M27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

Hi Everyone.

Last night, I finally managed to have a half decent imaging session!
So first light on the new camera, filters... and god knows what else that I've bought since last winter.

As it was my 1st shot, I wanted an easy target and one I thought I could process easy too.

So I chose the M27 Dumbbell.

Hope you like it, its EASILY my best photo yet. :)  (Scroll down for the one I took in 2017, and see the difference!)

Ha, OIII, SII - 170s x 10

Darks x 10

Bias x 236

Flats NONE   (I'll do these later and have another go at stacking!)

New Season, New Toys!

Well, its that time of year again when I can finally blow the dust of the telescope.

Its been a long long time since I last had a good session in the garden, and since the last evening with the stars I've treated myself to a LOT of new equipment!

Firstly, I upgraded the NEQ6 mount, to have the Rowan Belt mod.  This should now give less backlash and track the stars much smoother. (Unless I broke something during fitting! haha)

Secondly, the big upgrade. I've stepped up my camera from the Canon 1100d, to a new ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro!
This is an amazing camera, if you just google the name of the camera and see the results, you'll understand.
As I live in a reasonably light polluted area, I've gone for narrowband filters from Baader to get me going.  This should really really up my game.  Along with a 5 position filter wheel and new Baader coma corrector, I'm hoping for some amazing photos this season!

Hope to post some new photos soon!

Flame and Horse Head!

The best thing, about severe cold weather coming in... is the clear skies at night, before the snow hits!

So I jumped at the chance to get in the garden early, setup everything and shoot as soon as it was dark enough.
As per usual, issues happen.  When doing test shots, I noticed the collimation is STILL out. :(
I really need to figure out collimation, as according to my Cheshire, its all collimated ok.
Ahh well, thats for another night.

I finally started shooting at the Flame and Horsehead nebula around 7:30pm, which was around the time of full sunset and darkness anyway, so no loss.  I was aiming for around 30x 300s exposures to start with, then swap camera battery and try for another 1.5 hours after that.
Unfortunately, 40 minutes in when I wasnt near the Laptop, Microsoft thought it would be wonderful to install a new major Windows 10 update!
This force restarted the Laptop, and lost me all my tracking, and all settings I'd been using!
Damn you!
So, I only managed 40 mins of data.

I also used my DGM Optics NPB filter for the first time too. I believe that its aimed more for Visual work with Nebula but as the moon was out and bright, I gave it a go, seeing if it reduced moonlight and helped the Nebula's pop out. I think it did ok!!

So, today I thoughts I'd process the data I had and HOPE I managed to get some sort of image.
I'm pleasantly surprised with the result, I was expecting a lot worse!
I managed to take some much better flats this time, so the viginetting was almost gone, and I dragged the data out as much as I could so the Horse was visible.
I'm sure there are a million photos out there much better than this... but, Boo to them.

I took this one! :)

8x 300s Lights
25x Flats, Darks, Bias
Processed in Photoshop CC

(Click To Enlarge)

So... now the moon is becoming more of a pain, I'm going to find a star... and collimage the damn scope, properly!  (Or try)

Finally, a Dark Sky!

 January, was a pathetic month for dark skies.  The weather was simply aweful all month.
I think I managed two nights out, in total!  And one was a full moon, so managed no Deep Sky Photos!

Anyway, its now halfway through February and I finally had a dark sky, bonus points, no Moon either!!

So I spend about 4 hours out in the garden, shooting a new target.
I choose the M33 galaxy, Triangulum.

Not the easiest of targets, especially with a DSLR and not being in a 'Dark Sky Area'
But I gave it a go.

Two hours of data, 24 5 minute frames. All of them turned out perfect too!  Bonus.

I then spent a few days processing the data, and discovered that the Flat files I took, must have been bad. As there is a shocking imbalance I noticed during processing. :(

So, I had to crop... burn... and butcher the image best I could to produce an image I can be at least a little happy with.

Here is the results!

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Lights - 24 x 300s
Darks, Flat and Bias x25

M31 - Andromeda!  Our Galactic neighbour.

Hi everyone, I've been back in the garden again, trying to get some good shots and generally practising with the camera and ISO settings.
I have also been practising taking flats, with my LED light screen, and believe I have mastered them!

Below, is now my favourite photo I have taken and processed to far!  Hope you like it too!

23x Lights - 120 seconds @ISO800

20x Darks
20x Flats
20x Bias
Processed using Photoshop and ProDigital Astronomy Tools

(Click to Enlarge)

What my kit looks like

A couple of people have asked me what my kit looks like.  I've posted a few pics here and there on Facebook.   But those where mainly just random shots, with cables all over the show!

I've taken a couple of photos, to show you what I currently have.  And the wires are all tidy now too!

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Finally, some dark sky..... and working kit!!!

Last night, I finally had chance to get some photography done.  Its been a LONG time since I had chance for a good session.  I've had issues with the Laptop breaking, and then the other night, the Guide Camera was being, a pain... to put it mildly.

Anyway, I wanted to shoot something a bit faint, and small, so I could practice a few skills and just see what happens, so I chose M27, the Dumbbell Nebula.

15x300 Second shot... (but lost one, due to a gust of wind!)
20 Bias Shots
19 Flat Frames (I need to learn how to do these properly still!

And after stacking them and processing in Photoshop, I'm happy with the result!
Hope you like it too!

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Today I received another new toy. :)

Finally, after a long wait, I am now the proud owner of a Moonlite Focuser.The Standard one on the 200p, wasnt that tight. It slipped and wobbled a lot. Which made focusing hard, and collimation not that good either.

I took the old focuser off, and also removed the secondary mirror so I had more room to work.
While these where off, I also added some black flocking into the tube, to hopefully make the views a bit darker and add contrast.

Anyway, 1st thing... fit the universal mount.
This proved to be a bit of a pain in the backside, as the mount holes didnt line up perfectly.
They where about 1/2mm out. So had to widen two holes a bit.
Once this was done, and the mount was screwed in, the focuser fitted like a dream.
Now fitted I refitted the secondary mirror and began collimation.

I am now amazed at how solid the new focuser is, and collimation is now a breeze.
No wobbles at all, so I've managed to collimate the 200p better than ever before!

Roll on 1st light, hopefully tomorrow!!!!

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Small little update.
Finally last night, I had some clear dark skies.
Well sort of.  It was November the 5th!  Bonfire/Firework night in the uk.
This meant, flashes, bangs and smoke...
So no deep space imaging, unless I wanted a random rocket or puff of smoke drifting into the shot.

It was also quite a damp night too, so the dew on the scope was horrible!

I had a play with the NEQ6 for the 1st time though and managed to get the hang of setting it up and using the goto system, with some software called Stellarium helping me too.

Its the 1st time I managed to use the new DGM Optics NPB filter.  Not that there was anything to look at or shoot though.

So, just had a little play, nothing serious.

Managed some weak shots, totally un processed just trying out things.

Ring Nebula:

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                                                (The faint ring is just visible in the middle)

Hercules Cluster:

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                                (Out of focus and wrong filter... I'll get a good one next time!)

The Moon:

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                              (I wondered what the moon would look like with a Nebula Filter)

Time to blog about my view on the universe. Through my telescope and camera.

For a very very VERY long time, I've always enjoyed the night sky.

I guess, most people do enjoy a star ridden sky, and maybe spotting the odd planet, satellite or even the International Space Station when it zooms over.

Last Christmas, I invested in a Skywatcher 200p telescope and an EQ5 mount for me and my wife to use in the back garden.  We both love the stars and I thought it would be a nice new hobby we can both enjoy.
Little did I realise at the time, how much time and MONEY this hobby would cost. haha

Within weeks, I was hooked on looking up and REALLY wanting to take photos of what I could see.
Limited at the time, I took some photos with my Mobile Phone of the moon.  This wasnt easy as I had to aim the phone camera, down the eyepiece to get the shot I wanted.
This really was a pain.
By the time I had lined up the camera to the eye piece the mood had moved... as the mount didnt track.  It was at this point that I decided I needed to improve the equipment to even get a simple photo of the moon.

A week or so later, I had added some RA and DEC motors to the EQ5 and now, when polar aligned the best I could, the moon didnt move off as quick. (The motors move a the rate the stars move, not the moon).
Finally, I had a photo of the moon I was happy(ish) with!

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This is where my adventure began.

In the weeks following, I bought a DSLR camera (Canon 1100D) a remote trigger and started pointing the telescope at everything I could.

On a random night, I found, by luck, our closest galactic neighbour, Andromeda.
Well, I HAD to try and photo it.
Lukily I had spent some time actually getting the mount polar aligned reasonably well, so I was able to use the information I'd found out online, on how to actually photo a deep space object.
Lots of long exposures (I think I managed 2 minutes per photo) where all taken, and stacked together in a software called DeepSpaceStacker.
I was given an image that, wasnt the best. But after even more googling I found out how to process it better and even use Photoshop to process it even more.

I had my 1st EVER DSO object.  Andromeda. 

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I was over the moon (sorry for the pun) with this.  I know its not the best, by a long shot, but I TOOK IT! :)

Over the next few weeks I added more and more equipment to help me, but they where just little bits and bats, like masks to get better focus or a comma corrector so all stars where round and didnt look like commas.
Then I bit the bullet. I bought two little cameras to attach to the telescope and mount.  The 1st one, is called a Polemaster.  This basically helps you line up the mount to the equatorial north pole. And I'll have to say, its bloody accurate and quick to use!
The second camera, was a QHY5L-II mono camera. With this I could now track stars.  I hooked it up to my laptop and the controller on my motors (had to modify the control box, to add an ST4 port!) and the software would now help micro adjust the mount, so stars didnt trail on long exposures.

This was the game changer.  I could now REALLY go deep into space, and have longer exposures (upto 5 mins easily).

Anyway. I was looking for a test subject. M51  the Whirlpool galaxy.  Its not visible to eye where I live, even with the 200p! But with a bit of star hopping I guessed where it would be and took some long exposures.  After processing... I was shocked!  And in awe at the same time.
M51, it was there!  I did sulk a little bit though, as I had knocked the focus out a little bit, but still.
I had my 1st photo of a beautiful galaxy.

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As you can see, my processing skills are PATHETIC and focus is out, but you can see what I was looking for.

On the same night, I also found the Orion Nebula M42, and took a few shots of that too.

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And that was basically winter.  There wasnt many nights without cloud after that.
So since then... I've been waiting. Wanting more.
I've also increased and improved my equipment somewhat too.
I've modded the DSLR with a Baader filter, so can now get some Hydrogen Alpha in my photos, bought a second hand NEQ6 mount (which is AMAZING), a new laptop, some new eye pieces and a better barlow lens.  And more things that I have currently forgot about.

This brings me to today.
Its October, 2017.  The nights are now getting dark early, my laptop is all ready with all the software, the telescope is out, tested and ready to go.

All I need now, is a clear night!
Next post... when that clear night actually happens! :)