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cheap 30$ 70mm F6 refractor doublet with a canon SL1/100D DSLR camera
I attempted to shoot triangulum galaxy. but it seemed no matter what I did. no matter how many times I aligned to stars or how perfect I leveled my tripod and mount I couldn't get more than 5 second exposures without trailing.
and I still had to throw out half of the frames I took. only got 63 out of 122 frames
this is the result. I could upload the raw stack if anyones interested in trying to get more out of it. but I think this is pretty much already pushing the image too far. its so faint.
Attachments
Svbony SV503 70mm ED F6 420mm FL refractor telescope (New)
Canon EOS 100D/SL1
Tamron 18-200mm F3.5-F6.3 II VC lens
canon 50mm STM F1.8
svbony 8-24mm zoom eyepiece
svbony goldline 66 degree 9mm and 6mm + 40mm plossl + 2x barlow.
svbony UHC 1.25 filter + astromania 1.25" O-3 filter + also an svbony H-B filter.
Working with an 8-bit screen grab, you can pull "something" out of the image that sorta looks like a galaxy. However, I wouldn't expect much from a 5 minute exposure using a 70mm scope.
The stars look nice, so if you add some additional exposure time, you should end up with a good looking image.
Welcome to astrophotography! I also started with an alt-azgoto mount (Nexstar 4SE), and a Canon DSLR. The Triangulum galaxy was also my first target! By the way that is a really tough target because the portions of the galaxy away from the core are pretty dim.
I expect that your biggest problem is your mount. The alt-az mounts are primarily designed for visual observations and they work well for that because they keep the target in the center of the FOV. However, their tracking can be rather "jumpy" which is a problem for imaging. With the Nexstar mount I would get about 30-50% good frames with 30 sec exposures. The bad frames had elongated stars caused by the poor tracking not the polar alignment. I expect you are having the same problem. The only real solution I found was to purchase an equatorial mount designed for astrophotography.
Longer exposures will significantly improve your final stacked image quality if you can get enough good ones.
Good luck and have fun.
Steve
Steve King: Light Pollution (Bortle 5)
Telescope + Mount + Guiding: W.O. Star71-ii + iOptron CEM40 EC + Orion Magnificent Mini AutoGuider
Camera: ASI 1600MM Pro + EFW Filter Wheel + Chroma 3nm Siii, Ha, Oiii + ZWO LRGB Filters
Software: PHD2; APT; PixInsight ***** My AP website: www.steveking.pictures