IC 405 Partial Image in Auriga

[TerryMcK]

Yes it sounds like an upgrade is in the near future - lots of nice scopes out there but new ones are proving difficult to buy at the moment - the Altair scopes look very good. I'm not familiar with your Meade but maybe somebody else could suggest something that could lock the focus.

[gabs]

4 minutes ago, Padraic M said:

Unfortunately for us all, the result can ALWAYS be improved massively with a different scope, mount, camera, focuser, filters, cables, software, location, filter wheel, guide scope, guide cam, adaptive optics, low-earth orbit, etc. etc. etc. and it never seems to stop! 🙂

The secret is to a) find out the best you can do with whatever equipment you currently have and b) is there one change/purchase that you can make, that would give you a good value-for-money improvement?

At the early days, you will find that almost every aspect of your setup needs to be improved a little to give what you might consider to be acceptable results. 

First things first though - you managed to capture the target. No mean feat; and there's no point in having a perfect technical image if the target isn't in it! You can see the Auriga Ladder (marked in Red below) and the U-shaped asterism around AE-Aurigae, the star that gives the nebula its colour. I ran those lights and calibration frames through APP to see what could be seen. This is from 65 seconds of exposure.

 

 

The rough outline of the nebula is shown in green on the right (reminds me a bit of Africa, or Barney the Dinosaur :-) ). You've also managed to capture some of IC410 the Tadpoles on the left. This is a great part of the sky with so much to see. This is also why it's a little hard to process, as there's very little natural sky that doesn't have any nebulosity in it, that could be used as a reference background colour. 

 

Focus could definitely be improved, but I've always found it difficult to focus a DSLR. An electronic focuser is a game changer, but acceptable results can be achieved manually with great patience.

 

You've also got a strong diagonal gradient (brightness in top-right of your image) that doesn't look like nebulosity to me - probably light pollution, that could be removed in PS or Gimp; and some vignetting (dark/black corners). Flats are supposed to remove this so might be worth retrying the DSS stacking process or your flat captures. Your flats look ok but don't seem to be compensating enough.

 

I'd love to see what could be done with the full 20 minutes of lights. Remind me again of the lens/scope you're using?

 

 

it's nice to see that not everything I've done is wrong.

At this early stage for me it's important to achieve some result step by step consider the fact that I bought my telescope not for astrophotography but just for observing ( tbh i didn't know what astrophoto meant until i found this forum one month ago ! )

My scope is a Meade ETX 80 mm refractor F/5 and I am using a DSLR canon 1200d.

 

I like to see that my post here are getting longer and longer ...I hope that another beginner like me would find the info here precious so he/she can avoid my same mistake !

 

[GazAstro]

2 hours ago, gabs said:

it's nice to see that not everything I've done is wrong.

At this early stage for me it's important to achieve some result step by step consider the fact that I bought my telescope not for astrophotography but just for observing ( tbh i didn't know what astrophoto meant until i found this forum one month ago ! )

My scope is a Meade ETX 80 mm refractor F/5 and I am using a DSLR canon 1200d.

 

I like to see that my post here are getting longer and longer ...I hope that another beginner like me would find the info here precious so he/she can avoid my same mistake !

 

Well said ... it's a journey and we're all on it !

[gabs]

1 minute ago, GazAstro said:

Well said ... it's a journey and we're all on it !

Thanks , sometimes I think it's more an odyssey ...A space odyssey!

[Padraic M]

... and sometimes I think HAL runs my rig!

[AstronomyUkraine]

6 hours ago, gabs said:

I don't have a field flattern but not so sure is convenience for me to purchase or rather gat a different scope ..maybe with a spreader mount and a focuse locker. that i guess will imporve a lot my image.

What scope do you currently own?

[gabs]

12 minutes ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

What scope do you currently own?

Meade ETX 80 refractor the same that is on my profile picture. 

is it any good? 
gabs

[AstronomyUkraine]

12 minutes ago, gabs said:

Meade ETX 80 refractor the same that is on my profile picture. 

is it any good? 
gabs

The ETX 80 is a great scope for visual work, or taking shots of the moon with a video camera, but with the mount being an alt-azimuth mount, it won't cut it for astrophography and long exposures. For long exposures you really need a German Equatorial Mount.

Edited April 21, 2021 by AstronomyUkraine

[gabs]

3 minutes ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

The ETX 80 is a great scope for visual work, or taking shots of the moon with a video camera, but with the mount being an alt-azimuth mount, it won't cut it for astrophography and long exposures. For long exposures you really need a German Equatorial Mount.

Yes I think I agree I have already seen that my scope doesn’t keep more than 13/15 sec exposure. I will dig on market an alternative.

 

thank you

[AstronomyUkraine]

1 minute ago, gabs said:

Yes I think I agree I have already seen that my scope doesn’t keep more than 13/15 sec exposure. I will dig on market an alternative.

 

thank you

A mount with goto is preferable, but they can get quite heavy compared to the ETX, if you are looking for a mobile rig.

[gabs]

1 minute ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

A mount with goto is preferable, but they can get quite heavy compared to the ETX, if you are looking for a mobile rig.

So a German equatorial mount basically use a polar alignment rather than the 3 stars I am using now that allows me to keep longer exposure without having the star trails.

Am I wrong?

[AstronomyUkraine]

1 minute ago, gabs said:

So a German equatorial mount basically use a polar alignment rather than the 3 stars I am using now that allows me to keep longer exposure without having the star trails.

Am I wrong?

All mounts need polar alignment, the closer the better. Good polar alignment will eliminate a lot of problems, and allow for longer exposures. 3 star alignment makes it easier for the goto to find objects in the sky, and should be used at the beginning of each session. The German equatorial mount also eliminates field rotation that is prevalent with Alt/Az mounts.

[gabs]

34 minutes ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

All mounts need polar alignment, the closer the better. Good polar alignment will eliminate a lot of problems, and allow for longer exposures. 3 star alignment makes it easier for the goto to find objects in the sky, and should be used at the beginning of each session. The German equatorial mount also eliminates field rotation that is prevalent with Alt/Az mounts.

 Makes perfectly sense thanks! 

[AstronomyUkraine]

20 minutes ago, gabs said:

 Makes perfectly sense thanks! 

No problem. The mount is the most important piece of equipment with astrophotography, buy the best you can afford. A good telescope is just an ornament on a bad mount, but a cheap telescope will still take reasonable images on a good mount.

[gabs]

33 minutes ago, AstronomyUkraine said:

No problem. The mount is the most important piece of equipment with astrophotography, buy the best you can afford. A good telescope is just an ornament on a bad mount, but a cheap telescope will still take reasonable images on a good mount.

I don’t know you but I found very annoying when you see something on the web and you think “ oh wow that is what I need and is not too expansive “ then you have a better look and is not available 🥺 so depressing! Or worse when you see something on eBay but collection only and is faaaaarrr away...☹️

 

[gabs]

3 hours ago, Padraic M said:

... and sometimes I think HAL runs my rig!

Have you found any monolith? 🤔

[MarkAR]

Hi Gabs, as you have an Alt-Az fork mount, you can add an equatorial wedge to it rather than buying a new mount.

https://www.meadeuk.com/Meade-Wedges.html

[gabs]

On 4/25/2021 at 12:49 AM, MarkAR said:

Hi Gabs, as you have an Alt-Az fork mount, you can add an equatorial wedge to it rather than buying a new mount.

https://www.meadeuk.com/Meade-Wedges.html

Oh that is brilliant Mark I need to check if it works with my etx80 as o think the tripod can be different? I need to have a better look. Thank you so much 

[gabs]

17 minutes ago, gabs said:

Oh that is brilliant Mark I need to check if it works with my etx80 as o think the tripod can be different? I need to have a better look. Thank you so much 

I have also found someone made DYI adjustable equatorial wedge for an etx 

 

http://robroy.dyndns.info/astropics/ETX-wedge/

 

because I guess Meade has only made wedge for lx model...