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Jekub posted:
I'm coming into this thread very late, waffleimages is long-dead, so Google tells me this is a thing: http://www.astrotrac.com/Default.aspx?p=tt320x-ag So this looks like it hooks up to my Manfrotto tripod, which I already have, and my ball head, which I already have, and steers/stabilizes my camera (which I already have). If I'm reading this right, on its own I can align the tracking rig to Polaris, point the camera at something, and it will track what I've pointed it at, whether that's the sun, the moon, or something sidereal, right? Then it says quote:Get pin sharps stars at longer focal lengths with the TT320X-AG's right ascension autoguiding capability. Compatible with popular ST-4 autoguiders such as the SBIG SG-4, Orion Starshoot, LVI SmartGuider, and with popular autoguiding software such as MaximDL and PhD. I don't know what all that means, but I'm guessing it means I can hook a laptop up to it, and there'll be software running on the laptop that I can tell "Show me the Pleiades" and it will go and point my telephoto at the right place and keep tracking it? Would this system be a decent way of starting astrophotography and seeing if I get into it enough to spend a silly amount of money on something better?
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Jan 8, 2013 23:12
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...! posted:No, there were lines rather than dots and they were a slightly different shade of blue than the star. They also were packed very closely together. Floaters. Imperfections in the vitreous humour inside your eyeballs.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:09
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Anyone get the new supernova? I read that it was binocular-visible.
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Jan 24, 2014 20:23
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So I'm interested in dipping my toe into astrophotography. I figure that before I start spending money on scopes, I already have a reasonable Manfrotto tripod and an assortment of lenses for my d850, ranging from f/2.8 28-70 to f/1.8 50 to a big old manual-focus f2.8 300mm and a 2x teleconverter and it's probably a good idea to start with equipment I already have and see where it goes. So here's my question: mounts. On one hand, there are star-tracking camera mounts that look to start at around $500, such as this: https://www.ioptron.com/product-p/3550.htm Which would be possibly perfect, but limiting in the event I decide I want to wind up with a real telescope; my existing camera and long lens is already right up against the payload limit. On the other hand, it looks like reasonable-quality Baby's First Tracking EQ Mount starts at a bit over $1000, such as this: https://www.skywatcherusa.com/products/heq5-mount Which I think could offer me the ability to use it with the DSLR, but then still be suitable in the event I wind up in possession of a telescope. I assume there is some kind of adapter that would let me secure my DSLR or lens directly to the mount just as if it were a telescope instead of a camera, right? Or would I need to fab up a suitable dovetail out of aluminum?
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Dec 5, 2020 18:04
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Betelgeuse I look at more than anything else simply because I want it to explode while I'm looking at it. I understand that still probably a long way to go but it's definitely within the error bars and probably has a better chance than anything else naked-eye visible.
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Dec 9, 2020 03:12
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Oof. Nothing's in stock anywhere. Go-to equatorial mounts, star trackers, everything I'm looking at is backordered indefinitely. So right now I have a solid tripod and a good DSLR and a variety of fast lenses ranging from 35mm f/2 to 50/1.8 to 105/2.8 to 300/2.8 (and a teleconverter that changes that to 600/5.6). I figure the 300 is mostly useless for anything other than the moon or planets without any kind of tracking capability. But while I wait for something to get back in stock, I'd like to at least try to start learning how to do the post-processing aspect of things, image stacking and so forth. What would be some good targets to photograph without tracking, keeping in mind I'm northern hemisphere in a Bortle 6ish zone? Pleiades? Phanatic fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jan 8, 2021 |
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Jan 8, 2021 16:42
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I bought Yooper's Star Adventurer Pro so I could put my D850 and 300/2.8 on it and start taking some pictures and literally every night since I got it has been balls-freezing cold and cloudy AF. I am irked.
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Feb 25, 2021 03:42
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Can someone explain Deep Sky Stacker's score? I get that it's a relative measure of how useful each frame will be for stacking into the final image, but what I don't understand is what is a good minimum value? 1000? 500? 100?
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Feb 27, 2021 00:56
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Here is my third photo using a tracking mount and my 300mm 2.8 My first two were garbage, and I had to grab another counterweight to achieve balance. Anyway, I have a hell of a lot to learn, and I have to remember a hell of a lot of the Photoshop I've forgotten in the past 13 years thanks to Lightroom.  This is like 50ish minutes of exposure. I don't think I had the mount quite well-enough aligned; it's easy as hell to spot Polaris until you go and look through the little alignment scope and then I have no idea if I'm actually looking at the right star or not. I took longer exposures until trails became apparent, which was at 70 seconds, and backed off to 50 seconds from there. Incidentally, I'm looking at the NPF rule for sharp stars, and I'm told it's ((3.5 * aperture)+(30*pixel pitch in micrometers))/focal length in millimeters = how long an exposure you can get away with without a tracking mount, in seconds. And I am not understanding what that aperture value is doing in there. For example, with the lens and camera I'm using I get a range of exposures from: ((35*2.8)+(30*4.35))/300 = 0.76 seconds to ((35*22)+(30*4.35))/300 = 3 seconds If the image of the star moves across the sensor fast enough to generate a visible star trail if I expose for 0.76 seconds wide-open, why would stopping down allow to to get a longer exposure? The image is still moving just as fast across the sensor. What am I missing here?
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Mar 6, 2021 04:20
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Gotta say I will enjoy this even more when it gets a bit warmer. Come on, Spring.
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Mar 8, 2021 03:52
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Hasselblad posted:Sadly as it gets warmer, Orion drifts into the daylight. But I think I get the North America nebula in exchange.
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Mar 10, 2021 19:24
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At least tarps are in stock, unlike everything else I want to buy.
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May 2, 2021 00:20
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Is there any resource that shows which Celestron mounts are the same as which Skywatcher mounts?
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May 11, 2021 23:33
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Cool, thanks, thought it was Celestron/Skywatcher that had the same parent company.
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May 12, 2021 01:06
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Thanks for all that. I'll just ask this then: I'm looking for basically an HEQ-5, but I've also been looking for an EQ-6R because if I can actually get the thing instead of just looking at a web page that says "Backordered" I'll spend the extra money for it. Of course, they're just as backordered, and even the used ads on Astromart et al get snapped up instantly. But if I'm just looking for the capability/price of those mounts and aren't wedded to a particular brand (Does Synscan vs Some Other Thing make a difference?), what other makes/models should I include in my searching? HEQ5/Orion Sirius/? EQ-6R/Orion Atlas II/? Got out last night for the first time in weeks (previous clear night was the night of the supermoon), and missed focus on M51. Gonna get a Bahtinov mask for the 300mm. That brings to mind another question: how dependent are the focus masks on focal length? I'm shooting with an old manual Nikon 300mm 2.8 that has two teleconverters for it, a 1.5x and a 2x, so the focal length can be 300mm, 450mm, or 600mm; would I need a different mask for each focal length? A lot of vendors seem to sell a mask for range of ODs rather than focal lengths so I imagine it's not that critical. Photo tax, here's the last thing I got that I'm happy with: 
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May 12, 2021 15:27
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Yooper posted:As far as masks, if you've got a caliper and can measure the OD of the lens I'll 3d print you one, or a few. I use this page to get started - https://satakagi.github.io/tribahtinovWebApps/Bahtinov.html You can play with your focal length and see how it impacts the Bahtinov ratio. If it gets too tight you can do 3rd order, but I found that the thin slots didn't make much difference. Thanks for the offer, and that link. I've got like half a dozen 3d printers at work I can use. What I'd really love is to have one with 122mm filter threads, but I'd probably have to go to metal for that and really it's probably not worth it. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 12, 2021 |
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May 12, 2021 18:31
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What's the source of the "1/3d from the left" histogram rule? Naively, what's the downside of going with more exposure and shifting the peak rightwards, provided you don't clip anything on the right side? When you stack it's going to stack the same way, isn't it? Or does more subs/shorter exposure vs. fewer subs/longer exposure integrate differently when all is said and done?
Phanatic fucked around with this message at 05:12 on May 18, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 18:13
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Flats just need to be the same ISO and aperture, right?
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Jul 26, 2021 16:43
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Rip Testes posted:First bit of imaging for me in quite some time. Would love to do some of this awesome deep sky work in this thread if I ever obtain the gear. Holy poo poo.
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Sep 8, 2021 00:26
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AstroZamboni posted:Unfortunately the neighborhood where I'm staying also has BRUTAL mosquitos. I'm getting eaten alive and my thermacell isn't up to the task. 100% DEET. poo poo works. A month in India and I got one bite, and that was in a hotel lobby after I’d already showered it off.
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Sep 15, 2021 13:06
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Internet Explorer posted:
Normal digital cameras *strongly* filter out those red wavelengths because they're so sensitive to them. If you're looking to get a lot of hydrogen-alpha light you probably want to consider having your camera modded to remove the IR filter.
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Sep 17, 2021 18:56
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Hasselblad posted:I'll be clamping my D700 onto my refractor if my field flattener ever arrives, and I believe SLRs are not on the list of usable cameras If it handles ASCOM drivers (and it claims to) you should be able to get a DSLR working with it.
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Nov 25, 2021 03:21
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hannibal posted:Are there ASCOM drivers for any DSLRs? Canon & Nikon seem to be the most popular options and I've only ever seen Backyard EOS/Nikon recommended for them. https://github.com/FearL0rd/ASCOM.DSLR https://github.com/FearL0rd/ASCOM.DSLR/wiki/Installation FWIW, although I haven't had a clear night to get outside and work with it yet, last week I installed EQMOD (for USB from my laptop out to my EQ-G mount), ASCOM, the ASCOM drivers for my D850, and NINA, and everything worked perfectly on the first try. Now I just need to install plate solving, and I really want to get outside and see how the polar alignment NINA plugin works.
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Nov 30, 2021 18:56
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Really liking NINA so far, but one thing I can't figure out how to do: Is there a way to tell it to just leave sequence images on my camera? The laptop I use to run NINA and control the mount/camera is not the desktop I use for actual image processing, so the way NINA seems to work I have to plug a flash drive into the laptop, move my images to it, and then plug it into my desktop and do it again. If the images just wrote to the CF card in the camera in the first place then I'd only have to move them once.
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Dec 13, 2021 23:45
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simble posted:Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) I’d just like to say “Holy poo poo.”
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Jan 8, 2022 01:19
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I've got what's probably a dumb question about DeepSkyStacker. I take 40 bias/offset frames, and stack them all into MasterOffset.tif. My understand is that once I've done that, instead of stacking all those bias frames together with my light frames, I just bring in MasterOffset.tif, stack that with the light frames, and I'm done, right? Okay, so let's say I go out tonight and shoot a bunch of photos of a target. I do my stacking, and I wind up with an output file, target.tif. Then I go out at some point in the future, and take another night of exposures of that same target, and I want to stack the new exposures along with the old ones. Do I need to re-stack all the frames that went into making target.tif, or can I just stack target.tif alongside my new exposures?
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Jan 19, 2022 21:25
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pumped up for school posted:I've been thinking about a proper mount and guide cam for the house, because Polaris is hidden from my backyard. But then I think about the extra gear involved and I just recoil. Mostly because I just want to set up and start shooting in a few minutes. I guess that's something I need to get over. I put together a cart that lets me do just that. Basically one of these: https://www.amazon.com/LUXOR-EC11HD-B-Capacity-Shelves-Black/dp/B00I4TK20C?c=ts&refinements=p_n_material_browse%3A515306011&ts_id=490895011 Screwed a little USB hub to it, used VHB tape to stick various AC adapters to it, and screwed a power strip to the bottom shelf with an extension cord plugged into it, then set to with a bunch of zip ties. So I've got nice orderly bundle of wire that goes out to my equipment at one end, extension cord runs out the other end, and all I do is wheel it out into the backyard, plug the cord into the wall and the laptop into the USB hub. It's not exactly something you can throw into the car and go somewhere else with but it really only takes about a minute to get everything set up and powered on, only a few minutes longer to get aligned and focused and tracking.
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Feb 8, 2022 02:42
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Beccara posted:Hi All, One thing is that if each generation of sensor will probably be better in so far as noise goes, but I believe those two use the same sensor and image processor (not a Canon guy.). I don’t expect there’s much of a difference at all between the two for taking photos of the sky. I think I’m starting to get the hang of the whole post-processing rigamarole. Clear tonight (Bortle 7-8) so I got a couple hours on what I like to call the Goatse nebula. 
Phanatic fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Mar 4, 2022 |
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Mar 4, 2022 05:28
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*Finally* had a clear night with good seeing so I stayed up until sunrise and got me some Veil nebula. A question: what do you all do for star removal? What I've seen basically operates on color range, but in this one I have red stars and blue stars (almost certainly due to the filter), so it's not a simple matter to delete them on that basis, and if I use the Minimum filter in Photoshop it seriously fucks with the nebula itself.
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Jun 4, 2022 05:54
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Last night was the first night in a while it's been clear enough and I've been awake and motivated enough to stay out in the backyard, and I'm glad I did. I'm pretty happy with this, although I'd like to make it a bit less monochromatic.  North America Nebula by Phanatic, on FlickrAside: anyone using the new ZWO 5V focuser?
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Sep 2, 2022 18:37
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Base Emitter posted:What sort of gear/process yielded that? ASI2600MC Pro camera ZWO Mini Guide Scope, I forget which camera is on it, it's like the cheapest one I could find Orion EQ-G mount Optolong L-Enhance filter (I'm in a Bortle 6, if it's a broadband target instead of an emission nebula I'll use the L-Pro instead) Laptop running NINA, which is wonderful. The fact that you don't even need to see the pole in order to polar align is just great. Process is set everything up in NINA, align, focus, start tracking, set up the sequencer to take a bunch of 3-minute exposures (in this case, 50), and then go inside to play Slay the Spire for a while and periodically go check on things. One thing NINA does not do with my mount for some reason is meridian flip, so when that becomes an issue I basically need to stop the sequence and do that and then start it again. I use DeepSkyStacker to stack lights, darks, flats, and bias frames, and then use Photoshop for a bunch of curves adjustments and Lightroom to finish things. It's mainly in Photoshop where I feel like I'm flailing a bit, there's just a huge amount of power there and I know I'm barely touching it at this point.
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Sep 3, 2022 19:58
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Base Emitter posted:Ahh, I didn't realize it made *that* much of a difference. Scrolling back through your posts you did in fact post something a year ago that bears a striking resemblance to what I got. The problem is that DSLRs are so sensitive to infrared light that there's a very aggressive IR filter sitting there over the sensor, and this filter blocks a considerable majority of Ha light. quote:Does this problem affect other kinds of objects like galaxies? No. Ha comes from emission nebula, something where there's a nearby source of UV light energetic enough to ionize the hydrogen in the nebula. A galaxy is just a big broadband source.
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Sep 6, 2022 17:07
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Got the Bubble and Lobster Claw last night. This is about 2 hours of exposure, I really need to get more because this stuff is pretty faint. 
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Sep 17, 2022 03:58
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Anyone able to tell me wtf is going on with my dark frames? Here's a 3-minute frame:  That's what I'd expect to see, just some low level of random noise. Here's a 5-minute frame:  What the hell is that? It doesn't look like amp glow, and whatever it is Deep Sky Stacker isn't effectively removing it so if I use dark frames with exposures that long, my tiff image looks like clouds were rolling in while I took it. So that's why this photo didn't use dark frames: 
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Nov 14, 2022 22:40
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Yep, that sure looks like it. Now that it's dark out (and I put a jacket over the entire thing just in case), the longer darks are just fine. Thanks much.
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Nov 15, 2022 00:52
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Dmitri-9 posted:Software - DeepSkyStacker, SIRIL, GIMP Just out of curiosity, why DSS and SIRIL? What are you doing with DSS that SIRIL doesn’t do?
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Jan 20, 2023 16:47
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xzzy posted:The media coverage really oversold the event. They billed it as the best comet EVER because no one's seen it since the neanderthals and always included epic photos showing a really long tail creating the impression it's another neowise. An old story. 
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Feb 4, 2023 00:09
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I’m still waiting for Betelgeuse to cook off. Could happen any time between right now and the next couple hundred thousand years.
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Feb 4, 2023 02:10
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Gave SIRIL a try. 
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Feb 4, 2023 02:43
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 23:25 |
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PerniciousKnid posted:I saw Hale Bopp at an astronomy club event through somebody's fancy scope so I definitely was ruined for other space crap for a while. Dark zones are amazing. My gf and I went on a vacation on South Caicos and you walk outside and look up and the Milky Way is right up in your face, you don’t even need to dark-acclimate.
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Feb 4, 2023 03:47
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