M13 & M57

My first shots of something other than Planets... both are pretty noisey because of the ISO. They are single shots at about 30 seconds a piece.

M13

JaredBush wrote in post #8756339
M57 (pretty faint with an unmodded camera)

Isn't it cool to shoot deep space objects?

Anyway, you don't need a modded camera for M57, nor any other messier object. Also, I don't know what iso you used, but high iso is what everybody uses for all their shots. The noise goes away with stacking, and subtracting out dark frames.

My suggestions:
1) Dont use such a long focal length. Not sure what you used here, but it seems LONG for a beginner. I guess you could just be cropping too, which is fine. I can't tell since the shots are so dark. 400-500 is a good beginner range for the deep sky stuff I think.

2) Learn stacking and dark frame subtraction. I use nebulosity, but I think there's a program called Deep Sky Stacker that is free to do it.

3) Shoot RAW if you arent already, and use ISO1600.

4) Forget about modding your camera for now, it isn't needed and it really shouldn't hold you back on much of anything. Check my site out for examples of shots with a totally stock canon DSLR.

And btw, here's an m57 from my unmodded camera back when I was first starting out a few months ago...it came out bright enough. http://jmx.ls1howto.co​m/pics/m57.jpg

Thanks for the tips! We're both in Socal; we should meet up, I could use the help!

I generally have to go elsewhere to see anything good because of the limited view from my balcony and the heat venting concrete jungle I live in

Here is the setup i'm using:

*Skywatcher 8" SCT
*Tele-extender or Hyperion Eyepiece adaptor
*Canon T1i (upgraded from the XSi in the photos)

Oh man that's gonna be a really tough setup to learn on, 2000+mm focal length and you're using an eyepiece? Yikes.

Might be a good idea to find a focal reducer to bring that 2000mm down to 1250m or so, and then image at prime focus, rather than using the eyepiece. It'll still be really tough tho.

The other option is go pick up a cheap 80mm refractor, take pictures through that, and hook up an autoguider camera to the SCT to steady the whole thing via guiding (assuming that mount has an ST-4 autoguiding port on it). SCT is great for planets im sure, but for just starting out with deep sky stuff you're in for quite a battle I suspect.

What area are you? I'm near long beach/garden grove area kinda on the border of OC/LA counties. Not really sure how much help I can be, I'm still learning all this stuff. Picked up my setup 4-5 months ago and have been having a blast ever since learning how to use it.

Hum. That's the reason I picked up a SCT. Most of the sources I looked at and people I talked to said SCT was a good all around scope for Astrophotograpy.

I've been using the scope for about 8 months now and love it, but haven't done much with the astrophotograpy.

I'm in the Anaheim area...