First Try at DSO and Orion

[Ed217]

Had planned to do this at home tonight, but saw an E-Mail notice about club members at a nearby site tonight, so packed up and went. Had some equipment issues, but finally managed to get one mostly reasonable shot. Taken with a single shot at 30 seconds, ISO 4000, Nikon D5600 on Celestron 8SE with F6.3 focal reducer.

[Ken_nneth]

Great start, stay with it.
Clear Skies

[Gordon]

Congratulations Ed on having your image selected as todays TSS APOD!!

app.php/article/2-23-2020-tss-astrophot ... of-the-day

[Dragonsfire]

Great Capture

[Makuser]

Hello Ed. You have a beautiful M42 Nebula image here for a single shot. Nice details and colors with the Celestron 8SE with F6.3 focal reducer. Thanks for sharing this capture with us Ed, and congratulations on winning the TSS APOD Award.

[Greenman]

Nice one Ed.

[helicon]

Look beautiful Ed. Thanks for sharing the pic and congrats on winning today's award.

[Ed217]

I have a question for those more experienced in long exposures. Many of the larger star dots have a "trail" that seems to lead towards the lower right. They almost look like a second smaller start attached very close. Is this a star trails effect, or some other issue with the shot?

[Ken_nneth]

Could be several things.
Tracking - 30s should not be a problem but you never know.
Collimation can also create this and should be worse towards the edges.
Vibrations from things like wind.
Keep going you’ll find out when you get some more images under your belt.
Cleara Skies

[Kerry C.]

Congratulation Ed, nice photo!
It looks like you and I are starting this AP journey about the same time and with the same equipment.
Which of the alignment options did you use using your hand controller?
Kerry

[StarGazer45]

Congratulations on the beautiful capture Ed! :Clap:

[jthommes]

Looks great. Nice to come away with some data while you get the equipment behaving.

[Valen]

For a single shot. Looks very nice. Your focal reducer makes a nice full image. I just ordered my reducer for my C14. I do have some good shot of M42. Will be nice to get full image.

[Kanadalainen]

Beautiful!! Nice job.

[Ed217]

Congratulation Ed, nice photo!
It looks like you and I are starting this AP journey about the same time and with the same equipment.
Which of the alignment options did you use using your hand controller?
Kerry

I had various issues that night. I had to resync my focus scope first and ended up using Venus for that.

I think I used the one star alignment approach with Sirius. I ended up with about 4 single shots that night before it got very cold. The last one looked good, so I packed it all in.

Ed

[Ed217]

Meant finder scope...