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It was very cloudy here in MD but I got one shot through a break in the clouds near the beginning of the eclipse. 8" SCT (with focal reducer).
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Sep 28, 2015 23:14
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AstroZamboni posted:You can't really do astrophotography without a $2,000 investment at a minimum. Strongly seconding this, as someone that is just starting this journey. I did research for months before buying stuff, and probably spent $5k in the end for all the doodads I wanted to get, and I'm not even done yet. Fortunately I have an understanding wife and disposable income and I really love astronomy, but it really is something you have to commit to if you want to do it right. The equipment you need is just not cheap, unfortunately.
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Oct 27, 2015 22:16
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Low-Pass Filter posted:Thanks for this thread everybody, just finished reading it front to back and got inspired to throw my lovely mirrorless camera with it's lovely kit lens on my lovely plastic tripod and see what I can get. I'm a pretty newbie astrophotographer so far but here are my thoughts. If you're doing manual darks, you can turn off the noise reduction, which is doing exactly what you said (doing a dark frame inside the camera). Depending on what you're doing (or if you care) you may not even need darks. I've seen conflicting opinions on this on the Internet. Supposedly the read noise from newer Canon DSLRs is so low that people say darks are unnecessary. Specifically people have called out the 7D Mark II's sensor as game-changing. (see here) I just got one so I'm trying stuff with no darks for the time being. I'm still figuring out how to post-process though. On that note I also see how PixInsight is useful. I'm just using a combination of DSS/Registax/PIPP/Autostakkert & Photoshop (depending on if I'm doing planetary or DSO) and getting some halfway decent shots. DSS frustrates me though so I'm thinking of checking out Images Plus for stacking. My biggest issues are fighting light pollution (I live near DC) and learning how to do the curve-stretch/leveling stuff. I have an Astronomik CLS filter which helps with the light pollution but I'm still figuring out how to edit the photos to pull the detail out of them. I have a PixInsight trial license and am planning on watching these videos to start out as they come highly recommended. I have all my stuff on Flickr if anyone wants to take a look.
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Jan 22, 2016 20:34
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Very nice! Very similar to an attempt I did recently - mine was at 200mm but I didn't expose as long.  Orion Nebula by James Curbo, on Flickr
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Feb 8, 2016 06:01
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Low-Pass Filter posted:My camera (EOS M) isn't supported! Yeah, apparently the Canon mirrorless cameras are not supported (or partially supported?) by the dodgy official Canon SDK. So none of the astrophotography software (like BackyardEOS) can directly control the camera. I was thinking of getting an EOS M at one point and this is precisely why I didn't.
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Feb 9, 2016 20:43
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Drunk Badger posted:I picked up a Galileoscope last week. Are there any binoculars that people really like, or is what I have close enough? What I have read is to get ones that are not too heavy and you can comfortably hold up. I have a set of 10x50s that are nice that I regularly use to peek at Jupiter and I can easily pick out its moons. If you already have a camera tripod, you can buy an attachment to mount them very easily.
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Feb 13, 2016 05:58
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Heads up for Jupiter watchers, there's a double transit of Europa and Io coming up Monday evening (US timezones). Jupiter was at opposition yesterday and is quite bright in the sky. On Monday, Europa and Io start and end at nearly the same time. I'm going to attempt to record a timelapse video (with a new ASI120MC that I should get tomorrow). First one I've done although I've done exposures of Jupiter before. This is a pretty neat site for checking out transit times: http://www.shallowsky.com/jupiter/ For the 14th, Europa starts at 2137, ends at 0005 and the shadow ends at 0039. For Io it's 2221, 0022 and 0040 (all times Eastern Daylight Time).
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Mar 9, 2016 22:55
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Low-Pass Filter posted:Thanks for the heads up! This is awesome and can't wait to check it out. Anyone have any tips for making clouds go away just in case?? Don't buy new gear.  I bought a new camera (ASI120MC-S) and of course, it's going to rain tomorrow and Monday here.
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Mar 13, 2016 06:26
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Even though it looks like I'm going to miss the double transit, I got a nice shot of Jupiter on Friday night with my new ASI120MC-S.
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Mar 14, 2016 00:54
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Anyone doing anything neat for the Mercury transit on Monday? I took the day off and if the weather holds here in MD I'm going to try and record it so I can do a timelapse.
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May 7, 2016 19:30
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EngineerJoe posted:I'm working from home Monday and will attempt to look at the little black dot from time to time with my telescope. I'm not getting up early enough to see it first move in front of the sun but I'll try to see it leave. I'm getting up to start watching/recording, but from my yard the eastern horizon is blocked by houses/trees up to about 25 degrees, so I don't think I'm going to be able to see the beginning.
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May 7, 2016 21:48
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Nice shots! It ended up being cloudy and rainy here so I couldn't do anything.
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May 9, 2016 20:44
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Speaking of that, what are people's recommendations for travel/grab-and-go scopes? I was looking at the OneSky.
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May 27, 2016 01:44
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DSS seems to be pretty much unmaintained at this point, there was a huge thread about it on their mailing list a while back. The current version works for most people, but if you try to open images that are too big (say, you have a DSLR with massive megapixels), since DSS is 32-bit it will crash. I've had DSS crash and I think that was what was causing it. Also I've noticed inconsistency when stacking - sometimes things come out fine, sometimes I'll get a solid white picture, etc. I've never spent enough time to try and track it down. I wish these freeware astronomy programs would just go open source so people could fix/maintain them. PixInsight on the other hand, I have only used a little bit during a trial, but man it is complicated to understand, and to use. You really have to get into image processing to get the most of it, and what I can remember of my impressions of the UI were not great. However people do amazing things with it. There are tutorials and videos online as mentioned above and I've even read about in-person workshops. If I could retire today I would probably spend all my time writing a toolchain of open source software for astrophotography collection and processing.
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Aug 31, 2016 23:08
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So after getting pissed off at DeepSkyStacker for the thousandth time, I bought Inside PixInsight and that program has finally clicked for me. I had read some stuff a while back (the usual recommended tutorials) but never quite put the time into learning it, but the book is pretty good and straightforward and walks you through a full workflow (although I have a few issues with it here and there, nothing major though). It's too bad PI is so expensive, I feel like most of the image processing algorithms probably exist out there in Python libraries or whatever, they just don't have a fancy UI wrapped around them. Someone make an open source PI clone so I don't have to.
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Mar 3, 2017 06:22
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Thanks for the heads up. Apparently Saturn's solstice is May 24 (thread).
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Mar 25, 2017 18:59
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dupersaurus posted:How big does a sunspot need to be to be resolved by eye and by camera with 300mm lens (with 25m px)? My guess is pretty big, maybe just a few pixels wide on the photo. Here is a screenshot from Stellarium with the Oculars plugin configured for my 300mm telephoto and Canon DSLR.  Camera FOV is about 4 deg by 2.5 deg, and the Sun is 31 arcmin wide (apparent diameter). Compare this pic I took of the Sun with my 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain:  Camera FOV 1 deg by 40 arcmin according to Stellarium, and this is cropped slightly. It just about fills up the telescope though, with a focal reducer.
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Jul 7, 2017 19:53
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Annual Prophet posted:Hello thread, I'm new to all of this and looking to get a starter telescope for me / the family. We live about 25-35 minutes away from major city light sources, but the area is suburban and there are highways not far off, so there's still light pollution. We'd be viewing mostly from our back yard, but there is a national park relatively close, so portability, while not essential, would be a plus. I think we'd ideally want to be able to see the planets and distant objects, in that order. No AP, just viewing, and ease of use will be relatively important. I'd like to try to stay below $350. I don't own a Dob but I was looking at them a few years ago when I was getting into astronomy. I think you'd be ok with those, there are also table-mounted small scopes you could look at that could be cheaper and will be easier to set up and carry around. I'd poke around the forums at cloudynights.com, there is a beginners forum there and you can probably find answers to all of your questions. As for stores, I like the following, depending on what you're buying: bhphotovideo.com - mostly a photography store but they do carry some astronomy stuff. I bought my 8" SCT + Advanced VX from here and it looks like they carry some Dobs optcorp.com - I've bought a lot of gear from them, no issues highpointscientific.com - same Amazon is fine too.
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Jul 12, 2017 18:46
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Yeah, they are apparently mass emailing those out. I got one for the glass glasses I bought but not the paper ones. Likely just a CYA move.
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Aug 13, 2017 19:40
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I went down south of Knoxville, TN for totality. Here's some pics, I got pretty good ones. Solar Eclipse Maestro is awesome. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10159151931775394.1073741841.869755393&type=1&l=0831763ee9
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Aug 23, 2017 03:24
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Enos Cabell posted:I had a blast shooting the eclipse with my cheap 55-300mm telephoto, and I think I'm ready to maybe spend a little more money on something with further reach. It looks like $1k will get me a pretty nice 150-600mm telephoto. Are there any telescopes in that same $1k ballpark that would be good for primarily astrophotography use? I have this 80mm refractor and I like it quite a bit. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/735549-REG/Sky_Watcher_S11100_S11100_Pro_80ED_APO.html What's your mount situation though? Because I think for astrophotography, the mount is maybe more important than the telescope. Without a good solid tracking mount you won't be able to do long exposures reliably. You can do up to 300mm or so on a Skytracker (which is what I have) but past that you'll want a dedicated mount. While we're sharing eclipse photos, here are mine from totality in eastern TN. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcurbo/albums/72157685154096231 
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Aug 28, 2017 01:01
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Enos Cabell posted:Yeah, I think after further reading I'd be best served with a good tracking mount. I'll check out the Skytracker, any other suggestions around that $1k ballpark? I don't mind spending a little more for something that I can grow into and won't have to replace as soon as I get a decent scope. You're starting from scratch right? (i.e. no telescope, no mount) Probably the best thing you can do is go poke around Cloudy Nights, specifically the Beginning & Intermediate Imaging subforum. https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/80-beginning-and-intermediate-imaging/ This looks like a good thread: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/535647-what-is-the-best-cheap-beginner-astrophotography-setup/ and I'm sure there are others. As for my own recommendations, it's hard for me to say because I jumped straight into a Celestron 8" SCT and Advanced VX mount. (which was like... $1600) If you wanted to stay with your 300mm telephoto you could get a Skytracker Pro, like mentioned before, which is ~$300. I think my main point is don't go buying a dedicated 600mm telephoto lens for your camera instead of looking at dedicated astronomy telescopes and mounts. The Skytracker will start to have issues with anything heavier than camera + 300mm lens anyway, so you'd need an actual mount, which takes us back to my original point.
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Aug 30, 2017 02:39
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DaveSauce posted:I want to do a bit more with photography. I still have a fairly basic setup with a Celestron Omni XLT 150mm newtonian and a t-ring adapter for my DSLR. Right now for prime photography I have to use the 2x barlow adapter because I can't achieve focus with the regular adapter...so I guess that's not really prime photography. Actually caused me a little grief during the eclipse because I couldn't get the whole sun in the frame with the barlow, so I had to just hold the camera up to the eyepiece. You should be able to find something, there are adapters and tubes for everything. I find it interesting you can't reach focus though, what is the setup with a normal eyepiece in there? OK, I went and looked at CN before I hit submit here, and of course there are some threads and people are saying backfocus is an issue. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/588042-t-ring-to-2-adapter-for-dslr-in-reflector/ https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/450824-celestron-omni-xlt-150-and-few-general-questions/
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Sep 3, 2017 02:05
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Those are some nice shots and are giving me some motivation to get back out. I haven't really done much since before the solar eclipse. I see you're doing pretty long subs, how dark is your site? Are you autoguiding? That's kind of the next thing I need to check off my list, learning how to guide. I have an 8" SCT and OAG and I find it impossible to use. I'll probably switch back to my 80ED and learn with that and a regular guidescope. Also interested in how you did that Moon shot, thanks for sharing (as a fellow PI user).
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Oct 24, 2017 21:35
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darkarchon posted:My site is a bortle 5 or 6, depending. At least to the east, north and zenith. Yes I am autoguiding with a finder scope and a QHY5L-IIC guidecam somehow mounted in that. I am using PHD2 for guiding with my laptop. It's actually pretty easy and yields good and fast results. I'd love to have an OAG but wasn't able to afford one and the QHY5L-IIC doesn't have enough QE to be properly used with an OAG. I was looking at the same setup to move away from the OAG - using a QHY5L-II (the mono version) with a finderscope. I had tried it with the OAG and wasn't getting good results. Also, how do you like the SkyWatcher EQ6-R? I am having issues with my Advanced VX and want to move up to a bigger mount anyway so I'm currently looking at that one or an iOptron iEQ45 Pro. I'm leaning towards the EQ6-R right now. Seems like lots of astroimagers like EQMOD. Interestingly, my current software setup is the same as yours (minus PHD2 and EQMOD). Autoguiding is the next big thing I want to tackle. Is this the NINA you mentioned? First I've heard of it, will have to check it out. https://bitbucket.org/Isbeorn/nina Regarding that Kickstarter, I saw something similar going around from a French startup: https://vaonis.com/ They are apparently traveling around the US talking to astronomy groups looking for feedback (and, no doubt, trying to generate interest).
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Oct 28, 2017 23:36
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darkarchon posted:Have you tried 2×2 binning? I think the QHY5L is not sensitive enough without binning, but should be with. Maybe your backfocus to the QHY5L is not enough? Or what was the issue? Great, thanks for the info. I am on the verge of ordering an EQ6-R. I already have a Polemaster I use for PA, so switching to EQMOD should really reduce setup time. Is this astrophotography discord something anyone can join? I looked around a while back for a Slack channel or something and didn't really find anything.
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Nov 1, 2017 05:07
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Yeah, those are both great shots, in my opinion. I think a lot of people have this perception that you can't do any worthwhile DSO photography with light pollution and/or the moon out, but stuff like that shows it's possible, and you don't have to have crazy $$$$$ equipment to do it. I mean, going to a true dark site is the best in terms of signal to noise ratio, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to get great shots. I like to make a couple of points about this - first, there's the principle of 'the best scope is the one you use' - and likewise, the best location is the one that works for you. Not everyone can go to a dark site every day or even every weekend, and your yard/driveway/whatever is RIGHT THERE. Secondly, this is stuff you can't see with the naked eye, but doesn't require the Hubble Space Telescope to see either, nor a degree in astrophysics. Third, I think people go overboard a bit with the workflows required to get nice pictures - sure, PixInsight is great, but just like with the hardware I think people look at complicated workflows and think it's impossible for them. (I also think the state of amateur astronomy software is fairly deplorable - a separate rant) I live in Maryland near DC, which is one of the most heavily light polluted parts of the country. My workplace has an astronomy club and I did a talk on astrophotography and got multiple people saying "you can even do photography around here? you did that this close to DC?" which proved my point exactly.
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Nov 2, 2017 00:48
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Yeah, that is a great site. I also liked this book for learning PI: http://a.co/8twdSNX
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Nov 3, 2017 01:43
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That's pretty awesome. Which h-alpha filter do you have? I was thinking about looking into filtered photography to work around the usual light pollution issues. (on top of everything else I want to do)
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Nov 18, 2017 06:15
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I finally broke down and bought an h-alpha filter because of this thread.
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Dec 8, 2017 21:15
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Super quote post!darkarchon posted:The MiniPC is an Orbsmart AW-08 (Celeron Quadcore, 4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC) I looked this up and it looks like it's only sold in Germany, but I was already looking at similar products from Deep Space Products (Cloudy Nights thread). I currently just use a Lenovo X230 laptop to drive my stuff, but if I build an observatory in my backyard (maybe next year) I'll probably do a more permanent setup with something like that. Low-Pass Filter posted:I had been dipping my toes in imaging with a 6" reflector, but I finally followed everyone's advice and got a Orion 80ED wide field refractor. It makes life so much easier already, and moving to a crayford from the rack and pinon is like holy poo poo. I started with an 8" SCT but I actually like my Sky-watcher Pro 80ED a lot better. Now I'm wondering what I should get as a third scope. Bigger refractor, Newt, ? Tempus Thales posted:For those goons who want to further discuss astro-photography, we have a channel open at the main SA Discord at https://discord.gg/AkcVFAX - The channel is visible once you auth with your account... Cool, I will hang out in another Discord. darkarchon posted:Nah, go PI all the way… while expensive, absolutely worth it. It increased the quality of my images immensely - check out the free 45 day trial, I tell you you will like it. Also, focus does only matter for lenses really that much. The M33 looks like shot from a scope and not a lens, and even if - a close enough focus is good enough. Agree with this, I have had the same results. Although it does irk me that so much functionality is locked up inside a fairly expensive tool - for absolute beginners, I feel like the current landscape of software is not great. It's not until you seriously settle into astroimaging as a hobby that it is worth it for most people to spend $300 on PixInsight (even though, yes, you probably spent $1k+ on hardware) I would love to see an open source post-processing toolchain.
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Dec 16, 2017 00:01
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Very nice. Since it's Galaxy Season I've been working on some DSOs. Actually doing things like taking flats and autoguiding is helping a lot. (I even got my OAG working, although it was a pain and I highly prefer normal guidescopes) Leo Triplet - I like how this one came out.  Whirlpool Galaxy, again - came out quite green, I need to reprocess it I think.  Orion in H-Alpha - not a galaxy, but my first attempt at something in h-alpha.  The Bode and Cigar Galaxies  Whirlpool Galaxy - first try at this one
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Mar 24, 2018 08:19
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Agree with all of the above, a decent set of 10x50 binoculars or so are the usual recommendation. Binoculars can be hard to hold though (as mentioned) so you can get a binocular mount and put them on a camera tripod. If you do have a decent budget you can go with a tabletop scope. The AWB OneSky is a popular suggestion. I've never used a OneSky but I have used a Meade ETX80 and it was a nice, easy to use scope for looking at the Moon, planets and such. In general you want something with a wide view that's easy to point. It's sad to see people buy long refractors without diagonals and then struggle to try to see anything through them. I definitely would not worry about goto, automation, motorized/computerized scopes unless you're really ready to get into the hobby. (The ETX80 is a goto scope but the older one I used was a little clunky. I just like the form factor) edit: also, reddit r/telescopes has a decent guide. hannibal fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Mar 26, 2018 |
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Mar 26, 2018 05:32
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Yeah, Dobs are cool and all but I think they're more a second scope than a starter one. That's another reason I like to recommend the tabletop scopes, you may not even need a tripod if you have a good place to set it up.
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Mar 28, 2018 02:01
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Anyone going to be at NEAIC or NEAF in a few weeks?
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Mar 30, 2018 05:26
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Binary Badger posted:Was going to put up my yearly NEAF post; this year they have Hans from SpaceX, scientists with the Juno mission and the JWST. Cool. I've been reading about NEAF on Cloudy Nights as well, this is my first one. I'm going to NEAIC (Northeast Astro-Imaging Conference) as well, the previous two days. Any thoughts on the lecture/panel scene at NEAF? Most CN posts are about the vendor hall.
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Apr 2, 2018 22:42
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Looking forward to the NEAF speaker lineup. NEAIC has been pretty good, I enjoyed every talk I went to and took pages and pages of notes to follow-up on later.
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Apr 20, 2018 23:44
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There's not a goon one (that I know of) but I'm on two (although I'm not super active on either): The Reddit /r/astrophotography one: https://discordapp.com/invite/WPD7Jn2 Another one I'm on that darkarchon invited me to I think? https://discord.gg/dafDGJ2
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Apr 28, 2018 16:15
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Nice as always, darkarchon.
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Jun 29, 2018 23:26
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Nice photo. I'd try to image it but we've had nothing but clouds and rain here in Maryland for what seems like weeks
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Sep 13, 2018 00:23
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