Starting off in Astrophotography...

ZeRoY

Hi all,

For as long as I remember I have always been fascinated by stars and planets. I sadly never had the equipment (other than binoculars for the moon) to really explore the sky .... More recently I started to do some simple moon shots and long exposures with a Kodak Z990 but it wasnt really cutting it. On getting to see TzeTze's work (thanks for all the advices so far!!) I got more interested and so I just started purchasing few bits to hopefully be able to do some more serious guided/tracked AP...

I upgraded my Camera to a Canon 1100D DSLR just before this weekend and so here are the first messing around with the DSLR on Tripod and linked to APT on Friday night last, this was aiming directly upwards at the Cassiopeia Constellation on a clear night, focal at 18mm focused at Infinity, 10x 30sec exposures stacked along with 3 darks + 3 bias exp in DSS, then 1h tweaking in LR! Andromeda Galaxy is just about visible on this shot also. Some star trails visible so will have to reduce exposure time i think!

Kersh

Nice one. The galaxy looks great in that pic.

The double cluster is visible too.

shizz

Keep the pictures coming

Iancar29

Great shot Did you not have to use a tracking mount for this????

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

Great shot Did you not have to use a tracking mount for this????

Thanks! No tracking involved but @ 30seconds exposure and even at wide angle with 18mm lens you can see some star trailing so Im planning on reducing exposure time to maybe 20 seconds or so, find a darker site and do a lot more exposures. The problem of course if that without tracking the frame is constantly moving so it will need some manual tripod adjustment...

Cant wait to get a guided mount!

Burning Eclipse

That's wonderful....

This is something I'd love to try my hand at too.
I've a DSLR (D3100) and a tripod and remote switch... anything else I'm missing (apart from any idea of how else to proceed)?

ZeRoY

Burning Eclipse wrote: »

That's wonderful....

This is something I'd love to try my hand at too.
I've a DSLR (D3100) and a tripod and remote switch... anything else I'm missing (apart from any idea of how else to proceed)?

Yeah that should be sufficient. Here is one of the guide i followed for making such shots:

http://dvschroeder.blogspot.ie/2010/07/how-to-photograph-milky-way.html

The bulk of the work after the shots are taken are in Deep Sky Stacker and Lightroom, here is a very good tutorial for DSS:

http://flintstonestargazing.com/2009/06/26/my-quick-deepskystacker-tutorial/

Burning Eclipse

ZeRoY wrote: »

Yeah that should be sufficient. Here is one of the guide i followed for making such shots:

http://dvschroeder.blogspot.ie/2010/07/how-to-photograph-milky-way.html

The bulk of the work after the shots are taken are in Deep Sky Stacker and Lightroom, here is a very good tutorial for DSS:

http://flintstonestargazing.com/2009/06/26/my-quick-deepskystacker-tutorial/

Thanks ZeRoy, happy snapping

the culture of deference

Hoping to get some up in the next month meanwhile here is some moon shots, through the scope, no camera mount, 1 sec exposure, as basic as it gets.

looking forward to getting proper equipment

ZeRoY

the culture of deference wrote: »

Hoping to get some up in the next month meanwhile here is some moon shots, through the scope, no camera mount, 1 sec exposure, as basic as it gets.

Decent enough!

Here's a shot with no stacking but a bit of post processing of a moon shot done with my Z990 at full zoom (840mm 35mm equiv.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10780216@N07/7129605717/in/set-72157629571290276/

Iancar29

ZeRoY wrote: »

Thanks! No tracking involved but @ 30seconds exposure and even at wide angle with 18mm lens you can see some star trailing so Im planning on reducing exposure time to maybe 20 seconds or so, find a darker site and do a lot more exposures. The problem of course if that without tracking the frame is constantly moving so it will need some manual tripod adjustment...

Cant wait to get a guided mount!

Ah cool , But 10 x 30 seconds , the stars would of moved a good bit in that time , did you just move the tripod then or does DSS do crop guiding ?

I have a mac so I use StarTrac , need to try this out me thinks .

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

Ah cool , But 10 x 30 seconds , the stars would of moved a good bit in that time

They move yes but as you open your field of view its less and less noticeable. With a 10mm lens you could go 30 seconds without star trail for instance (on a 1.6 Crop sensor) - A full frame 35mm sensor would be much longer exposure.

Also note that with the 10x stacking its makes the equivalent of 300 seconds of capture rather than 30 seconds, some cropping is required of course.

Here's a guide rule you can follow when it comes to star trail and focal length:

Divide 500 by the focal length in 35 mm terms to get the maximum number of seconds of exposure without noticeable blurring.

With my lens @18 mm on a 1.6 crop factor camera (1100D has APS-C): 500 / (1.6 * 18) = 17.7 seconds

So thats why at 30 seconds it starts to be noticeable, next trial should be better!!

Good Link on Star Trails: http://theamusing.com/photography/startrails.html/

Iancar29

I know that yep but what does DSS do then?... as if it simply stacks those 30 " shots they would just trail? ...

i must have a looksy at it on youtube , it must just track within the program .


Anyways... i have a set of 30 " exposures from my timelapse i did in AMerica back in june...

( watch in FULL HD )


would they be any use to do something with in DSS?

Tzetze

DSS will match up the stars as it stacks, so as not to have a long trail. 30 short trails on top of each other - foreground silhouettes would then appear extended. It can match up mosaics too.
If you stack 10x 30s subs it doesn't quite have the effect of giving you a final 300s exposure. It gives you a 30s exposure with a highly increased signal to noise ratio.

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

would they be any use to do something with in DSS?

Yes they would stack and possibly give you more details. Do you still have the Raws?

As for the stacking and what it does when on fixed tripod, take a look at the picture of the "after stacking" I got from my 10 shots compare to just one shot:

Iancar29

ZeRoy , thanks alot for the info... used the programme on my bros pc to stack the roughly 90 photos that i used for that timelapse ( these were in JPEG format at the time unfortunately )

The end result because of the large field of view does indeed have stretching but the centre being focused i like. Adjusted in CS5.





Landscapeaddict on flickr

ZeRoY

It has a certain style to it

DSS cannot do magic sometimes but It may be worth trying different stacking option, even on 20 of them first to test.

Iancar29

Went out tonight in search of my first deep sky shot .. unfortunately my target , the Andromeda was hard to locate being so high up tonight... so i took shots of a small cluster 2 o clock from Jupiter.. which i will stack 2moro once i get onto the pc...

But for now , heres jupiter and 3 of its moons

nanook5

Hi
I Shot these pictures on a canon 20d and a nikon p500.
Some Star trails on photo as i never edited (and never shot in RAW)
Getting telescope soon and will be taking pictures deep sky objects(hopefully)
Can't break the bank as im 14 not much of a budget
Waiting for a clear night and wanting to get one of those pics of the milkyway like Iancar29's(if possible)

Iancar29

Fair play nanook! Not many 14 year olds would be able to capture a decent shot of the moon like that . Don't be feeling bad about not having the right equipment yet , you hav years to improve ! , but what I would say if you REALLY wanted to get better shots , ask people you might know that would have better lenses or cameras . Or even look at things 2nd hand . My milky way shot was taken in America in the middle of nowhere but you seem to have some decent dark skies! Wouldn't it be great of we all lived close and in decent dark area for meet ups! .. I'm looking forwar to Orion coming back into view in the next few weeks ... Even looking at my photos from Sweden when we went to see Ye aurora I have a wide shot I me and Ye stars in the back and I zoomed in on the photo and could even make out the nebulositity and all! .. Shall post that this evening when home from work.

nanook5

Iancar29 wrote: »

Fair play nanook! Not many 14 year olds would be able to capture a decent shot of the moon like that . Don't be feeling bad about not having the right equipment yet , you hav years to improve ! , but what I would say if you REALLY wanted to get better shots , ask people you might know that would have better lenses or cameras . Or even look at things 2nd hand . My milky way shot was taken in America in the middle of nowhere but you seem to have some decent dark skies! Wouldn't it be great of we all lived close and in decent dark area for meet ups! .. I'm looking forwar to Orion coming back into view in the next few weeks ... Even looking at my photos from Sweden when we went to see Ye aurora I have a wide shot I me and Ye stars in the back and I zoomed in on the photo and could even make out the nebulositity and all! .. Shall post that this evening when home from work.

Hi iancar
I was actually looking to sell my nikon p500 and possibly upgrade to a canon 450d second hand off adverts ( i see some for under 300).
I could ask my uncles as their both professional photographer for some lenses maybe the might have a 10mm (the 20d is my dad's and i use a 17mm wide angle lens at f/2.8(i only used that as i could only do 8 second exposures on my camera).
Ive ordered a remote timer shutter release hoping to get some time lapses.Should be here next week.
Im actually living in rural limerick and there is a stretch of fields with very light pollution(just outside my back garden)so when clear skies come it will be pretty dark if there is a crescent moon :pac:

Cant wait to see the photo

Iancar29

Heres 2 of my shots from Sweden, one waiting on the lights to start up while i did some light painting with Orion right above me and the one of the Aurora blazing overhead

nanook5

class shots

ZeRoY

Was in France at the weekend, nice dark site, @18mm on the 1100D with 30" exp X 10 stacked in DSS, very foggy night however... Colorful results!

Iancar29

First attempt at capturing the Andromeda Galaxy... Meh...
Need to get a tracker!!!



200 Lights , 20 dark and bias.
D7000
500 , F4
Iso 3200

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

First attempt at capturing the Andromeda Galaxy... Meh...
Need to get a tracker!!!

200 Lights , 20 dark and bias.
D7000
500 , F4
Iso 3200

mmm are you sure M31 is on there? at 3200 you should see the "halo" around a bright star i would have thought?Maybe too much noise reduction? See my Original Pic on this thread, M31 is very easy to pick out even if tiny.

I found 3200 can be noisy on my Canon, looks quite good on the Nikon! What was the exposure time?

Iancar29

ZeRoY wrote: »

mmm are you sure M31 is on there? at 3200 you should see the "halo" around a bright star i would have thought?Maybe too much noise reduction? See my Original Pic on this thread, M31 is very easy to pick out even if tiny.

I found 3200 can be noisy on my Canon, looks quite good on the Nikon! What was the exposure time?

I was pretty certain i was looking in the right spot according to my app and from tips on google. Connecting the 2nd star in Cassiopeia and the top left star in the " square" of pegasus... But ye i couldnt be certain without obviously someone who spotted it correctly before.
I was gonna try do that thing on flickr where a profile computes the field of view and whats there?... cant remember what page it was though

Ye i find 3200 is decent on the D7000.

Because its a 500mm i could only do 1 second exposures so thats what i think is the main problem , hence why i want to get my mount soon!! ,

I could post up one of the single images if you wanted ?

I tried getting up this morning about 5 for a few mins to try capture a shot of Orion but when i got the lens set up at my window it was covered over in cloud .... Thats supposed to be alot easier to capture i heard?

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

I tried getting up this morning about 5 for a few mins to try capture a shot of Orion but when i got the lens set up at my window it was covered over in cloud .... Thats supposed to be alot easier to capture i heard?

I havent tried yet but I've been told on DSLR only Orion is pretty good target yes.

Iancar29

ZeRoY wrote: »

I havent tried yet but I've been told on DSLR only Orion is pretty good target yes.

Like even here in this crop of a wide shot on with a 10-20 mm lens you can see it!! ... at least i cant complain, i didnt have a zoom lens with me on that trip anyways, let alone a 500mm ! ha

Iancar29

ZeRoY wrote: »

mmm are you sure M31 is on there? at 3200 you should see the "halo" around a bright star i would have thought?

Looks like i was indeed a bit too far to the left... grrr dam you iphone app! ha

Iancar29

Clear skies forecasted for tonight any where inland from the coasts or away from mountains ...

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

Clear skies forecasted for tonight any where inland from the coasts or away from mountains ...

Yep - big plans for me this evening!

Tzetze

Plans are afoot here too!
Lots of moonlight in the sky tonight will mean no faint fuzzies getting imaged. There's always something that can be done though. Good luck guys!

ThatDrGuy

lol, scope cooling in backyard already.Might restrict myself to planetary imaging while my autoguider comes from US. Could try out that CCD real time collimation program. Either my SCT is the first one ever that doesnt demand constant collimation or my current collimation method is crap.

Iancar29

I know its not much but im delighted!

Finally found The Andromeda! ... hoping my stacks will come out nicely 2moro but heres a single frame from earlier.

D7000 , 500m , 1 second , F4 , iso 5000 ... with just a tripod

ZeRoY

Iancar29 wrote: »

D7000 , 500m , 1 second , F4 , iso 5000 ... with just a tripod

Very nice! You should be able to crop that a little bit more and with a lot of stacking get a better resolution. Great job

On my side some bad news, got myself a (very cheap) second hand Astromaster 130EQ and bought the T2 ring + Adapter for Prime AP but sadly the 130Eq Focal plane is too long and i cant get focus

I will have to do eyepiece projection which i try with a DIY job and it works but resolution is nowhere near what im seeing in the eyepiece directly.

On the plus side im learning how to use an EQ mount (CG3) and got to see Jupiter and its moons and great views of the moon also.

ThatDrGuy

anyone else freezing their arses off while their exposures are being obliterated by big bad luna?

Tzetze

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

anyone else freezing their arses off while their exposures are being obliterated by big bad luna?

It was pretty cold alright. I enjoyed observing some stuff with a friend before finally getting some usable subs when the moon went down.
Would like to get one of these filters at some stage. Check out the customer review on the H-Alpha 7nm filter.

Iancar29

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

anyone else freezing their arses off while their exposures are being obliterated by big bad luna?

Not when you have an Alaskan Malamute Keeping your legs warm

Iancar29

Woohoo! ... I'll gladly accept that for just being 1 second exposures!



http://www.flickr.com/photos/landscapeaddict/8128396763/sizes/z/in/photostream/

ThatDrGuy

Very nice. How many subs ?

What astronomy shop can you pick up a foot warming AstronomyDog in ?

Iancar29

ThatDrGuy wrote: »

Very nice. How many subs ?

What astronomy shop can you pick up a foot warming AstronomyDog in ?

That was 200 lights , 20 darks and 20 bias. a few of the lights id say DSS didnt use thought as it was hard to keep in the centre of the frame as i had my tripod and lens at like an 75º angle to target it! ha

Malamutes are perfect, big and fluffy and they love the cold

DubOnHoliday

very nice photo!

kraggy

Guys,

What's the minimum cost for a Astrophotography set-up? Everything, camera, scope, software etc.

Thanks.

ZeRoY

kraggy wrote: »

Guys,

What's the minimum cost for a Astrophotography set-up? Everything, camera, scope, software etc.

Thanks.

It starts from couple of hundreds € (compact camera + tripod) and can go to thousands!

A good guide to start of:

http://www.astrophotography-tonight.com/topics/astrophotography-tutorials/

or even :

http://www.backyardastronomy.com/

Iancar29

Gots myself a 2nd hand Celestron AS-GT mount yesterday!! Delighted!

.... now...... time to read the instruction manual ... errrgH!


Anyone with any easy setup tips please shout

Exciting times ahead

Tzetze

Congrats Ian. Is that a CG5 then?

The more accurate your polar alignment, the longer your exposures before trailing. Concentrate on getting polar alignment as accurate as you can.
You should be able to do a drift align using a grid overlay in liveview.

There are 3rd party apps for Canons (APT) that have drift align utilities, as well as a lot of other features. I read somewhere that Nikon don't release their drivers and as a result there are no such 3rd party apps for their cameras - is this true?

You should be able to find some help if you google for drift aligning with a Nikon. Also, get/make yourself a Bahtinov focusing mask - it will make focusing a lot easier.

Nerro

Iancar29 wrote: »

Gots myself a 2nd hand Celestron AS-GT mount yesterday!! Delighted!

.... now...... time to read the instruction manual ... errrgH!


Anyone with any easy setup tips please shout

Exciting times ahead

that is a serious mount you got!
looking forward seeing your work with it.
like Tzetze mentioned polar alligement is cruical for AP but i think your one is equiped with polar scope?or am i wrong?

Iancar29

Yes guys , its a CG5 , and the guy had a polar scope in the deal for me too. 425 all in. Well happy with that considering its double that new...

Im gonna start reading the manual now as i barely now about setting up to polar alignment let alone what to do/press after that! ha

Never heard of any nikon apps unfortunately . Only a computer one that lets you control it via usb but i have a shutter release for that so.

Looking nice and clear for tonight so may get out and see what i can figure out with it after im home from college .

Iancar29

Think im all set to have a go at something tonight ..

1. setup mount - level is out.
2. Polar allign .
3. Set to starting position.
4. Mount camera and lens .
5. Align to preset stars - adjust if needed.
6. Go to M31 .... I did this indoors, i presume once it lines it up it also keeps tracking it yeah?
7.Start shooting ....

Tzetze

Sounds like a good plan. I think the hand controller has a polar alignment routine since a recent firmware upgrade, but I've never used it. It might be of some use if you're not drift aligning.

Use the two-star alignment for calibrating the goto, with a further three calibration stars for pinpoint goto accuracy.

My scope is setup now also. Hoping to target a few globulars and maybe the ring nebula tonight - get a few more objects ticked off on the Messier list.