As newbie as it gets

[sebasb21]

Hi,

So you will have to have some patience here, i hope this is a good place to post this.

I have Celestron reflector on a crappy mount (i think the worst is the mount). I managed to take a couple of shots of the Moon tonight. I will share the best one (i think). This is a single frame, very fast, high ISO (did i mention my crappy mount trembles if my neighbour sneezes?).

The idea of this post is to ask any kind soul to get a look and see if there is something clearly wrong with it and tell me what can i do differently to improve this image. I'm trying to get familiarised with mount and scope, getting ready to try my hand at fine tuning the polar alignment and tracking so i can start to stack images (i guess). The moon is the first objective cause it's easy to find and i can do it from my backyard!.

Most of the pictures i see around are already processed so i cannot compare and point to specific issues.

The scope is an Astromaster 130eq, i have a 2x barlow and a Nikon D3100 on t adapter. Im shooting from my backyard with a lot of light pollution.

I think i have some chromatic aberration from my "achromatic" 2x barlow.

I also have a couple of questions:

1) Someone knows any way to remote shoot a D3100? currently using 10s timer, but i cannot automatically shoot more than one.
2) any settings to try that would improve the image?

astro_1 by Sebastian Boccard, on Flickr

Thanks!
Seb

[Don Quixote]

I Am not sure if this will work for you. Take a look it is not expensive. And yes it will help you shoot.

The biggest thing I see is the image is not in focus.

Nothing to be ashamed about it is a good beginning.


What setting did you have the camera on for this image?
Iso
Shutter speed.

Amazon.com : Neewer Digital DSLR Camera 16CH Wireless Shutter Release Remote Control for Nikon D5100, D3100, D7000, D5000, D90 : Camera Shutter Release Cords : Camera & Photo

[sebasb21]

That one is 1/250 iso 3200.

About the focus, the best i could do was to use LV, zoom on a crater border and take a guess. i don't think i will be able to improve that, i think my heart rate was moving the setup just by touching the focuser. Movement made that very difficult. Through the viewfinder the image was a lot crispier but without zoom it gave worse results.

Could i have something bad with the mirrors? i really think that was the best i could do (focusing).

About the remote, what can i tell you !!! i really missed that on Amazon!!!! for some reason my search was filtering all those out!! Thanks! i think i will try it, not expensive.

I also have to find some way to stabilise the mount, if nothing to be able to focus more comfortably.

[ARock]

For Focus, a Bahtinov Mask would help.

Look for a Nikon D3100 intervalometer for wired versions of remotes.

You could also connect a laptop to your camera and take pictures using software. Most of these softwares are paid, although some are free. The Camera does have to supported by the software so you have to do some research before you buy.

Solar system objects are bright, so exposure needed is less. People normally take videos and use post processing software to extract frames from the video and combine them. Look for software like Registax,Autostakkert.

If you want to go beyond Moon and Planets with your mount, you will need a smaller/lighter scope. The mismatch in your setup for longer exposure AP, is that the scope is too heavy for the mount. You could try just mounting your DSLR on the mount with a camera lens, and trying wide angle night shots to start. You would need a motor drive attached to the mount for this.

AstroPhotography is a high budget hobby, but you can still use your setup to learn most of the basics of AP, like polar alignment, exposure, post processing and even guiding if you are determined.

[Thefatkitty]

Hi Seb, great start! Yeah, the mount doesn't help. Also, try it without the barlow. It will just enhance the shakes, plus focus will be easier without it. The craters will also look more defined on zoom mode with the camera, trust me

You might want to lower your ISO and exposure time too. At least experiment with differnt settings on that; you'll find what works best. For example, I have a Canon T3, I set it to ISO 1600, and exposure times of 1/100-160 for a thin crescent to 1/800-1000 for a full Moon. It's seriously reflective

AR's post above makes a good point; PIPP, Autostakkert and Registax would be beneficial. All free and pretty easy to use. As for guiding/tracking, with the Moon you don't need that. It's the ultimate target for budget AP

Hope this helps, good job, and all the best,

[sebasb21]

All the software i could find to control D3100 via a PC do not have remote firing, cause i think D3100 Nikon's SDK does not allows it. But gonna check again.

[mention]ARock[/mention] you say i don't need tracking for the moon, does the stacking software tracks the object? or i would need to do that manually after?

About mounting the DSLR you are absolutely right, am waiting for an adapter to mount the camera directly i have a 18 to 300mm range of lenses to try. Is VR useful in this kind of setup?

The idea is exactly what you mention get to know the basics, become efficient at using mount, scopes, cameras and give it a try before starting to spend hundreds on gadgets (i may find yet that i just don't enjoy it so much!)...... right now everything takes me ages cause i keep making mistakes, but there is no other way to learn.

[mention]Thefatkitty[/mention] I tried a lot of combinations of iso/shutter speed settings. I was going faster on the shutter to try and reduce movement on the frame, you maybe right about those settings i will try to narrow them down.

About the barlow, is the only way i managed to reach the focal plane with the current focuser and my camera. Directly i can't get close enough. I also tried eyepiece projection (i think that's what is called) but the "mechanics" of all the pieces is not easy at the moment and haven't been able to reach focus either (i may be doing something wrong here).

Any idea on how to make the focuser more "stiff" is too easy to move....

Thanks all for the comments, i will try all the recommendations and see what happens. Wishing clear skies for the 15th (as easy as the lottery here), i will try to catch the ISS transit, it will be very close to the horizon i think, but who knows!!!

Seb

[Mac]

Doesn't Snapbridge work with your D3100 or is it not supported. Possibly you don't have a smart phone to run it?

I would get an intervalometer and as others have mentioned, lower your iso and faster shutter speed. Light pollution and lack of tracking won't affect your shots here. Last night I used iso400 1/640 and the Moon was fairly steady without a lot of shimmering.

Murphy is a friend to us all in AP, sometime he never visits during a session and other times it's like he is the one shooting.

Keep trying, you're on the right path.

[sebasb21]

Who doesn't have a smartphone this days...... sadly Snapbridge is for 3400 or 3500 not 3100 (3100 is getting very old now)

[Mac]

Who doesn't have a smartphone this days...... sadly Snapbridge is for 3400 or 3500 not 3100 (3100 is getting very old now)

My mom doesn't.

Snapbridge mostly works for me but I could never count on it working in the field when you really need it.

[ARock]

All the software i could find to control D3100 via a PC do not have remote firing, cause i think D3100 Nikon's SDK does not allows it. But gonna check again.

Look at DigiCamControl, it might get you started if you are on windows. If you are familiar with the linux/raspberry pi, you can use gphoto2 on it to control the camera. It is possible that Bulb mode (longer than 30s exposures) will not work from a computer for the D3100, you would need an intervalometer for that, or build a special cable.

@ARock you say i don't need tracking for the moon, does the stacking software tracks the object? or i would need to do that manually after?

The biggest use of tracking is to keep the camera at the same spot "during" the exposure. As the moon exposures are very small, this is not a problem. The other use is to keep it roughly in the same place for multiple shots. Tracking will help for this, but you can recompose with roughly the same framing. Registaxx and Autostakkert stack the frames using alignment multiple points on the moon's surface to align the individual shots, so accurate tracking between shots is not as important.
You can even take a video as the moon drifts through your FOV (take multiple such videos) feed it to Registaxx/Autostakkert. It will extract frames, align them for you, for the part common to all/most of the frames. Look for some tutorials on youtube for these.

About mounting the DSLR you are absolutely right, am waiting for an adapter to mount the camera directly i have a 18 to 300mm range of lenses to try. Is VR useful in this kind of setup?

You could also try a 70mm/80mm short tube refractor like the one in my signature. These are achromats and will have some CA, but are inexpensive and light.

The are various ways to reduce vibration. You could keep the legs unextended, tighten the bolts at the joints, hang a weight from the spreader, use a stone bag etc. Lower focal length shots with less exposure are more forgiving.
Do you have a RA motor drive for the mount? If you are the hobby electronics type, it is not very hard to build one yourself, these days you don't even have to solder anything . Mounting it can be a challenge though. Building one yourself helps you in the future if/when you add guiding.

The idea is exactly what you mention get to know the basics, become efficient at using mount, scopes, cameras and give it a try before starting to spend hundreds on gadgets (i may find yet that i just don't enjoy it so much!)...... right now everything takes me ages cause i keep making mistakes, but there is no other way to learn.

If you are looking at taking longer exposure DSO pics with the camera, one of the first thing to understand is image scales (arc sec/pixel).
https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/ imaging mode will help you with that.
Given experimentation with the accuracy of polar alignment and tracking of your mount, this will help determine, how long an exposure to try, which in turn will help you decide what ISO to use.

Good luck !

[sebasb21]

Tried Autostakker and managed to stack some frames from a quick video i took from the same session. Really impressed! It managed to improve quite a bit so i'm hopeful for the next session. The auto alignment is way better than i expected to be, really good.

No joy with Registax 6, buggy as hell or maybe the options are not correctly set, it just hangs there doing nothing. Could not run a single stacking. I still have to watch how to's and read guides so maybe is just ignorance.

This is gonna get fun soon.

Seb