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Astrophotography

Shalamar

Dark Lord of the JREF
Shalamar
Joined
Sep 21, 2007
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I wasn't sure where to put this,, but I figure its at least science related.

I've always enjoyed astronomy, and a few years ago I picked up a decent telescope and started using it when I could. I did use it to take the occasional picture of the moon, but that was it. To do good deep space photography, you need a lot of equipment, the first of which is a motorized equatorial mount to track the objects needed for long exposure pictures.

2 weeks ago, I purchased one, and last night, I used my wife's canon 40d, my 80mm ED reactor, and my new mount for my first deep space target.

Dumbbell3.jpg


The dumbbell nebula. There are 12 photos stacked, with exposures ranging from 1 minute to 5 minutes. You can see that the stars are a little oblong, I'm still learning how to properly align the telescope.

I have a lot to learn, and a long way to go. But for a first attempt, I have to admit I didn't do that bad a job!
 
A few more comments - I'd say that it isn't impossible to do deep sky photography with an alt-az mount (although you'd want it to be computerised still to handle most of the tracking issues) but you end up needing many more shorter exposures than you can get away with using a good EQ mount.

With the right software you can get rid of some of the background skyglow that's giving your orange tinge. With the slight tracking issue - is this noticeable on individual frames or does it only come about in the stack? If the latter a better alignment between frames should help, but if the former then naturally it is always best to get better data first, but you might try repairing it with a bit of deconvolution, although you'll introduce artifacts by trying it (it'll exaggerate the variations in the background noise in particular). If alignment is particularly tricky you might just try shorter exposures to limit the drift, and use more to compensate for the lack in exposure time.

As I said, very nice though :)
 
edd said:
Very nice! What software are you using?
Click to expand...

Very little. The photos were captured on an Android Tablet running 'DSLR controller'. For stacking, I found a program called 'Deep Sky Tracker'. And for Post processing, I merely did minor touchups in Picassa.

If you have suggestions, I'd be thrilled to hear them!
 
Shalamar said:
Very little. The photos were captured on an Android Tablet running 'DSLR controller'. For stacking, I found a program called 'Deep Sky Tracker'. And for Post processing, I merely did minor touchups in Picassa.

If you have suggestions, I'd be thrilled to hear them!
Click to expand...

Deep Sky Stacker (I assume that's the one you mean!) is a great piece of software by reputation. Not being a Windows user I've never used it myself though. Personally I'm a fan of PixInsight - it costs a lot and has a very steep learning curve, but the results can be great with it.

You may also like Nebulosity (which I used before switching over to PI) which is a bit cheaper and easier to use but doesn't have quite so many features.

I think both have trial versions you can try.
http://www.stark-labs.com/nebulosity.html
http://pixinsight.com/
I find the PixInsight forums really good for support and advice too, as well as all the other astronomy forums around.

There are a couple of other bits of software getting use out there too. Worth experimenting and seeing what you like :)
 
I wish I could do that - round here it's either too cloudy, too light or too light and cloudy. I did get about 5 minutes viewing time of the moon just after Christmas with my Xmas present but I gave up trying to photograph it because it was too cold outside and my frozen fingers didn't have the dexterity.

Stellarium is good software if you want to see what is where and is a great alternative to Redshift. Multiplatform too - Penguins, Windows and Apples.
 
Well not much you can do about cloud. Urban lighting is unhelpful but not as terrible as often thought. If you have a big enough wallet you can hire time on remote telescopes in better locations but its not as nice as using your own equipment in person.
 
Where I am right now has very good dark skies... But being on the pacific coast, it's often cloudy. I've had two nights over the past week, and I only used the camera for one of those. Tonight is a no go, and tomorrow night is my last night. So I'm hoping.

But I'm going to do this around the area where I live. I made sure the mount counterweight is also it's own power source. Convenient.
 
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