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Got first light with my new Celestron NexStar SE6 last night - lots of cloud and the moon was too bright but the star align worked first time and I got a nice view of Jupiter with a coloured band, and its 4 main moons. Lessons learned so far are that I need a chair, and that filling your pockets with eye pieces probably isn't a good idea.
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Nov 24, 2010 11:13
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I've always been into astronomy as it is, and after re-reading Pale Blue Dot and picking up Billions & Billions, I decided to take the plunge and buy a telescope. I purchased an Orion XT8, and it shipped out yesterday. I spent the last few nights outside identifying what I could with binoculars and StarmapPro on my phone. Luckily we had some clear cold nights here in Western MA, and as I live in an area with decently dark skies, I was impressed what I could see with just the binoculars. I can't wait to get the scope in. I'm really glad I found this thread, as it's directed me to some extremely helpful resources. Thanks! Noise Complaint fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Nov 24, 2010 |
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Nov 24, 2010 17:01
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Baconroll posted:Got first light with my new Celestron NexStar SE6 last night - lots of cloud and the moon was too bright but the star align worked first time and I got a nice view of Jupiter with a coloured band, and its 4 main moons. Harbor Freight Tools has some awesome tool/camera cases full of "pull 'n pluck" cubed foam for cheap, and they make great eyepiece and accessory cases.
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Nov 25, 2010 02:49
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Had my first attempt at imaging with the Nexstar 6SE with a NexImage webcam last night. Viewing wasn't great but the clouds cleared so I had a go at Jupiter. It seems theres quite a learning curve, but that will keep it interesting. This image was 200 seconds of capture using WXAstrocapture which was then processed in Registax by me clicking options wildly in a confused manner. I think the black dot is the shadow from Ganymede. 
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Dec 6, 2010 11:11
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Nice Image baconroll! I have yet to get out with my new Neximage and test it out. Stupid cloud cover in SE Ohio! I am getting ready to buy a new AP rig (probably in the next day or so once I make up my freaking mind) and was wondering what you all thought of it. My goal is to do both planetary and DSO imaging with this configuration: -Celestron CGEM 800 SCT (Planetary Imaging) -Stellarvue 80ED (Piggy Backed for DSO Work) -ADM mini dovetail and 125mm rings for mounting the 80ED on the SCT I think the CGEM is capable of this since the payload will be around 22-25lbs and the mount is rated for 40lb max. I will use the Neximage for Planetary work and I have a Nikon D60 I will use for DSO connected to the Stellarvue. I can also do a finder scope mod to the one included with the 800 and use the Neximage for guiding while doing DSO imaging. I may pick up an SSAG down the road for a better guide camera but would like to start with shorter length images stacked and also give the Neximage a go at guiding. What do you all think?
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Dec 9, 2010 01:39
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Baconroll posted:I heart this pic
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Dec 16, 2010 03:46
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It's burgin' time! 
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Hey Baconroll, do you like that wxAstroCapture software better than the software that came with your Neximage? I am going to have a go at Jupiter tonight and maybe Saturn if I can stay up late enough with mine and the 8". First time imaging with the Neximage, so it should be fun. Were you using a barlow in that pic? Also, I LOL'd that I heart bacon hearts a pic from baconroll.
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Dec 17, 2010 15:12
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Choicecut, you might want to grab the free CCDcalc app along with the additional reference images. Once you have put in your telescope and camera details you can then quickly see how many popular objects will appear in your field of view. You can also set barlow lengths, which should only really be used in planetary imaging, to work out what gives you the best fit.
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Dec 17, 2010 15:45
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Jekub posted:Choicecut, you might want to grab the free CCDcalc app along with the additional reference images. Once you have put in your telescope and camera details you can then quickly see how many popular objects will appear in your field of view. You can also set barlow lengths, which should only really be used in planetary imaging, to work out what gives you the best fit. Ha! Went to install this and I already had it installed at work. I have been installing so much software I forget what has already been installed!
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Dec 17, 2010 16:39
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDB_RipB0oY Possibly the least exciting 6 seconds of video ever posted to youtube. Comet 103p/Hartley moving close to Cassiopeia back in October. Next time I have the chance at a comet I'll have to do a lot more frames I think. Also, have a widefield of the same thing, which I like because you can see the sky getting darker as the evening went on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn107_EM50A Jekub fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Dec 19, 2010 |
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Dec 19, 2010 10:45
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Have another Moon photo Astronomy Thread! December Moon by Tom Rintjema, on Flickr I meant to get the eclipse, but it got way too cloudy out.
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Dec 23, 2010 01:32
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Can someone recommend a simple guide to using equatorial mounts? I'm having a little trouble getting it. Last night I was observing the moon, and I found that having the scope aligned north, I was actually unable to get the scope into a position to actually view the moon. I had to 'mis-align' the scope to get it to be able to physically turn in a direction facing the moon (south-ish). How can I track an object properly if I'm not able to have the scope aligned north?
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Dec 24, 2010 16:15
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I just got a Gallileoscope!  I'm having a bit of difficulty getting to see objects. I have it on a tripod, but it's so hard to find objects since everything is upside down. A few minutes ago I had Jupiter in my sights, but it just looked like a smudgy ball. Any recommendations? It comes with three lens combinations, but I'm not sure what to use.
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Dec 28, 2010 04:25
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revmoo posted:Can someone recommend a simple guide to using equatorial mounts? Astro-Baby has a pretty solid guide, I normally find her articles to be excellent for beginners, so have a read and see if it unmuddles you understanding. I remember getting my first EQ mount and having no idea at all.
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Dec 28, 2010 13:08
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^^ I'm getting most of that but I'm still having trouble physically moving the mount to face certain directions, it's probably something I'm doing wrong though. Anyone want to take a guess as to what this is? I snapped it last night in the southern sky. It was the brightest object I could see in the entire sky. That's an 8 second exposure on a point and shoot I attached to the mount. I took several exposures and they all had that weird moon looking object so I think it might actually be something.
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Dec 28, 2010 19:31
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Bightest object in the South eh? If it was early in the evening then it's probably Jupiter. If it was a bit later then Sirius Because it's kind of big and orangy I'd guess Jupiter Also If you're using an eq mount with a reflector telescope then you definitely want a way to rotate the tube to Place the eyepiece in a comfortable spot. Google for Wilcox rings. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Dec 28, 2010 |
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Dec 28, 2010 19:42
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Bightest object in the South eh? If it was early in the evening then it's probably Jupiter. If it was a bit later then Sirius Yeah, like 9pm or so just after dark, it was low in the sky. I've already had to rotate the tube a few times, it is kind of annoying.
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Dec 29, 2010 17:13
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Interesting little documentary on a star party in Colorado. http://www.vimeo.com/10611908
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Jan 3, 2011 04:45
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Finally got a clear sky to do some imaging. Took a try at M42, also snagged some Pleaides and M31 while I was out, but haven't done anything with those. This is my first DSO ever, so be easy. This is 30 lights and 5 darks stacked in DSS, which resulted in a RED image and then heavily processed in photoshop. Taken with a SV80ED piggy backed on a CGEM 800 and a Nikon d60. ISO was set at 1600, which I think is too high after seeing the results. I think I must be doing something wrong in DSS because a single image looks better than the initial stack even though it brought out a little more detail. You can almost make out the running man. Any help would be great! Stacked:  Single 60 Second exposure:  What DSS shits out: 
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Jan 4, 2011 18:28
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A cracking start, though I'll be brutal and say the stacked and processed suffers from a bunch of processing problems, colour balance being the obvious problem followed closely by noise. Judging from your un-processed image I would say you have something better hiding in there, and that starts the joys of learning all about processing. I'd guess that you may have an incorrect setting on DSS which is causing your colour problems, but honestly I think there are better, if perhaps more challenging options out there for software. I started out with DSS, but moved first to Iris and now Pixinsight. If you have a spare evening try out Iris (free) to calibrate and stack your image before processing in photoshop. software: http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm tutorial : http://astro.ai-software.com/articles/dslr_iris/dslr_iris.html Or Pixinsight as a 55 day free trial to do everything. Software: http://pixinsight.com/ Tutorial http://www.harrysastroshed.com/pixinsighthomenewbie.html I would expect either will give a better result, but it is a massive learning curve, and your first attempt is far better than mine ever was! Jekub fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jan 5, 2011 |
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Jan 4, 2011 22:23
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Jekub posted:A cracking start, though I'll be brutal and say the stacked and processed suffers from a bunch of processing problems, colour balance being the obvious problem followed closely by noise. Judging from your un-processed image I would say you have something better hiding in there, and that starts the joys of learning all about processing. Sweet. Thanks a ton Jekub. I was wondering if there was something better than DSS. It actually caused a blue screen on windows 7 during one of the stacks. This is the first blue screen I have seen on windows 7. I am definitely not opposed to dropping some cash on good software so thanks for letting me know about Pixinsight!
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Jan 5, 2011 01:41
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You might also want to take a look at CCDstack which offers a very simplified but highly effective stacking interface, it also has a free trial. Most of my friends use this as it's pretty much hassle free, where Iris and Pixinsight take a lot of getting used to. However you would still need to move to another program to complete processing be that photoshop or Pix. I chose Pixinsight as I could really only afford one option and my first result using Pix and Harry's tutorials was enough to convince me. The stacking tools are a bit confusing at this time but they will improve. The only way to really work out what fits best for you is to try all these tools out.
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Jan 5, 2011 10:04
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Thanks, I will check that out as well. While waiting for my trial license request to get approved for PixInsight, I gave M42 another try in DSS. It still produced the same red mess that I got in previous attempts. I have no clue where all the red is coming from. I decided to move from M42 and give M31 a try in DSS. This produced an image with RGB nicely lined up. I am getting a lot of noise in my images, so when I get back out for more exposures I plan to turn down ISO on my camera. I still need to learn the proper tweaks in photoshop, but here is my first attempt: Also, wanted to say thanks again for the direction you are giving. Makes life much easier. Edit: looking through my camera settings, I noticed that I had noise reduction turned off. Have to try enabling that next outing and see what it results. Also just had a shiny new Nikon D90 delivered yesterday. Not sure how much better it will be at Astrophotography than the D60, but it definitely feels like a sturdier camera. Choicecut fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Jan 5, 2011 |
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Jan 5, 2011 13:05
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Jekub, first I need to say that you are freaking awesome for directing me to PixInsight. The program is the poo poo! Secondly, you suck because now I have to pony up 225US for a license! Here was what I accomplished in about an hour of work tonight in PixInsight with my M42 images. I am freaking stoked for my first DSO! Plan to restack and process my M31 images tomorrow evening. 
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Jan 6, 2011 06:10
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The next thing to try with Orion is getting a bunch of shorter and longer exposures and combining them using the HDR tool in Pix, that way you can bring out the trapesium and the faint detail together. Something I'd love to try myself if these clouds ever go away. I'm blaming the BBC for that as they are running there 'Stargazing Live' event right now, which was bound to bring crappy weather with it. Still it's pretty cool to have amateur astronomy getting several hours of coverage during prime time on BBC2. Speaking on which, if anyone reading this lives near Basingstoke we'll be running a free observing evening at Basingstoke AS, details on the Stargazing Live site under 'events'. Jekub fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jan 6, 2011 |
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Jan 6, 2011 09:39
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I was looking at some tutorials for polishing the trapezium on the astropix website. I think I will be able to bring out more detail with PixInsight after going through more tutorials. I really dig the program though, extremely robust. It didn't cause windows7 to blue screen and changes didn't take 10 minutes to apply. Very smooth. I hear you about the clouds mate, I have only had 1 chance to image in the past 4 weeks. Forecast for Sunday looks promising, so I am planning on M81 Bode's Galaxy and possibly the HorseHead Nebula. I feel like a drat kid in a candy store, so many objects I want to image. I wish BBC america would have the same stream that you bloody bloke's get. Brian Cox is hosting that stargazing show, which is one of my favorice physicists!
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Jan 6, 2011 14:13
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He's talking at Astrofest in London next month which should be good. I'll be trying hard as normal not to spend money I don't technically have, and probably failing.
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Jan 6, 2011 17:07
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Jekub posted:He's talking at Astrofest in London next month which should be good. I'll be trying hard as normal not to spend money I don't technically have, and probably failing. Going to Astrofest would be awesome. Brian Cox is the poo poo man, I would love to hear him speak. I gave my Andromeda images another go last night, turned out a little better. I still have a lot of noise, but pulled out some dust lane detail. Semi happy for my first try. Scope: SV80ED (Piggy Backed on Celestron 8" SCT) Mount: Celestron CGEM Camera: Nikon D60 Exposure: 30x30 seconds, ISO 1600 Stacked/Processed: PixInsight  I think I am going to give this another whirl with lower ISO and see if it helps with noise.
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Jan 7, 2011 14:47
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It will help, as will more exposures to increase your signal to noise. It's worth searching the Pixinsight forums for other Nikon users to see what settings they use for stacking, as well as reading the various workflow guides for calibrating and stacking DSLR images. Also, I'm going to put this here as evidence :  Never trust the MET office, there is no possible way I can have clear skies on a weekend with only a 13% full moon.
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Jan 7, 2011 18:12
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As it happens, sometimes you can trust the weather, sort of, provided you don't mind staying up all night to hit the panic button and stop guiding when the occasional cloud rolls over. NGC-2403 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Camelopardalis, and is apparently much tougher to image from my light polluted back garden than I expected it to be.  Click here for the full 1000x662 image. About 34x8 minute exposures I think, I forgot to count after I had removed the dodgy ones.
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Jan 10, 2011 10:37
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Nice job Jekub. For being in a light polluted area, that is some awesome detail. Especially in the star forming regions, great color!
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Jan 10, 2011 14:45
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Pleiades star cluster, also from the weekend, 31x5 minute exposures on the WO ZS66, not sure when it started dewing up, but I definitely need a dew heater for it, it was doing the same thing when I was guiding with it the night before. I'm pretty happy with this one, definitely need another bath of images though for some HDR composition. Click here for the full 1280x954 image.
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Jan 11, 2011 23:58
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Nice M45. I was using M45 to focus when I was out last time. I took the 6 short exposures I had and stacked them just to see what came out of it. I am actually surprised it picked up some of the dust cloud that M45 is moving through:
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Jan 13, 2011 17:31
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Had big plans for imaging tonight, but my CGEM took a dump earlier today. Was manually controlling the mount to do some imaging of the Sun and it suddenly stopped working. Recycled the power and all I get are "No Response 16/17" errors. Apparently my motors or the motherboard that controls them have taken a poo poo.  Hope warranty turnaround doesn't take too long. I just bought it 3 months ago and this was only my 4th outing! Here is a snap of the Sun and some Sunspots before my mount poo poo itself:  Sun 3-19-2011 by elimisel, on Flickr
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Mar 20, 2011 02:11
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I had the same issue with my CGEM when I got it, giving the rj12(?) connector on the handset cable an extra squeeze with my crimping tool seems to have cleared it up. At least I have not had the problem again since I did that.
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Mar 21, 2011 12:49
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Jekub posted:I had the same issue with my CGEM when I got it, giving the rj12(?) connector on the handset cable an extra squeeze with my crimping tool seems to have cleared it up. At least I have not had the problem again since I did that. I tried hitting it with my crimping tool per a cloudy nights members recommendation. No dice. Tried cleaning all the contacts with vhs head cleaner, moving the power pin connector slightly to try and get a better connection and even tried nudging some of the receptacle pins for the hand controller, still same result. I also tried flashing the firmware just to see if that would help, couldn't even flash the MC. It would get to 3% every time and complain about error programming data block "random number". Got the same result trying to flash the HC too. I am at a loss. Gonna call Celestron when I home today. Really bums me out man!I hear their turn around time is horrible for warranty work. It's really gonna piss me off if it does, this was only my 4th time using the mount. The weather is just about to start getting better too!
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Mar 21, 2011 14:22
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This is unfortunately a big part of why people still buy the EQ6 series - even though they are from the exact same manufacturer (Synta) they are rock solid (also stepper motors are awesome). They have one massive design fault in that the latitude setting is really bad above around 40° (I live at 57°) due to a poor mechanical construction; I paid a bunch of money for replacement adjustment bolts (my original ones are already slightly bent and I got the mount in autumn!) The CGEM is slicker in external details, but has had a lot of these killer issues with the electronics. The EQ6 is a workhorse. On another note, I finally got around to asking for a PixInsight trial license, and man. This application is awesome.
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Mar 21, 2011 14:57
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Wolf on Air posted:This is unfortunately a big part of why people still buy the EQ6 series - even though they are from the exact same manufacturer (Synta) they are rock solid (also stepper motors are awesome). Oh man, I ended up purchasing PixInsight. The difference in that app compared to DSS is like night and day man.
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Mar 21, 2011 15:24
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DSS Live is like the only DSS-named app I would consider using for anything. Most would be better off with Nebulosity than with DSS, I think, for those who are averse to the PixInsight-style "here's a hugely advanced toolbox to be used in any fashion you desire, but we aren't going to provide an easy mode". Nebulosity is a lot cheaper, too. I  PI, though, especially for being scriptable.
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Mar 21, 2011 15:50
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Just got of the horn with Celestron. CGEM is going in for warranty repair, could be more than 30 days before I get it back. Really bums me out.
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Mar 21, 2011 21:46
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