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Kanadalainen
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Post by Kanadalainen »


January 6, 2019

TIme: 20:00 to 23:00
Goal: To try to capture M42 and M43 to add to my Messier photo challenge list.
Temp: -9*C
40 km wind from the North (brrr....)
Locale: My backyard, suburbs of Winnipeg, Bortle 8
Seeing: Good
Transparency: Fair to Good

Gear: 14.5" dob - 11mm ES82, 18mm ES82 ep
Camera and mount: Ioptron skyguider pro mount on a vintage wooden Vixen tripod, Canon 60D, Optolong cls-ccd filter in the body of the camera (to control lp)
Lens: Rokinon 135mm f/2

As promised I am determined to get more visual astro in this new year and thus far the skies have been OK. :) The winds were up a bit from the north but my planner said I had a clear patch until midnight. I moved all my stuff from the sunroom (or should I call this my staging area?) out to the patio.

My partner checked out my winter astro clothing, and gave grudging approval to hoodie, puffer down jacket, overalls, felt mitts and felt lined boots. I may have resembled a pastry puppet! :lol:

I quickly did a check of M42 in the dobsonian, to check seeing and transparency. I could see the trapezium without difficulty at 92x but the E and especially F stars were winking in and out of my visual. Thus the sky conditions were nowhere near as good as they were earlier in the week. The nebulosity of M42 was still very prominent.

My camera was loaded with a new filter, the Optolong cls filter for light pollution. This was first light for this filter! A real test, too, because the LP is so bad in this part of my town.

I did a polar alignment using the built in finder in the SGP mount, and put Polaris at the 5 o'clock position on my grid. Then I fastened the camera and counterbalance assembly to the mount and used my red dot finder to locate the rough locale of M42. I spent about 15 minutes trying to get focus. NOTE TO SELF: I am nearsighted, so in the future I will take off my glasses to focus, using the live view at high resolution. This time I kept my glasses on, but my prescription has become too powerful, and so my sight for close work without them is much better.

I carried out a few ranging shots to find my target and focus.... WTH!!! The stars were trails... BIG trails. :shock: Oh hell, I had set the mount to track in the Southern Hemisphere!! :dance: :sigh: :lol: After some mumbling, cussing and laughing at myself, I redid the polar alignment just for fun and reset the mount to track for Northern targets, and bingo, nice round stars.

With the intervalometer set to capture 20 lights, I used settings of 640 ISO, 30 second exposures, x 20. At these settings I found that the LP did not swamp the frame. I could go to 800 but didn't like the result. I tried to expose for 180 seconds but again was overexposing. No doubt I would get better quality shots in darker skies with 180" to 300" exposures. That kind of thing will have to wait for my dark site.

Thus begins my blog and journey to capture all of the 110 Messier objects. I hope this one can count towards that goal despite the wide FOV??? My good lens at present is only 135mm, so the objects are quite tiny.

The image below is a single exposure with my 135mm Rokinon manual lens, 30 sec, ISO 640, Bortle 8 (heavily light polluted skies) in fair to good skies, Optolong cls-ccd (in-camera) filter, Canon 60D unmodified for spectrum.

Thanks for reading from the bottom.
January 6 2019 M42 jpg backyard.jpg
Ian

Fracs: Stellarvue 70T f6; SW 120mm Esprit f7; "Mark Mk. II" - 60 mm Tasco f6; C80 frac f 11.4
SCT: C8 Edge f10 or f7 with reducer
Dob: 14.5" homebuilt strut dob (f4.5 ZOC mirror), Nexus II, Moonlite focuser
Mounts - Ioptron Skyguider pro, Astro Physics GTO900
Cameras and lenses - ZWO 2600 mc, 290 mm mini, Canon 60D modded with Rokinon 10mm 2.8; Rokinon 135mm f2

Skysafari 6 Pro, Astro Pixel Processor, Pixinsight - using Mac tablet and ASIair pro to run the AP rig.

"Mothers! It is there!" - Rafael Gonzales-Acuna, 2018.
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prowler75
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Post by prowler75 »


Very cool photo, Ian! I really like the wide shot of M42.
Craig
Telescopes: Zhumell Z12, Orion XT8, Explore Scientific FL-AR127/1200, Celestron Omni XLT AZ 102, Tasco 8v
Eyepieces: GSO 30mm, Explore Scientific 70° 25mm, 82° 18mm, 11mm, 8.8mm, 6.5mm. KK Orthos 12mm and 9mm
Binoculars: Oberwerk 15x70
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Ozypic
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Post by Ozypic »


Great shot Ian , I also enjoy the wide view shots. Good luck with your quest ! Remember your pics only have to please you. Phill
Phill. Dreaming of Clear Skys .... :D :D :D
SCOPE : Skywatcher 120X600 ST Achromatic Refractor. 
EP's : 25mm & 10mm Plossl , Celestron 8/24mm Zoom EP,
Filters : Solar filter, Badder Fringe Killer & Moon/Skyglow. 
MOUNT : Skywatcher Star Discovery goto Mount.
CAMERAS : ZWO 120 asi MC. / Sony HX400V 50X Zoom.
Binoculars : Saxon 10x50
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Bigzmey United States of America
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Post by Bigzmey »


Good start to the photo Messier! Are you getting a longer lens or switching to a scope at some point? Most of Messiers are small.
Scopes: Stellarvue: SV102ED; Celestron: 9.25" EdgeHD, 8" SCT, 150ST, Onyx 80ED; iOptron: Hankmeister 6" Mak; SW: 7" Mak; Meade: 80ST.
Mounts: SW: SkyTee2, AzGTi; iOptron: AZMP; ES: Twilight I; Bresser: EXOS2; UA: MicroStar.
Binos: APM: 100-90 APO; Canon: IS 15x50; Orion: Binoviewer, LG II 15x70, WV 10x50, Nikon: AE 16x50, 10x50, 8x40.
EPs: Pentax: XWs & XFs; TeleVue: Delites, Panoptic & Plossls; ES: 68, 62; Vixen: SLVs; Baader: BCOs, Aspherics, Mark IV.
Diagonals: Baader: BBHS mirror, Zeiss Spec T2 prism, Clicklock dielectric; TeleVue: Evebrite dielectric; AltairAstro: 2" prism.
Filters: Lumicon: DeepSky, UHC, OIII, H-beta; Baader: Moon & SkyGlow, Contrast Booster, UHC-S, 6-color set; Astronomik: UHC.

Observing: DSOs: 3106 (Completed: Messier, Herschel 1, 2, 3. In progress: H2,500: 2180, S110: 77). Doubles: 2382, Comets: 34, Asteroids: 255
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Post by Don Quixote »


Nice one Ian. 👍
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bladekeeper
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Post by bladekeeper »


Awesome, Ian!
Bryan
Scopes: Apertura AD12 f/5; Celestron C6-R f/8; ES AR127 f/6.4; Stellarvue SV102T f/7; iOptron MC90 f/13.3; Orion ST80A f/5; ES ED80 f/6; Celestron Premium 80 f/11.4; Celestron C80 f/11.4; Unitron Model 142 f/16; Meade NG60 f/10
Mounts: Celestron AVX; Bresser EXOS-2; ES Twilight I; ES Twilight II; iOptron Cube-G; AZ3/wood tripod; Vixen Polaris
Binoculars: Pentax PCF WP II 10×50, Bresser Corvette 10×50, Bresser Hunter 16×50 and 8×40, Garrett Gemini 12×60 LW, Gordon 10×50, Apogee 20×100

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pakarinen United States of America
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Post by pakarinen »


Nice!
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I drink tea, I read books, I look at stars when I'm not cursing clouds. It's what I do.
=============================================================================
AT50, AT72EDII, ST80, ST102; Scopetech Zero, AZ-GTi, AZ Pronto; Innorel RT90C, Oberwerk 5000; Orion Giantview 15x70s, Vortex 8x42s, Navy surplus 7x50s, Nikon 10x50s
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Kanadalainen
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Post by Kanadalainen »


pakarinen wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 2:17 pmNice!
bladekeeper wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 4:50 am Awesome, Ian!
Don Quixote wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 12:14 am Nice one Ian. 👍
Ozypic wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:17 pm Great shot Ian , I also enjoy the wide view shots. Good luck with your quest ! Remember your pics only have to please you. Phill
bladekeeper wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2020 4:50 am Awesome, Ian!
Bigzmey wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 11:19 pm Good start to the photo Messier! Are you getting a longer lens or switching to a scope at some point? Most of Messiers are small.
prowler75 wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2020 10:14 pm Very cool photo, Ian! I really like the wide shot of M42.



Thanks everyone! :D

Phill - yes - very wise words. I am pleased, and note there is room for more.

Andrey - Yes, I need more focal length! My first thought was to adapt the vintage Celestron 80... but it may be too much for the SGP mount.

So..I am struggling between the choice of a small Stellarvue triplet or a Sigma 150-600 zoom lens. Both are the similar expense, but the Stellarvue might yield sharper views and images. I will need something much bigger than 135 to get the Messiers, definitely.

Darker skies make for great wide shots, but in the city, one can cover the basics. The cls filter gives me the chance to practice and hone my basic AP.

Any opinions (on scope/lens choice) are welcome!

I will try stacking lights, darks, bias and flats in DSS today and report back.

Thanks for all the encouraging words. Much appreciated.
Ian

Fracs: Stellarvue 70T f6; SW 120mm Esprit f7; "Mark Mk. II" - 60 mm Tasco f6; C80 frac f 11.4
SCT: C8 Edge f10 or f7 with reducer
Dob: 14.5" homebuilt strut dob (f4.5 ZOC mirror), Nexus II, Moonlite focuser
Mounts - Ioptron Skyguider pro, Astro Physics GTO900
Cameras and lenses - ZWO 2600 mc, 290 mm mini, Canon 60D modded with Rokinon 10mm 2.8; Rokinon 135mm f2

Skysafari 6 Pro, Astro Pixel Processor, Pixinsight - using Mac tablet and ASIair pro to run the AP rig.

"Mothers! It is there!" - Rafael Gonzales-Acuna, 2018.
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Kanadalainen
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#9

Post by Kanadalainen »


M42 - Jan 6 2020 135mm.jpg

This is my stacked result. Most of my lights were overexposed and I could have used much better focus. :D Its a journey.

I used DSS and finished up with Lightroom 2019.

Cheers
Ian

Fracs: Stellarvue 70T f6; SW 120mm Esprit f7; "Mark Mk. II" - 60 mm Tasco f6; C80 frac f 11.4
SCT: C8 Edge f10 or f7 with reducer
Dob: 14.5" homebuilt strut dob (f4.5 ZOC mirror), Nexus II, Moonlite focuser
Mounts - Ioptron Skyguider pro, Astro Physics GTO900
Cameras and lenses - ZWO 2600 mc, 290 mm mini, Canon 60D modded with Rokinon 10mm 2.8; Rokinon 135mm f2

Skysafari 6 Pro, Astro Pixel Processor, Pixinsight - using Mac tablet and ASIair pro to run the AP rig.

"Mothers! It is there!" - Rafael Gonzales-Acuna, 2018.
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