First steps in astro..

[stemlett]

I'm normally a bird photographer and long dark nights means more limited opportunities so I decided to have a go at astrophotography. I captured 30 odd images of the Orion Nebula, some dark frames and then followed a few tutorials on YouTube about stacking and processing using PixInsight and I have to say I think I'm hooked I'm really pleased with how this one came out.

The virtual absence of clear skies is a distinct source of frustration . Althought this is mitigated by the hours you can spend processing the images...

 

[Richard A]

What camera and lens did you use here? Also what exposure details? It's a good time for Orion here at the moment but unfortunately, from the area I'm in you're looking towards light pollution to try to capture it. I need to do a bit more reconnaissance...

 

[stemlett]

What camera and lens did you use here? Also what exposure details? It's a good time for Orion here at the moment but unfortunately, from the area I'm in you're looking towards light pollution to try to capture it. I need to do a bit more reconnaissance...

Hi Richard,

I stacked 30 images from my Sony A7RIV using a 70-200mm F2.8 at 200mm (quite a large crop but I've got a few megapixels to work with). 30 second exposures at ISO400. I have a Skar Adventurer GTI for tracking.

 

[evacguy]

I'm normally a bird photographer and long dark nights means more limited opportunities so I decided to have a go at astrophotography. I captured 30 odd images of the Orion Nebula, some dark frames and then followed a few tutorials on YouTube about stacking and processing using PixInsight and I have to say I think I'm hooked I'm really pleased with how this one came out.

The virtual absence of clear skies is a distinct source of frustration . Althought this is mitigated by the hours you can spend processing the images...


View attachment 70421

That looks great. Did you have any trouble setting up the tracker? Where did you take the images? Do you know the Bortle number of the location?

 

[stemlett]

That looks great. Did you have any trouble setting up the tracker? Where did you take the images? Do you know the Bortle number of the location?

I was in a layby in the middle of nowhere between Scarborough and Whitby here in the UK. Having just looked it up, I think it is a Bortle 4 area.

The tracker drives me nuts; once I've got something correct it seems to track ok but setting up seems very hit and miss. The night before last was absolutely cloudless and I spent 2 hours trying to get the thing setup. I did the polar alignment and then did a 1 star aligment process where I choose Jupiter (one thing I'm reasonably confident in identifying ) and made a few adjustments and stored them. I then tried to go to a nebula and it didn't seem quite right. I told it to go back to Jupiter and it was miles out. Tried to go back to Polaris and it ended up pointing down to the ground . I retried polar aligning switch mount on and off etc. before binning it and coming home.

I then read that the SynScan Pro app stores a sky model and it's best to shut the app down and restart it which I tried last night. I got the alignment, set to Jupiter and then tried to go to Bode's Galaxy. Once again it was miles away. Told it to go back to Jupiter and again, nowhere near. Started from scratch, went to Jupiter and this time went to Pleiades as they're very close. That seemed ok and I got some images which tracked pretty well but if I have to go to anything that's not a short distance away I seem to struggle.

I'm probably doing something wrong but it's compounded by my lack of knowledge of the sky. If it doesn't track very near to where the actual object is, I don't know enough about the surrounding stars to determine how far out I am. More star map homework to do...

Sorry about the long post but I feel better for it

 

[evacguy]

I was in a layby in the middle of nowhere between Scarborough and Whitby here in the UK. Having just looked it up, I think it is a Bortle 4 area.

The tracker drives me nuts; once I've got something correct it seems to track ok but setting up seems very hit and miss. The night before last was absolutely cloudless and I spent 2 hours trying to get the thing setup. I did the polar alignment and then did a 1 star aligment process where I choose Jupiter (one thing I'm reasonably confident in identifying ) and made a few adjustments and stored them. I then tried to go to a nebula and it didn't seem quite right. I told it to go back to Jupiter and it was miles out. Tried to go back to Polaris and it ended up pointing down to the ground . I retried polar aligning switch mount on and off etc. before binning it and coming home.

I then read that the SynScan Pro app stores a sky model and it's best to shut the app down and restart it which I tried last night. I got the alignment, set to Jupiter and then tried to go to Bode's Galaxy. Once again it was miles away. Told it to go back to Jupiter and again, nowhere near. Started from scratch, went to Jupiter and this time went to Pleiades as they're very close. That seemed ok and I got some images which tracked pretty well but if I have to go to anything that's not a short distance away I seem to struggle.

I'm probably doing something wrong but it's compounded by my lack of knowledge of the sky. If it doesn't track very near to where the actual object is, I don't know enough about the surrounding stars to determine how far out I am. More star map homework to do...

Sorry about the long post but I feel better for it

HI Simon, don't be sorry, that is great info. I've been thinking of getting a tracker for some time now, but haven't taken the plunge yet. I think setting it up will be quite challenging, especially here in London. It sounds like you haven't got polar alignment right, could that be the problem?

 

[stemlett]

HI Simon, don't be sorry, that is great info. I've been thinking of getting a tracker for some time now, but haven't taken the plunge yet. I think setting it up will be quite challenging, especially here in London. It sounds like you haven't got polar alignment right, could that be the problem?

That's what I suspect but I'm reasonably confident I've aligned properly on Polaris with the scope etc. I seem to be missing something about the home position of the tracker itself and whether that is persisted in the app somewhere. I also found a table of alignments that are retained and so deleted those and found out that you have to remove the app from memory not just close it. Before the next session, I think I'll uninstall the app and start from scratch because I've probably changed numerous settings out of frustration...