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The Astro-Imaging Thread


ProtoJeb21

Astro-Imaging Questions  

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  1. 1. What's Your Favorite Solar System Body to Image?



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31 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

I wonder what your ASI174MC would produce with my scope. I imagine it'd be quite a bit better than this.

I wish I could figure out how to properly hook it up to my telescope. It's never on securely. Plus, my telescope is a dobsonian, so long exposures are going to be nearly impossible.

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33 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

I wish I could figure out how to properly hook it up to my telescope. It's never on securely. Plus, my telescope is a dobsonian, so long exposures are going to be nearly impossible.

It is going to be very hard to get a large amount of frames untracked, but it is possible. There is a guy that does it with a 10" f/10 and gets very good shots. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/578211-first-saturn-really-good-seeing-may-21-untracked-10-f10-dob/#entry7896421 

Are you using the 2" nosepiece? It's too short. Try putting on the 1.25" one and inserting that into the 1.25" adapter for your scope.

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4 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

I wish I could figure out how to properly hook it up to my telescope. It's never on securely. Plus, my telescope is a dobsonian, so long exposures are going to be nearly impossible.

I assume you have a 2 inch focuser? My asi290mm fits right into it. Also a 1,25' adapter for the focuser + something like this should do the job. 

Anyway... DSO-Browser staff posted my picture on their facebook page! They actually picked it from they website and posted it, isn't that cool? :D

Edited by Epox75
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Galaxies are DSO-stuff as well. Besides nebulae, clusters, ... So, there are none ;-)

Everything away from our solar system are "deep space objects", i'd say, in contrast to solar, planetary or all kinds of terrestrial/meteoroli..metoro..mot..weather. There may be other notions.

It's personal taste and different equipment.

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I've update also the bicolor version with the new data:

03e7102b1c43cc1ba6d70f5a721c007f.1824x0_

And.. .this might be a bit off topic but since In the past five years I've re-built a huge passion towards Space and Astronomy (it was a kid thing at start...30 years ago) I decided to go as deep as I possibly can and I thought that this might be a good start:

ETsbWrf.jpg

Edited by Epox75
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On 8/12/2017 at 7:34 AM, munlander1 said:

What are the pro's and cons of photographing nebulae over galaxies?

Galaxies are mostly photograph-eable in visible light, nebulae are often brightest outside of the visible spectrum (think hydrogen alpha).

On 7/9/2017 at 7:53 PM, Epox75 said:

This is interesting. I was so excited about what I've noticed that I didn't even finish to process the image and I sent an Email to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. The Image speaks for itself: 

 

Any news on this front?

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5 hours ago, kurja said:

Any news on this front?

Nope, absolutely nothing :( Thou a fellow Italian amateur astronomer will check up on the star soon, make pictures and compare them with older ones. If we will see the chance to make another report maybe we will do so.

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On 8/18/2017 at 10:42 AM, Epox75 said:

IAnd.. .this might be a bit off topic but since In the past five years I've re-built a huge passion towards Space and Astronomy (it was a kid thing at start...30 years ago) I decided to go as deep as I possibly can and I thought that this might be a good start:

ETsbWrf.jpg

I make telescopes and haven't read these.....

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5 hours ago, Estona said:

I was always fascinated by the cosmos. The universe is so big. I really liked all the photos. Thank you for such a miracle:)))

Welcome !

Well, miracle sounds somewhat ... miraculous. It is all about catching photons and bringing them in the right order. Everybody can do that, maybe not right away from the start with the quality Epox75 shows here :-)

Ingredients are time, some equipment, the will to learn and experiment and patience.

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I've thought about getting a nicer camera like a ZWO for a while. I could probably get one this fall or for Christmas. But I realized that there's one barrier:

My laptop. It's so ancient (2009) and slow (Windows 10 running with no background apps eats most of the RAM) that it can barely handle my cheap little StarShoot. If I wanted a nicer camera, I would also need a laptop that probably costs several times as much. So I really don't think I'm going to be doing much more AP seeing as I've done everything there really is to do with the StarShoot.

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I just got home last night from my eclipse viewing vacation so I am only now getting around to posting this image, but I think you guys here will like it. (I know that there is a separate eclipse thread, but I thought that readers here would appreciate it more than lounge readers.)

Anyway, I took it by using a script in a program called "Eclipse Orchestrator" to control my camera during totality. I obtained the exposure settings for the script in advance from a table on Fred Espenak's (a.k.a Mr. Eclipse's) web page. I also used a GPS and time synchronization tool to set my computer's position and time to within a few metres and milliseconds of actual. This allowed the script to capture phenomena at each end of totality, as well as a two 12-stop exposure sequences during totality. The image below shows what some people are calling "the dolphin prominence" at the top-right edge of the sun's disk:

 

oUHNMeJ.jpg

Edited by PakledHostage
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6 hours ago, _Augustus_ said:

I've thought about getting a nicer camera like a ZWO for a while. I could probably get one this fall or for Christmas. But I realized that there's one barrier:

My laptop. It's so ancient (2009) and slow (Windows 10 running with no background apps eats most of the RAM) that it can barely handle my cheap little StarShoot. If I wanted a nicer camera, I would also need a laptop that probably costs several times as much. So I really don't think I'm going to be doing much more AP seeing as I've done everything there really is to do with the StarShoot.

I did 4 years of planetary with 2 laptops, one from 2003 with WinXp and the other one had Win7, it was newer but basically slower than my older one that was a high-end laptop at its times. Get the ASI, roll back to win7 and use the video crop function on your capturing programs to maximize the fps, you should be fine. Even if your camera does 30fps instead of 60 is more than enough. My old DMK21AU04.as had 640x480 resolution and 60 fps max but at 60fps it was showing artifacts so I always used it at max 30fps and I did the 99,99% of my planetary pictures with it :) 

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10 hours ago, Epox75 said:

 

I did 4 years of planetary with 2 laptops, one from 2003 with WinXp and the other one had Win7, it was newer but basically slower than my older one that was a high-end laptop at its times. Get the ASI, roll back to win7 and use the video crop function on your capturing programs to maximize the fps, you should be fine. Even if your camera does 30fps instead of 60 is more than enough. My old DMK21AU04.as had 640x480 resolution and 60 fps max but at 60fps it was showing artifacts so I always used it at max 30fps and I did the 99,99% of my planetary pictures with it :) 

It's not mine per se, though it was originally bought for my use my mother has since used it for tons of work stuff (I never needed it for anything before I started AP), so I don't know if I can roll back the OS. And I honestly don't think it's going to last more than another 3 months....

My only other options are my brother's laptop, which is okay RAM-wise but has no storage space (under 20GB) on its tiny hard drive, and our Microsoft Surface, which has similar issues.

Edited by _Augustus_
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On 8/31/2017 at 0:29 AM, _Augustus_ said:

@Epox75, are you going to try to image Florence? Closest approach is tomorrow night. I will be observing it visually tonight with my 4" Mak.

Sorry for the late reply I've been a bit busy lately :) ... no, unfortunately I had no chance. Cloudy weather on that day but anyway I don't know if I would be able to image such a tiny object at that distance :)

So.. I had two clear nights in a row at the first one I won against the Pacman Nebula were I got a nice image from around 4 hours exposure (1.5 half our only for Hydrogen-alpha that makes most of the image), the second I lost against the Elephant Trunk Nebula and the galaxy NGC 925, my data are very faint and noisy still so I'm going to probably put them aside until I decide to integrate more data. 

Anyway here you can find the technical data about the Pacman Nebula and as well the full res image. I hope you'll like it!

45276808ae56eeaecc2beac7d546580f.1824x0_[/img]

Edited by Epox75
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I'm on a target right now.. it's 3:30 am here.. finally a night without bombing clouds. The Moon made a brief appearance and now is set since a couple of hours. I think I have already enough data to get a decent picture out, now the target rose above 80' degrees and it's going to reach 89 later on.. I'm keeping an eye on the imaging train that might be touch the tripod as the it rises. The meridian flip will be at dawn so hopefully I can track until then without interruptions. Anyway, it's going to be a "little" suprise... and I've said enough. :P

So here it is... (drum roll) :

The Little Dumbell Nebula!

3712ea0ec77f29137bb9fbeb9eac1840.1824x0_ 

It's still a work a in progress, I had some problem with calibration so I want to retake darks and bias and reprocess it. I also need probably to remove some exposure with elongated stars that came out at the beginning of the session while the target was low on the horizon and I need to integrate more data on a moonless night to try and take out the external part. 

The Technical Card is here

I hope you like it and I take the occasion to state something: If no one else posts pictures here I will probably stop too. It would be nice to see someone else's work and talk about it... don't be shy! The summer is almost over and I didn't see any deep sky picture besides mine. :/

Edited by Epox75
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I've been feeling a bit of a 'post eclipse hangover' the past couple of weeks, so upon finding this site: http://transit-finder.com/, I decided to go out and try my luck at catching an image of the ISS silhouetted in the disk of the Sun.

I think my timing was out by about 1/2 second so I didn't manage the sequence that I'd hoped for, but I did catch the ISS down near the Sun's lower left limb in the photo below (photo has been re-sized to 50% of its original resolution):

FSzQxzo.jpg

Here's a closer view cropped out of the same shot (1:1 crop from the original image):

sTG7FxM.jpg

I shot it using a 600 mm lens mounted on a Canon 70D camera body, with a Thousand Oaks solar filter mounted on the lens. I'd be really interested to see what some of you guys with proper telescopes and astro-imaging equipment could pull off.

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