Aus - Polarie Tracker and Southern Hempishere

Beginner at Astro though I know my way around a Canon EOS

Living in suburbia isn't great for any astro pics but I got a CLS filter and it seems to help. That along with a very small portion of the sky to work with is making it challenging to work out. The hardest thing (so far) is finding the south celestial pole. I have approximated it using the instructions and the Star Chart app. What doesn't help is not being able to see some of the dimmer stars that make a precise determination possible.

Anyone got some hints? I've been working on it when I can (lots of cloud cover) but whatever I do I seem to get a little trailing. I'm missing something about the alignment. That and the post processing is causing what's left of my hair to fall out.

Gear:

1500D (my dedicated astro camera although not modded other than a filter.)
16-35L at 35 (I have other lenses but I figure to work this out with one lens before moving onto another.)
Poloarie tracked w/ ball head and ball head on tripod.
Arsenal remote (bit of a gimmick but it works outside in the cold when I am inside warm.)

All this isolating stuff and an impending lock down is giving me the time, if not the weather, to work on this.

Hi,

I have the Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mini rather than the Polarie, but they are very similar. I never worry about trying to find the South Celestial Pole in the sky. Instead I have the altitude scale already set at 27.5 degrees (Brisbane's latitude), and then I hold a l metre wooden ruler (or more recently a green laser pointer) against the side of the tracker and rotate it until it points to true south according to a hand-held compass. You need to factor in the local magnetic deviation to determine true south. Works well especially for wide angle lenses (but I have managed 40 sec exposures with my 100mm macro lens without any issues... see the two images below).

One comment regarding cameras though... you mention that the 1500D will be your dedicated astro camera, but you also have a 6D in your gear list. I could be wrong (I don't know much about the 1500D), but I doubt it will be anywhere near as good as the 6D in terms of noise at high iso. So if your 6D is still in working order then I would make that you dedicated astro camera!

Here are couple of images of M31 and the LMC, both are 30 x 40 sec using the Star Adverturer Mini.

Cheers,
Stephen

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/2crV​49T

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/RGHq​SE

Hi Stephen,
thanks for the reply. I was of the impression that all sorts of doom will befall you should you not have the alignment exact, and some of my pictures seemed to agree with some star trailing on modest (30s) exposures with a short (ish) 35mm focal length at F2.8 .. next time the skies clear I'll dig out a laser pointer, a compass and take some images that way to see what happens.

As for the 1500, yes, the 6D is a far better camera but I can't mess with it and I can with the 1500 (ie, less of a financial hit should I stuff it). Not to mention a light pollution filter for a full frame is substantially more expensive than a crop sensor. Besides, should I get into this enough, I will sell a kidney and get a EOS Ra

Thanks again

Be nice if the cloud would go away ... I was having trouble last night as it looked clear enough but the results were less than satisfactory until I looked at the pics on the computer and there was a high level thin cloud. Tonight it isn't even thin. Tonight was going to be the 70-200s maiden astro voyage ....
BTW, great pics

I managed this the other night. My tracker setup was *ok* but still got some trailing if I went any more than 4 or 5 seconds at 200mm. I'm going to have to get myself a laser or something to get it accurate so I can a longer exposure ...

Along with the rain and heavy clouds I got about an hour and a half of really clear skies the other night so I braved the 'cold' and headed out. I got the tracker working well, up to 15 seconds exposure with no trailing. I did have it woking at 20 seconds with no trailing then it started to trail. I am assuming it's the heavy lens ( 70-200) and no counterbalance?
Last real annoyance is post processing. I just can't get rid of the purple and 'mist'. That'll come with time though. The pic is a stck of about 30, all I could manage before the overcast returned.