Orion wide field

Excellent capture there !

Celestron wrote in post #18538608
Excellent capture there !

thanks mate

Looks great.

The really impressive thing is capturing all that minute dust surrounding the complex.

I think a little wider FOV to do a different composition would be stronger, but that's being nit-picky.

At this view scale, it looks good. At large scale view, the stars have some shape to them, from the tracking perhaps. If you were running pHD guiding software, you could nail down the tracking error pretty quickly.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #18538827
Looks great.

The really impressive thing is capturing all that minute dust surrounding the complex.

I think a little wider FOV to do a different composition would be stronger, but that's being nit-picky.

At this view scale, it looks good. At large scale view, the stars have some shape to them, from the tracking perhaps. If you were running pHD guiding software, you could nail down the tracking error pretty quickly.

Very best,

thanks mate, you're right tracking definitely not perfect

need to try to do it again on a (hopefully) windless night, i feel like that setup it shouldn't have problems tracking 45 seconds without guiding

that and maybe trying extra counterweight

What you can do is try to make sure your polar alignment is tighter, that will help quite a bit here. I'm not sure how you're currently doing it, but you can start to build up "drift alignment" as a tool in your toolbox to supplement polar alignment.

https://www.cloudynigh​ts.com …ment-by-robert-vice-r2760

If you're precisely polar aligned, at wider FOV angles like you're using, you'll get tracking of 2~4+ minutes without much period error.

Other things as you already mentioned are ensuring your setup is balanced very precisely so that after it changes arcs the weight shift doesn't cause problems. Also, less strain on the worm gear and cogs if you're balanced properly. Weight matters a lot, and when you're at the limits of the mount or undermounted, this kind of issue is prevelant. If you overmount, you'll have it a lot easier. You can look to shed some weight by considering that you don't need to use that 70-200 and instead, get a simple prime lens in the focal length that you prefer for FOV. You don't have to use an AF Canon lens. You can instead use inexpensive high quality primes that are legacy, such as M42 (Pentax) mount Super Takumar lenses adapted to the EF mount. You could a 50mm F1.4, 135mm F3.5, 200mm F4, etc, all lighter weight, inxepensive, sharp, good multi-coating, and you can stop them down 1~2 stops to get really good coma control and sharpness for cheap and help manage any CA. Worth toying with for these purposes. The 135mm and 200mm are excellent for wide field groupings like you're doing here.

Very best,

MalVeauX wrote in post #18538844
What you can do is try to make sure your polar alignment is tighter, that will help quite a bit here. I'm not sure how you're currently doing it, but you can start to build up "drift alignment" as a tool in your toolbox to supplement polar alignment.

https://www.cloudynigh​ts.com …ment-by-robert-vice-r2760

If you're precisely polar aligned, at wider FOV angles like you're using, you'll get tracking of 2~4+ minutes without much period error.

Other things as you already mentioned are ensuring your setup is balanced very precisely so that after it changes arcs the weight shift doesn't cause problems. Also, less strain on the worm gear and cogs if you're balanced properly. Weight matters a lot, and when you're at the limits of the mount or undermounted, this kind of issue is prevelant. If you overmount, you'll have it a lot easier. You can look to shed some weight by considering that you don't need to use that 70-200 and instead, get a simple prime lens in the focal length that you prefer for FOV. You don't have to use an AF Canon lens. You can instead use inexpensive high quality primes that are legacy, such as M42 (Pentax) mount Super Takumar lenses adapted to the EF mount. You could a 50mm F1.4, 135mm F3.5, 200mm F4, etc, all lighter weight, inxepensive, sharp, good multi-coating, and you can stop them down 1~2 stops to get really good coma control and sharpness for cheap and help manage any CA. Worth toying with for these purposes. The 135mm and 200mm are excellent for wide field groupings like you're doing here.

Very best,

thanks Martin

i started off doing drift, now i use polemaster (best money i've spent) for polar alignment, after alignment i managed to get a couple frames of good 2 min tracking which is why i said earlier i don't believe tracking is the issue here, i am hoping it is just needing more counter weight and or wind giving me grief hahaha

Gorgeous shot!

Beautiful shot, nice framing of it, may have to give this one a shot myself.

This is just stunning!!!! Was this at ISO 1600?

Fantastic!

thanks all!

naddieuk wrote in post #18568491
This is just stunning!!!! Was this at ISO 1600?

yes ISO 1600

I think it's an excellent capture.

Very well spotted and shot

basketballfreak6 wrote in post #18538550

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Ffde​LW Orion Wide by Tony, on Flickr

modified 760D + 70-200L II @200mm with STC astro-m lp filter
shot in suburban backyard in Brisbane, tracked with star adventurer

struggled a bit with the tracking here...i don't think it's bad alignment because i was able to get 2 min tracking on some frames just very inconsistent, dropped it down to 45 seconds and still not consistent, not sure if it's because it was windy, or just bad tracking by tracker itself or maybe i need to get another counterweight to balance the setup better

would love to hear what you guys think particularly with editing side of things, i know i still need to capture subs separately for the bright core and also how do you guys deal with halo around bright stars?

It's look like you have a notice focus and I think you actually do have a pretty good alignment BECAUSE I don't see star elongation in the declination direction. As I try to look very closely at your stars, I see slight elongation... but it's in the RA direction.

Normally if alignment is bad, stars will appear to drift fractionally upward or downward in declination ... but that's not what I see.

You list a Star Adventurer in your equipment list. Do you have their counter-balance accessory? If so, do you go for neutral balance... or fractionally off-balance.

Sometimes you can get some floating in the RA worm gear ... especially if the weight is stronger on the side of the RA axis that is being "lowered". That "floating" of the spur gear within the worm gear can create a little elongation of stars in the RA axis. You can sometimes improve the RA drive if you adjust the counterweight so that there's a tiny bit more weight on the side that is being "lifted". In other words, the spur gear is being driven along (pushed) by the worm gear. Basically you find the neutral balance position for the camera & counterweight... and then slightly un-balance the weight. If the camera is on the east side of the tripod (if you are imaging the western half of the sky) then you slightly adjust the counterweight in a tiny bit (maybe 1/4"). This makes the camera-side heavier so the worm gear "pushes" the camera along. If you are imaging something in the eastern half of the sky (camera is on the west side of the tripod and the counterweights are on the eastern side) then you adjust the counterweight outward just a tiny amount to make the counterweight side a little heavier.

I learned this tidbit from other imagers (far more experienced images... some of whom were retired mechanical engineers)... I was getting some RA elongation and I wiggled my mount and noticed that the worm/spur didn't have a tight fit... I could wiggle the RA just a tiny bit and thought that meant I needed to adjust the tension on my worm gear. Other imagers told me not to do that... it risks binding if adjusted too tight (which will create other problems). They told me the tip about fractionally unbalancing the load is on the wide that makes sure worm is "pushing" the spur gear along.

There are other things that can cause this... such as periodic error of the worm or rough spots on the worm.