooting 3-4 per night, and thats a big step for me :)

2) I do want to learn drift aligning, however, I've only actually used a telescope about 8 times in my life. I can't really see the sky from my condo, so the only time I ever get to learn how to align things is when I drive out of town to setup for photos. That gives me 8 hours a month, total, of photo time. I may give it a go this month tho, assuming I can find some real clear instructions. Right now I use a polar alignment scope and then I aim the telescope at some random star and watch it for a couple minutes. If it doesnt really move on the live view, I start imaging. Otherwise I have another go at alignment.

3) This was on my list...the ADM dual mount is $249, and I was having issues justifying that. I'm going to try and avoid this as long as possible, and at 400/500mm I think the stacked scope design is probably fine. I hear ya tho, and its on my short list.

4) I do bias my weight towards the east a bit, and I usually re-balance for each target I shoot. Thanks for reminding me of its importance.

The CGEM does seem a LOT better than my CG-5. Guiding on my CG-5 went much worse, probably due to my inexperience. It seemed more skittish, more sensitive to any little thing that could be wrong. I still got some good images out of it tho, so I can't complain for the price.

Thanks for all the advice.

[VIGER]

Nice rig and work JMX.

It's what's behind the objective that's important .

[Nighthound]

You're welcome. You are SO much better at this than I was early on. I am thoroughly impressed with your progress and images. I wish I had gone to a German Equatorial earlier, I cut my teeth on a fork mounted SCT. I'm not knocking it, I had a lot of fun but it was a struggle against added hurdles when it comes to imaging. In an observatory setting it would have been a better rig for my needs.

[NaKiD EyE]

seeing images of another galaxy is so surreal to me still. The universe is such a beautiful place.

[troypiggo]

...
1) 2 targets per night. Yeesh. I'm gonna have to slowly work my way down from 8/night to 2. This month I plan on only shooting 3-4 per night, and thats a big step for me :)

Hehe. I'm with you there. So hard to control ourselves when new to it all, just want to image everything still. At Queensland Astrofest back in August I did spend the majority of one night shooting one target, and the rewards truly are there. Having heaps more data of one object makes post-processing so much easier, and you get the fainter stuff as well. It changed my thinking and helped me realise what Nighthound has been telling us :)

2) I do want to learn drift aligning, however, I've only actually used a telescope about 8 times in my life. I can't really see the sky from my condo, so the only time I ever get to learn how to align things is when I drive out of town to setup for photos. That gives me 8 hours a month, total, of photo time. I may give it a go this month tho, assuming I can find some real clear instructions. Right now I use a polar alignment scope and then I aim the telescope at some random star and watch it for a couple minutes. If it doesnt really move on the live view, I start imaging. Otherwise I have another go at alignment.
...

I hear ya there too. Hard to find the time at a dark site. Drift alignment isn't that much more than what you say you're doing now. Just that instead of watching a random star, you pick one low to the east or west to correct your altitude, and one overhead to correct azimuth.

Do you use a notebook in the field, and ASCOM? Check out the software link in my sig for Alignmaster. It will greatly improve the time it takes to align, and give you much more accurate alignment than your current method.

[troypiggo]

Whoopsy. The link in my sig was broken. Fixed now.

[reddyroc007]

dude. that is far out.