Improvements in astrofarktography

[orionid]

orionid; GREAT shot of the Milky Way core! M7 really stands out; I’d imagine that’s Jupiter riding above Sagittarius? If so, then it was taken first half of September, 2008? (acutally, betting on August 29th 2008).

What I wouldn’t give for dark skies and 300mb of air pressure pushing down on me.

Thanks. And your dating is spot-on. It was September 1st, 2008.

[chupathingie]

The LPR lens helps. As does the reducer. Three pictures; the Trifid Nebula, the Hourglass Nebula (both taken this morning long before dawn) and Comet McNaught 2009 (now on display at near-nekkid eye visibility). I also got multiple shots of Saturn in the evening sky and Jupiter in the morning; those, however, I need to stack before displaying. These three, other than resizing/cropping, are completely unedited in any way (I’m hoping I can make them better, of course, but that’s later.)

Wow. Those look *really* good for single exposures. Hope the stacks came out right, they aughtta be gorgeous.

Shooting on an alt-az by chance? Only thing to pick on really is field rotation. Your focus looks pretty sharp. Lots of detail in there, pretty stuff…

I’m gonna have to sell off a car to buy a mount, myself! 😉

[ravnostic]

Thanks, Chupa. So far, my stacking skills seem to suck. And yes; at the moment it’s alt-az. I’m saving for a polar mount, though. THEN I’ll get some real good ones (one would hope.)

[chupathingie]

Looks like you’ve already got the shooting part off to a good start… what scope are you using? From the FOV I’m gonna guess a cass…

I’ve got a GEM, but it’s circa 1977; OK for ~200mm telephoto use (barely) but dropping a meter’s focal length on it is out of the question for anything but webcam planetary imaging. I had planned on having a losmandy mount and a 10″ royce conical by now, but instead bought another vehicle to deal with the snow here (anyone want to buy a gently used RX-8?). Had to choose between astrophotography and getting reliably to work 🙁

What are you stacking with? And what OS? More importantly I guess, what kind of learning curve for stacking are you looking for? You can do a lot manually in PS if you have it, and if you’re using windows there are a lot of free/reasonable stackers available; somewhat fewer for mac and plenty of power tools for linux (steep learning curve there tho, not so many GUIs for them).

You really aught to make a 2-3 day camp and shoot from the rim up above Sedona somewhere. 2-4 hrs drive would put you in some of the most pristine skies in the SW. I used to drive from Flag to the Mogollon rim all the time to enjoy a campfire and the stars. Just bring a shotgun to scare the bears off 😉

[ravnostic]

It’s a CPC 1100 with a f/6.3 reducer (usually f/10), which, yes, is a sch-cass. FOV tops out at about .5 deg on the long side as set up using my canon xTi. Using Registax (latest), but the ‘instruction’ manual is a joke (they can’t even spell, let alone explain adequately); Nothing I’ve put in has come out acceptably; it just adds images on top of each other, I’m not seeing the extra clarity and such I’m always hearing about. Using Vista (and I’ve never had a problem with it, unlike everyone else in the world, it seems). If you would suggest something free with a better instruction set, I’d be glad to try it.

I’ll be going up to Tortilla Flats with Caradoc on the 10th, so I’m hoping to get some nicer shots while there. I do have a Pollution redux filter, which does do well, but it would be nice to not have to use it. I do want to get further up north; limiting factor is actually not the scope’s batteries (and I have a cig lighter power cable, also, but the camera’s. I need 2 more than the two I have to make it through a night without recharging.

[caradoc]

Bring your charger. I’ve got an inverter, and we’ll have access to the car’s 12V port. No worries.

[chupathingie]

OOOOooooohhhhhhh… you have many options here….

Most expensive is a quality german equatorial mount. It’s the way to go if you think you’ll be swapping out payloads or even rigging multiple OTAs to one mount. For the weight of your scope I’m ballparking $2000 and up for one that tracks under load well enough for astrophotography.

Second option is to get a wedge for your existing rig. Converts alt-az to polar for under $1000.

Intead of (or even in addition to) the above, have a look at Hyperstar ( http://starizona.com/acb/hyperstar/whatis.aspx ). You won’t have to worry about field rotation with 30 second exposures and it will open up your FOV tremendously, plus your primary is large enough to mount a full-sized DSLR. Also under $1000. edit: light pollution wreaks havoc with optics this fast, and I’m not sure if LP filters are available for Hyperstar.

I started with registax, but it’s main use seems to be for planetary images captured with a webcam (which it does a pretty good job of). You might want to look at Deep Sky Stacker… it’s free, and plenty of tutorials are scattered around the ‘net.

Also, if you’ve never been, go to http://www.saratogaskies.com/articles/cookbook/index.html. Great resource for starting out in astrophotography. With a DSLR, you really need to shoot Lights, Darks and Flats… especially where you live; thermal noise is the bane of DSLR astrophotographers… and he covers all of the basic concepts of acquisition and processing.

[ravnostic]

caradocWill do!

chumpaCelestron makes a wedge for my model; with fine-tuning addons, it’s $400, which (thanks to OT) is (going) to be within my budget by the end of next month (sorry, caradoc; won’t have it in time for July.) If I didn’t have other obligations, and didn’t buy the LPR filter and reducer, I’d have it already. Too many toys, too shallow pockets.

I’ve looked at Hyperstar and am not really interested in it at this time. I believe I had DSS at one time, but deleted it (but then I didn’t have any deep sky stuff then, either.) I’ll reload and see what happens soon. And I’ll definitely take a look at that link.

Thanks for all your input!! Useful stuff, there.

[ravnostic]

Also, if you’ve never been, go to http://www.saratogaskies.com/articles/cookbook/index.html. Great resource for starting out in astrophotography.

I get a 404 on this. 😥

(nevermind; got there the hard way.)

[sleeping]

Punctuation and URLs don’t mix well.

[chupathingie]

huh… me too now. link from google works tho.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=jim+solomon+astrophotography&aq=3&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=jim+solomon+&gs_rfai=Cake5-eIoTOqLCorAM6CPoYEKAAAAqgQFT9DOIQc

top link.

[olavf]

Now that’s an astrophotography kit.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1318457/Astronomer-Dave-Grennan-discovers-290million-year-old-supernova-exploding-star-garden-shed.html

[orionid]

I’ll take two, please.

[ravnostic]

Nice!

[chupathingie]

Drop a nice, fast Newt in there and it’d be perfect…. 😉

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