Beginner astrophotography

zygalski

zygalski

Messages
639
Location
West Sussex
Hi all.
I've recently started trying this after a few years of interest in astronomy.
I started out wanting to do some wide field Deep Sky Object imaging, so over the course of the last year or so, saved for and purchased the items needed.

All in, a decent kit can be had for £1500-£2000.
This should include a DSLR (ideally astro-modified by one of the various online vendors), Star Tracker, a decent lens such as the Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f2, a good tripod, and a few other bits & pieces such as a lens heater band, USB power bank, bahtinov mask (available on Ebay), and a wireless camera shutter controller.
Image stacking and processsing software such as Siril & Starnet++ are free.

Here are my first 3 efforts.

M31 The Andromeda Galaxy to me was an obvious first target.
I'm lucky to live in a Bortle 4 region of England.
My set up was as follows.
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 3200
Samyang 135mm f2 set at f2.8
322 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 13 hrs 42 minutes on my old laptop... :sleep:
I'm very pleased with the result.
The initial stretch did show considerable horizontal banding, but the debanding function on Siril took care of that.

M31.jpg
 
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M45 The Pleiades / Seven Sisters
Clearly visible with the unaided eye, the young stars in this famous open cluster emit high levels of blue nebulosity.

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm f2 (set at f4)
205 x 45 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 8hrs 30m on my old laptop.

M45.jpg
 
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NGC 1909 / IC 2188 aka The Witch Head Nebula
This is a very faint reflection nebula right next to Rigel in Orion, but the nebula is just inside the Eridanus constellation.
The image is flipped 180 degrees. Bortle 4 really helps with this target. A lot of folk in larger towns and cities have very little chance of getting a usable image. Rigel (shown on the right) has been reduced considerably in luminosity by using Starnet++ or else it would completely overwhelm our creepy friend...

My set up was as follows.
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm f2; set at f2.8
270 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++

Stacking on our new ACER Aspire TC-1780 Desktop PC - Intel® Core™ i7, 1 TB SSD with 32GB RAM installed took a fraction over 10 minutes.
Such a relief - I don't have to worry about blowing the laptop up any more :LOL:

NGC1909.jpg
 
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A couple of hours worth of break in the clouds gave me the chance to capture the rich star and hydrogen alpha fields in Cygnus, which lies across the main band of the Milky Way.

Deneb to Sadr in Cygnus

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm f2 (set at f2.8)

175 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++

Cygnus Deneb to Sadr V1.jpg
 
Orion's belt & nebulae.

Plenty to see here, including the Flame Nebula, Horsehead Nebula, and of course M42 - the Great Orion Nebula.
Considering how low Orion is at the moment, and how windy it was when taking the subs, I'm very pleased with the end result.
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm set at f2.8
343 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 8m 8s.

Orion.JPG
 
CjH said:
...what I can do with ... some binoculars,
Click to expand...
....
CjH said:
and some sticky back plastic..... :unsure:
Click to expand...
There's a hell of a lot of good "traditional" astronomy to be undertaken with binoculars. I've owned some large telescopes and associated kit in my time but have substantially downsized as I got older.
Nowadays all I have are (high quality) 7x50, 10x50 and 15x70 binos. I recently sold my 25x100s as they never really got used.
"The best scope is the one you use* is a well worn, and apt, phrase. Binoculars (and a decent mount!) certainly fit that bill. Make sure to buy quality not cheap crap.

Try this resource if you want to dip your toe in a bit deeper.

BinocularSky - Home

The one-stop resource for choosing and using binoculars for astronomy, Binocular Astronomy
binocularsky.com binocularsky.com
 
The Rosette Nebula and surrounding region in the constellation Monoceros

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 800
Samyang 135mm set at f2.8
393 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 9m 28s.

Rosette Nebula & region.jpg
 
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