[VisualDarkness]

Sorry for crossposting but I wanted to share my first Nebulosa from the K-5 thread:

I actually realized that I caught my first slightly visible nebula in the pic! Can you see Flame Nebula just beside the left star in Orion?


Now I need to get a better shot, finally something was fun with my sky shots.


I now tried a:
ISO51200
F4
1.6x40
Wow, maybe I shouldn't be afraid of going really high with the ISO and skip perfectly round stars as this image is way more interesting despite being of very crude quality. Any feedback?

[smigol]

Congratulations! I remember the first time that I could glimpse something around Orion hidden deep in the data of a shot. It was the start of a lot of efforts that continue to this day.

In your second picture you can see a tiny bit of the nebulosity that is the background for the horsehead, too.

[VisualDarkness]

Congratulations! I remember the first time that I could glimpse something around Orion hidden deep in the data of a shot. It was the start of a lot of efforts that continue to this day.

In your second picture you can see a tiny bit of the nebulosity that is the background for the horsehead, too.

Thank you! Yeah, I had almost given up astro stuff as I only got ugly misshaped dots with nothing interesting every time but this was encouraging.

One question, around the center of the shot I see like a prisma of red, yellow and green, is this due to the atmosphere?

[Stone G.]

One question, around the center of the shot I see like a prisma of red, yellow and green, is this due to the atmosphere?

Partly yes, because a light polluted sky makes matters worse. But what you are basically dealing with is uneven field illumination (vignetting). You should use flat frames in the stacking process and there are additional means to remedy vignetting. Just one example here:

Removing Uneven Field Illumination

Anyway: Congratulations with your first deep-sky object (DSO)! Never mind about the finer details, they will come as you gain more and more experience..

I also only have modest means and an ugly urban sky for most of the time and I shall never produce contest winning astrophotos. But my hobby does nonetheless give me the thrill of discovery when I capture the faint smudges of light from a DSO invisible to the human eye.

So, once again, congratulations with your first WOW-experience. Don't give up, because more are awaiting.......

[VisualDarkness]

Partly yes, because a light polluted sky makes matters worse. But what you are basically dealing with is uneven field illumination (vignetting). You should use flat frames in the stacking process and there are additional means to remedy vignetting. Just one example here:

Removing Uneven Field Illumination

Anyway: Congratulations with your first deep-sky object (DSO)! Never mind about the finer details, they will come as you gain more and more experience..

I also only have modest means and an ugly urban sky for most of the time and I shall never produce contest winning astrophotos. But my hobby does nonetheless give me the thrill of discovery when I capture the faint smudges of light from a DSO invisible to the human eye.

So, once again, congratulations with your first WOW-experience. Don't give up, because more are awaiting.......

I see the problem but I couldn't get the describe method to work so I used the "old method" mentioned. I created a duplicate layer, used gaussian blur to get rid of the stars and inverted it and set opacity to 50%. It's a very crude fix but some weird colors disappeared.

[VisualDarkness]

I tried a shot to the right of Orion tonight but as my knowledge of interesting deep space objects is nearly non-existent I found nothing interesting. Apparently IC 353 should be there but I can't see it so I guess my technique and equipment is subpar to capture it.

[Dr_who]

before doing faint IC353 I'd move ever so slightly over and do M45

[VisualDarkness]

before doing faint IC353 I'd move ever so slightly over and do M45

Actually I aimed for the for the Pleiades but yeah, you can see the result for yourself.
It's amazing that you guys actually can aim properly, with the K-5 + DA300 I saw nearly no stars when I tried to aim at that region of space. Orion's belt is easy though as the stars are way brighter than the rest around them.

I'm actually thinking about investing in some more dedicated astro equipment and I've been scanning the net. My budget is really limited as I'm unemployed with only savings to shop for. So it means that I have to sell stuff to get it and maybe even use the money that I got for selling stuff to get a DA*55, DA*16-50 or a second camera. Or should I skip it with no dedicated Astrophotography or similar to use and wait for better times?

I got both a K-5 and Q at my disposal though and you can see my level and knowledge (or lack there of) by reading my last posts.

Lets start with the really cheap ones I've found:

This one got little info but is really cheap, but I guess it's bad - Teleskop Sky-Watcher | Dalarna

Skywatcher
Diameter 130mm
Focal length 650mm
Can track with the hand computer
3 lenses included
1 SUPER 10mm
1 2X Barlow
1 Super 25mm Wide Angle.

Another cheap one is Celestron Nextar 4SE - Stj

Middle cost ones that I may afford:
Meade ETX-125 - Meade ETX-125 teleskop | Stockholm

An now to the one that seems most interesting for the price when reading about it and the fact that it sounds pretty much like a complete kit.
Skywatcher ED80 APO teleskop + tillbeh

Skywatcher EVOSTAR ED80 APO 80/600mm + finder scope + prism
-ED80 suitcase Aluminium
-Celestron ADM equatorial Mount (go-to upgradeable) + 1 counterweight + RA and Dec guide motors
-Polar finder
-UrsaMinor Handbox for guide motor control with autoguiding port for use with autoguider
-12V Cable with cigarette lighter plug
-Powertank 7AH
-TSUHCL2 2" UHC nebula filter
-Skywatcher Light Pollution Filter
-focal adapter 2" to T-2
-2" extension piece for focusing 80mm
-T-2 Ring for Canon EOS
-LET 28mm eyepiece
-Various other adapters
-Bahtinov Mask 80mm
-Programmable camera remote control compatible with:

Canon: 30,33,50,50E,300,33V,300D,350D,400D, 450D, 1000D
,3000,500,55,55N,300X,Kiss.New Kiss, Kiss 7, Kiss III / Contax
N645,645,N1,NX Pentax: K100D,K110D,K10D, Samsung:
GX-1L,GX-1S,GX-10

-Sky Atlas 2000 Deluxe
-Small carrying bag for mount
-Carrying bag for tripod

Is 750€ about right for the kit?


And the (too) expensive ones:

This is pretty much way too expensive.

Teleskop Celestron c 9,25. Computerized Goto-telescope with a big opening.25 mm ocular included. Viewer 8x50 and pole searcher/aligner.

Teleskop |

Sky-watcher HEQ5 pro - Teleskop / Stj

[Sagitta]

If we ever actually see clear skies here again, I'm planning on doing things on the cheap and just using the O-GPS along with my tablet to try to aim in the areas I generally want to be. I discovered my 200mmmanual prime (and my 75-260mm manual zoom) both behave VERY well with a cheap old 2X teeconverter I picked up for basically nothing. I want to give them both a test run with it and see if the IQ is passable enough to pretend I have a 400mm and 520mm lens to work with.

EDIT: Technically I *do* have a 400 and 500 already but the lenses, uh... kind of suck. They're both that cheap, lightweight tube-of-doom design with horrible IQ even on a good day. I remember I stuck the 2X T-mount converter on the 500 then stuck that on another 2x converter once just to see what happened. It wasn't pretty. At all.

[bossa]

If we ever actually see clear skies here again, I'm planning on doing things on the cheap and just using the O-GPS along with my tablet to try to aim in the areas I generally want to be. I discovered my 200mmmanual prime (and my 75-260mm manual zoom) both behave VERY well with a cheap old 2X teeconverter I picked up for basically nothing. I want to give them both a test run with it and see if the IQ is passable enough to pretend I have a 400mm and 520mm lens to work with.

EDIT: Technically I *do* have a 400 and 500 already but the lenses, uh... kind of suck. They're both that cheap, lightweight tube-of-doom design with horrible IQ even on a good day. I remember I stuck the 2X T-mount converter on the 500 then stuck that on another 2x converter once just to see what happened. It wasn't pretty. At all.

I'm interested to know how your tablet can help you. Would you be using this as a LCD replacement and running HDMI into it?

[smigol]

before doing faint IC353 I'd move ever so slightly over and do M45

But now you've got me thinking about my next winter's project...

I'm currently working on some widefield with using a 200mm camera lens. It's been a learning experience about having to control unfocused light. I gnash my teeth at the lost opportunities of dark, clear sky with testing. Still, it will all come around again, same time next year. That's the nice thing about this part, much of it is practice and the models are patient and we learn every time.

[Sagitta]

I'm interested to know how your tablet can help you. Would you be using this as a LCD replacement and running HDMI into it?

Google Sky View... LOL

OK, where the heck is Saturn... ah, THERE.

I actually used it on my one clear night a had last week, seeing if I could catch anything even slightly interesting. If nothing else, it at least let me shoot Lyra without having to dredge up 30 year old forgotten lessons from high school astronomy classes. I'll see if I can dig up the picture and upload it to flickr.

EDIT: Shot this with (I think) the M-200, ISO 400, 60 second exposure. Its a processed RAW file to try to kill some of the light pollution a bit. This SHOULD be Vega and its environs, but I may be wrong as I didn't jot down any notes at the time (another thing the tablet would be useful for... recording field notes in the dark!)

EDIT II: Added this to the astrometry group on flickr, should tell me where I pointed my camera at for this one! :-D

EDIT III Apparently I caught Lyra and somehow missed Vega? Don't ask me how I managed to do that one...

[pixelsaurus]

If you join the astrometry group on flikr and load an image in there, it will identify the starfield for you. May take a day or two.

Flickr: astrometry

[Sagitta]

If you join the astrometry group on flikr and load an image in there, it will identify the starfield for you. May take a day or two.

Flickr: astrometry

I did - I discovered that group the other day, and it already kicked out results (scary fast, I think I got lucky). Its Lyra - the two bright stars are Sheliak and Sulafat, which made me dredge up old forgotten memories and do a bit of poking about on the original RAW file for this. I accidentally nabbed me a nebula in there. :-D

Its a nice solid circular smudge, but M57 is just about dead center in the image.

[oneeyedhawk]

Finally caught Comet Pan-Starrs through the clouds setting over the Mummy Range
Taken with K-5 and smc 200mm F4 lens
Hank