Astro Photography
- Thread starter Nigelnaturist
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Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Joey Shabadoo
My pronouns are "He", "Him" and "buggerlugs"
Drago
Legendary Member
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I did some observing as part of my studies, but never much. Back then, nearly 20 years ago, the kit wasn't so widely available and so cheap as it is now. Also, I'm too into spending my money on bass guitars to go back, but I'm enjoying the results of your efforts.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
There are some amazing photos in this thread. When I was a kid and first got interested in astronomy and physics I had a picture book, I think it was the brochure from the London Planetarium, which had images similar to those on this thread - many were captioned "taken with the 200" Hale telescope at Mount Palomar) and here we have photos of similar quality taken by an amateur from his garden
Wow is all I can say
Wow is all I can say
OP
OP
Nigelnaturist
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We have the Chinese industry to thank for that (not turning this into a debate), however there downsides to that as well, and whilst you cna get spectacle results like using web cams,
and on the whole reflectors are cheap £300 or so for a reasonable 8", other stuff like APO scopes get expensive very quickly going up in size, but from my photography I know the most important thing is a sturdy mount, but I still have a lot to learn, my hard drive dies as I was starting to get to gris with some of it that was two weeks ago, and typical the ssd drive I ordered got held up in the post and now the weather is set to be cloudy for the next week or so at least.
OP
OP
Nigelnaturist
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Can I ask if you can remember how long the video sequence was, I managed mine with a 500 frame sequence, it was more a test than anything serious.
OP
OP
Nigelnaturist
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It is mainly the digital revolution that has enabled us to do such images, from control of the scope to stacking images, but yes it is wonderful that on a modest amount amazing images can be achieved.
You’ll have to bear with me. It was along time ago. It was on a 80mm refractor, with a Celestron tracking mount. I think it was about 2500 frames. I then stacked the best 15 % on registax. The hardest part was getting the telescope really accurately aligned so that I could keep Jupiter in the scope for long enough.
The moment I saw Jupiter on the laptop for the first time was pretty cool.
I have other images somewhere on a flash drive, if I find them I’ll put the best of em up
Telescope plus webcam was about 180 pounds
OP
OP
Nigelnaturist
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This is what I think about everything I see that I know about, but have never seen.
I was doing the Owl Nebula when the computer through it's wobbly. You can get some amazing telescopes cheaply these days, the scope I got is an 8" reflector off ebay £140,
From what I understand about registax so long as the image is in the frame it will do a good job, the one I did of Saturn supports that as it seemed the tracking stopped part way through the sequence, I was watching so managed to enable the tracking again, hopefully the new windows install and software might correct this issue.
This is a composite image of how Jupiter and Saturn will look on the 21st of December at approximately 333x magnification. I hope to get a more dedicate astro cam by then, it wont be an expensive on, the one I have in mind plus a 2x barlow on my scope will also give this approximate view.
The angular distance I think is about 6.3", the camera will also enable be to get better views of galaxies.
I am using my Canon 6D at the moment and I get serious vignetting, not so much with the 40D, but I can't seem to couple it up right at the moment, something to do with camera processor age, but I really have only been doing it since March the 6th with the new mount, and missed all the good days last week, so not a lot time really.
OP
OP
Nigelnaturist
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How did you do the close up, I can do eye piece projection with a 10mm e.p. to create a 18m f/90 scope or there abouts.
This is one of them.
These I think are my best but I have few,
This is a project I am working, I think you can see where I am going with it.
The close up was using a short barlow lens (1.25 inch, 3x).
I'd really like to try and get Jupiter but haven't figured out how to do it yet. All I have managed is a very bright blurry blobs...
I also need to get much better with the dobsonian. It tends to end up so tight I can't move it easily, or so loose it knocks off target or drops. It's also too low to use easily. I chose dobsonian as I though it would be better for the kids but in retrospect...
Iain
I'd really like to try and get Jupiter but haven't figured out how to do it yet. All I have managed is a very bright blurry blobs...
I also need to get much better with the dobsonian. It tends to end up so tight I can't move it easily, or so loose it knocks off target or drops. It's also too low to use easily. I chose dobsonian as I though it would be better for the kids but in retrospect...
Iain
OP
OP
Nigelnaturist
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The best way to get plantary images is to do short videos, these can be done using web cams, then using registax to get the best frames and then stack those. If using the Canon, depending how old, but most in the last decade or so have a live view, use the live view to focus. If doing single plantary images and it to bright shorten the exposure use manual mode. This is a single frame of Venus I used a high ISO as the effective focal ratio was f/90 I used eye piece projection to create a telescope with an effective focal length of 18m yes 18m the ISO was 12,800 and exposure was 1/60, so 1/60th @f/90 ISO 12,800.
gbb
Legendary Member
- Location
- Peterborough
Just extraordinary...
