New Rig for Astro Imaging

This setup is not ideal for galaxies but this old Skywatcher 80ED punches well above it’s weight.

Bought this just before the real mass production started, the quality assurance did a good job, I still use this scope twenty years later.

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M101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy

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M27 - The Dumbbell Nebula

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The Sunflower Galaxy

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The Sombrero Galaxy

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M13 - The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules

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The Needle Galaxy

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Thor’s Helmet Nebula

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M51 - The Whirlpool Galaxy

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I forgot a few of my faves…

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The Crescent Nebula

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The Leo Triplet (or the Hamburger and Two Spirals) [emoji4]

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Markarian’s Chain (part of the Virgo Cluster)

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Originally Posted by mightymonoped

This setup is not ideal for galaxies but this old Skywatcher 80ED punches well above it’s weight.

Bought this just before the real mass production started, the quality assurance did a good job, I still use this scope twenty years later.



https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...7bd7974762.jpg



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Intrigued - what is it?

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Originally Posted by guy

Intrigued - what is it?

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I think it's a highly intelligent nebulous creature from the original Star Trek.

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Originally Posted by Lawrence001

I think it's a highly intelligent nebulous creature from the original Star Trek.

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Evil intent or benign?

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Originally Posted by guy

Intrigued - what is it?

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That’s M27 - The Dumbbell Nebula in the constellation Vulpecula.

It’s classed as a planetary nebula because of it’s shape.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by guy

Evil intent or benign?

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Entirely apathetic! [emoji13]


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I’ve labelled them all up! [emoji4]


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Fantastic images Tony! :eek:

How long does a typical exposure take?

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Originally Posted by Barry

Fantastic images Tony! :eek:

How long does a typical exposure take?

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As long as you want really Barry. The camera I’m using is cooled to -10 from ambient temperature.

This helps with noise reduction. The biggest factors are really noise and signal to noise ratio.

The more data you capture, the better the signal to noise and the therefore, the cleaner the image.

The camera I’m using is a CMOS chip, which unlike CCD chips benefits from lots of shorter exposures (120 or 180 seconds) rather than a few long exposures (300 seconds or more).

Typically, I’ll try to capture at least 2 hours worth on any target (60 x 120s) but for a good image, I’ll usually try to capture at least 3 or 4 hours in multiple sessions.

It’s a game of two halves, capture and integration. The trick is getting competent at both of these very different skills.




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