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Yay! My new EQ mount came in yesterday!



Now if the weather would just clear up (very rainy and overcast for the last 2 days). Can't wait to use this!

originally posted by: eriktheawful
Yay! My new EQ mount came in yesterday!

Now if the weather would just clear up (very rainy and overcast for the last 2 days). Can't wait to use this!

Sweet. One day I'll have a nice observatory, even though seeing from Florida is always bad.

Never too early to learn: My youngest son Josh, helping me align the polar scope's reticle. Was off just a tiny bit.



Really hoping these clouds blow out of here tonight so I can take the mount for a test drive.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Looking good!!!
Now HAARP do your thing and get those clear skies running

So I waited and waited this evening and finally the clouds blew away. It was going on 10pm by then, and temps had dropped down into the 30's (will be in the upper 20s later), blowing wind, very cold, can't find my heavy coat.

Went out there anyway to try my new mount out. Start a polar alignment and realized that my reticle isn't illuminated....so I pulled my pen light out and attempted to cast just a little light at the end of the polar scope...ow......I'm blind! hehehehe.

I get Polaris lined up......have to be good enough as it's cold and I'm cold with only a light jacket, so I lined the camera up with Orion and took several shots at 2 minutes.....don't have the lap top hooked up, this was a rush job. Got done, went inside and pulled the images from the SD card and saw this:



So I'm dropping the "F" bomb......stupid auto focus camera, I'd bumped the lens so it wasn't on the mark and didn't know it......

But then I realized something: this was a 2 minute exposure....no star trails! Yay! I got the new mount aligned correctly.

So I dithered and decided to go back out again double checking the lens focus this time. Unfortunately, Orion is getting closer and closer to the western horizon and the huge and bright moon is rising in the east. I captured this:



In focus this time (no, tree isn't because the camera is moving with the sky). 55mm, f5.6 (stuck with that for now. I need to see if Magic Lantern can override it), ISO 400, at 120 second exposure.

I'm happy with it because my mark for focusing worked, my hasty polar alignment worked!

Suppose to be crystal clear tomorrow night (all though colder). But I can get out earlier while Orion is higher up from the horizon and try some other shots with it.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Very nice setup, that test shot looks pretty clear for 2 minutes!
Can't wait to see what you can do with it....

a reply to: intergalactic fire

So, looking into overriding my f stop on my lens with Magic Lantern seems to be no good. I can access it with the program, but it won't let me decrease it, only increase it.

My 18mm to 55mm lens changes the f stop automatically. The lowest I can have the f stop is at 3.5 at 18mm. If I zoom in to 55mm, it increases the f stop to 5.6, and I can not take it below that, I can increase it however.

This of course sucks since trying to replicate what you were able to do here, I need to back the f stop down to 2.3, which is lower than the lens can go even at 18mm.

This of course is quite frustrating since my goal is to let more light in. In order to do the same as you did, but at f stop 5.6, I would have to increase the exposure time from 2 minutes to 6 minutes! Ouch. Not sure if I had the mount polar aligned that well for shots that long, but also wondering how saturated the CCD sensor would be for that long of a exposure.

Oh, and for any who'd like to play with it, I found a interesting online calculator for this here:

Exposure Calculator

a reply to: eriktheawful

My 18mm to 55mm lens changes the f stop automatically. The lowest I can have the f stop is at 3.5 at 18mm. If I zoom in to 55mm, it increases the f stop to 5.6, and I can not take it below that, I can increase it however. This of course sucks since trying to replicate what you were able to do here, I need to back the f stop down to 2.3, which is lower than the lens can go even at 18mm.

Indeed, diaphragm is linked to the construction of the lens.
Remember that shot was only a stack of 5 images.
This shot however was a stack of 45 at f/5.6 and still managed to get some good details.
At 55mm with good PA you should go easy to 3 - 4 minutes. Obviously you will saturate the sensor more with longer shutterspeeds. Saturation is also directly connected with heat/time(sensor), so when it's cold outside saturation will happen slower as it will help to cool down the sensor.
A good thing to do is shutting down the camera for 5-10 min after 30-40 min of taking shots. This will help you a lot to lower the noise level in your images.
Another thing to do is taking dark images and use them is the stacking process, be sure to take them at the same time and settings as you light images.

In your case I would first try to get 3 minutes and see how the image turns out.
Settings: 3min, f5.6, iso800/1000

It's better to get a little bit overexposed than underexposed. This can be corrected in post and will result in less noise than an underexposed image. Shoot in raw also and try to take as much images possible.

I'm preparing to go out in short time hoping it will stay clear tonight

a reply to: intergalactic fire

Thanks for the tips and reminders. Lot of time I'll head out and forget to do certain things. Not so much age as it is how long it's been for me doing this.

Cold is good, even back in the film days. Already 36 deg F and dropping, hehehe.

I've got the camera focused and just waiting for it to get darker so I can check the PA and then start shooting.

So here we go, I think these turned out pretty good, still trying to warm back up, hehehe.

All shots of M42, Orion's Nebula, at 500mm focal length, f 8.0, 3 minute exposures. Each is a single frame (I've only scaled it down to upload here). White balance was 6000k.

I'll do some stacking with these later.

ISO 400



ISO 800



ISO 1600

a reply to: eriktheawful

Great shots, they look awesome!

I'm trying to imitate you haha....
Actually I don't want to miss out on Orion before it fades off.

This was with a 75-300mm kit lens at f/5.6 300mm 1.6 sec. ISO 3200
The shutter might of been to long with a little trailing.
10 shots stacked, less the Nebula would be barely visible.



From last night towards M46 and M47.... a thin cloud made the shot all funky with the colors.

50mm f/1.8 5.0 sec ISO 3200
10 shots stacked.

a reply to: imitator

5 shots at 1.6 seconds each and you got that? wow!!!

Now that is seriously cool!!!!

originally posted by: eriktheawful
a reply to: imitator

5 shots at 1.6 seconds each and you got that? wow!!!

Now that is seriously cool!!!!

Nice pics you posted what EQ mount did you buy

a reply to: wmd_2008

The Orion AstroView EQ mount with the EQ-3M tracking motor.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Thanks hope you don't mind this your iso 800 image a quick edit.


before

After

a reply to: wmd_2008



Play away with the images.

Hmmm...just thought of something. Maybe I should set up a free file host and provide the raw .cr2 files too for anyone who wants to play with them.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Good idea

whew, that takes a while to upload. Here is two raw images, the first one is ISO 400 the 2nd one was ISO 800:

www.filehosting.org...

www.filehosting.org...

a reply to: eriktheawful

WOW!!
3 minutes at 500mm on APSC so that's a good 700mm! Superbe results! Impressive mount Erik.
Also impressed by the lens, for that price you got yourself a good deal!
Thx for sharing.

originally posted by: eriktheawful
a reply to: imitator

5 shots at 1.6 seconds each and you got that? wow!!!

10 shots
About equal to 16 seconds and lots of elbow grease lol.

a reply to: wmd_2008
Nice editing!