Punggai Trip Astrophotography (7 - 9 Aug 2010)

[orly_andico]

hi stuart,

1) I did a horrific amount of stretching, hence all the noise.

Took too few subs (got bored with the mandatory DFS).

Anyway it's still "success" for me as I've never done this before, have to start somewhere..

2) did not know the K-x has mandatory DFS > 30 seconds

the K20 has mandatory DFS > 0.3 seconds! :-(

Got this from Pentax Forum:
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pent ... phy-2.html

the M31 in that thread is as much as I can hope for :-) 55x 30s with K-x. I can live with that..

3) I knew I should've stopped down the macro lens.. but as usual got lazy (it was around 4:30 a.m. already at the time.. and the sand flies were murdering me)


4) I also see that the coma is uneven over the field of the WO70. I believe the sensor is not square to the tube (probably the fault of my cheapo T-mount, since the WO focuser is quite beefy). The K20D is quite heavy.


5) I was thinking of using the Orion reducer on my Orion f/9 scope :-) and use the WO70 as a guider (I already tried that before with a Toucam and it worked great). Although both of my shots above were unguided, seems if I stick with 30-second subs I should be OK...

having a K-x would also ensure that i (still) have a camera when my wife wants to go bug-hunting (which is the reason i have a 100mm macro!)

[cloud_cover]

A quick run with DSS on my laptop, no further editing done except conversion to jpg in Photoshop elements (trial)

M6 and M7 cluster
Nikon D700, 70-200mmVR2 with TC20E-3, 140mm, f8.0, ISO 12500
On non-tracking photo tripod.
68 x 2 sec subs



140mm was a mistake: Intended to zoom to 400mm but in the darkness didn't notice the zoom was at 70mm instead of 200mm!

[Gary]

Nice Butterfly!

[fizzy123]

A photoshopped photo of Cassiopeia-Cepheus-Cygnus region
Can see the milky way in this region

[guangwei]

nice picture. can see cygnus at the left and cassiopeia at the right bottom

[cloud_cover]

M31 and M113,
Taken on Nikon D700, ISO 6400,
86 x 20s light frames, 5 x 20s dark frames
(Tracking Mount courtesy of Orly - Thanks bro!!!)
70-200mm VR2 with TC20e-3 at 400mm, f8.0



Looks noisy, been trying ways and means to reduce it. Sigh! Need more exposures at lower ISOs

[orly_andico]

much better!!! this is a very good effort if I may say so myself...

this goes to show... more subs! although given the # of subs you've taken (almost 30 minutes total!) the image should be Hubble-like already :-D

more processing will probably make Hubble come out..!

also something to note... the Vixen GP was not polar aligned at all ("eye ball aligned") but the stars are still round. so auto-guiding is not absolutely necessary. I suspect an even simpler mount would still do, makes a good grab-and-go imaging rig.

[Gary]

Nice pic! Thanks for sharing. This is much better use of your time than YOGing.

[cloud_cover]

Gary --> Yeah, but YOGing pays my bills. Taking pics only gets me compliments and advice. Nice but can't fill the tummy *grin*
Orly --> Eh, don't think Hubble will come out lah. After all, my 77mm ED lens is no match for a 2350mm RC, even with the large central obstruction!!

[orly_andico]

cloud_cover, check the pentaxforums link...

there's a very impression M31 there which had less exposure time than yours, plus APS-C / DX camera only.

so you have the data for something like that...! just need to post-process it some more...