Comet 17P/Holmes - 7 Oct

Forgive the title it was taken 7 November! Here is a piggyback shot of the Comet with the 17-200 F/4L at 200mm. 25 frames stacked. Total exposure is 26 minutes at f/4 ISO 200. Pretty interesting watching this Comet change from day to day.

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That is so cool! 25 images? WOW.

If that's at 200mm then this comet must be pretty big I guess...viewable with the naked eye as just a star I guess?

I'm guessing your exposures were 1-minute each, with a 1-minute dark frame? But only ISO 200? Why not higher? (Sorry, I'm still learning about astrophotography...sti​ll don't really know why some situations need lower ISOs and some higher. I tend to leave mine on ISO1600 to max out the light sensitivity, thus reducing the time I need to leave the shutter open.)

Outstanding image Rick. Very nicely composed. I photographed it myself on Saturday night. Really a beautiful site. What were you piggy-backed on for this?

NH

Adrena1in - It was shot at 200mm but when I stacked it I used a 2x Drizzle command which effectively doubles the image output. I used 200 ISO since it is a bright target and I wanted to keep the noise levels down. As for dark frames I made 5 dark frames to create a master dark frame which was applied to each seperate image.

Nighthound - Thanks. I use a Meade 2080 LX3 (8") that I had since 1987. It's not a GOTO scope so I spend some time aligning it prior to taking the first image. I have to replace the optics since they have deteriorated over time. Meade's factory is a few hours from here and they said they would replace the optics with new glass so I'm saving up my pennies. I want to get into prime focus again.

Wow, you've been at this a lot longer than me. The 2080 seems to hold well for piggy back work. I spend about an hour, sometimes more drift aligning and doing periodic error correction with my G-11. I don't autoguide so the time spent drift aligning really pays off. At 407mm, I'm able to get between 3.5 and 6.5 minute exposures here lately.

What stacking software are you using?

NH

R Hardman wrote in post #4293713
Forgive the title it was taken 7 November! Here is a piggyback shot of the Comet with the 17-200 F/4L at 200mm. 25 frames stacked. Total exposure is 26 minutes at f/4 ISO 200. Pretty interesting watching this Comet change from day to day.

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That's alot of work Do you get similar results showing in the coma while adjusting the gama/levels in the finished stack? little bit of a rooster tail like v coming off what apears to be the nucleous.

Nighthound - Used DeepSkyStacker for this image. I also use Registax. Seem they both work well for being free! A I do spend quite a bit of time drift aligning. Seems I can never get it perfect!

Kraig - The original image does show a very faint halo and tail.

R Hardman wrote in post #4303749
Used DeepSkyStacker for this image. I also use Registax.

Glad to hear that someone who is producing such quality images uses DeepSkyStacker...that'​s what I use. Prefer it to Registax though, which I could never get good results from.

R Hardman,
What magnification lense are you using on your scope. I have an Orion 8" Dob with tons of lenses for it. I currently am in the search for a mounting brackets for it and am going ot start taking night photos soon with my XTi. I have a 28-135 lense for my XTi that I think will work fine for this feature but mainly am woried about the mounting bracket and what magnification lense you use. I currently have 10 different lenses with different magnifications for my Dob so I am sure I will have to just play around with what I am trying to take pictures of to get results.

frumpy708 wrote in post #4314840
R Hardman,
What magnification lense are you using on your scope. I have an Orion 8" Dob with tons of lenses for it. I currently am in the search for a mounting brackets for it and am going ot start taking night photos soon with my XTi. I have a 28-135 lense for my XTi that I think will work fine for this feature but mainly am woried about the mounting bracket and what magnification lense you use. I currently have 10 different lenses with different magnifications for my Dob so I am sure I will have to just play around with what I am trying to take pictures of to get results.

I have only two currently for the scope. A 7mm and a 20mm which gives me a magnification factor of 290 and 100 respectively. I currently can only piggyback using my regular camera lenses since the primary and secondary mirrors have deteriorated and need replaced. It's ok for bright object viewing but not usable for prime focus work. Sorry for the delay in the response but my computers power supply failed and I was down for a few days until I replace it.