newby_investor
Executive Member
I saw it briefly, earlier in the evening. After bathing and putting to bed of the local toddler, it had clouded over though.
Was good to at least catch a glimpse.
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The Amateur Astronomy thread
- Thread starter Sideshow Bob
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Was good to at least catch a glimpse.
LlamaParty
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I had quite a nice view from KZN, but unfortunately only had the little travel scope with me, so I will spare you the crappy cellphone pics 
You could just separate them with the naked eye, through the scope they fit nicely in the field of view of my 6mm eyepiece.
You could just separate them with the naked eye, through the scope they fit nicely in the field of view of my 6mm eyepiece.
newby_investor
Executive Member
So in case anyone is interested, I am thinking of letting my equipment go, as I am simply not using it anymore (young children and complete exhaustion make for poor conditions for astronomy at night).
I might formally list in the classifieds when I am completely determined to sell, but if anyone here wants first dibs, I have the following:
Celestron Skymaster 15x70
Orion Starblast 4.5 EQ
A few bits and pieces including barlow, eyepieces (I have the full Orion Expanse set) and dual polarising filter, ideal for moon viewing and a camera adapter which didn't really work for this telescope because it's too small and light for my DSLR.
Edit: I am in Cape Town's Southern(ish) Suburbs, for planning purposes.
I might formally list in the classifieds when I am completely determined to sell, but if anyone here wants first dibs, I have the following:
Celestron Skymaster 15x70
Orion Starblast 4.5 EQ
A few bits and pieces including barlow, eyepieces (I have the full Orion Expanse set) and dual polarising filter, ideal for moon viewing and a camera adapter which didn't really work for this telescope because it's too small and light for my DSLR.
Edit: I am in Cape Town's Southern(ish) Suburbs, for planning purposes.
Last edited:
konfab
Honorary Master
I was on the West Coast for a week, and was able to do a bit of astrophotography.
Setup was an Orion Teletrack AZ and a 500mm telephoto lens for my DSLR:
These were about 10 minutes worth of exposure, stacked.
Orion Nebula
Eta Carena
Horsehead nebula:
By the end of the week I wanted to throw the mount into the ocean as its altitude tracking was on ANC time, and I was getting severe drift, even over a short period of 10 minute (it is why the horse isn't centered). Even doing a janky equatorial setup with this mount didn't work. Since the mount doesn't support equatorial mode, I fooled it by setting my location to the south pole. This stopped the altitude motor from slewing, but for some reason the azimuth motor went into overdrive.
Setup was an Orion Teletrack AZ and a 500mm telephoto lens for my DSLR:
These were about 10 minutes worth of exposure, stacked.
Orion Nebula
Eta Carena
Horsehead nebula:
By the end of the week I wanted to throw the mount into the ocean as its altitude tracking was on ANC time, and I was getting severe drift, even over a short period of 10 minute (it is why the horse isn't centered). Even doing a janky equatorial setup with this mount didn't work. Since the mount doesn't support equatorial mode, I fooled it by setting my location to the south pole. This stopped the altitude motor from slewing, but for some reason the azimuth motor went into overdrive.
konfab
Honorary Master
Don't tempt me
I have to find some solution to the mount issue before I even think of taking that setup. There isn't much worse in the world than making all the effort of going to a beautiful dark site, then having your equipment let you down.
newby_investor
Executive Member
For photography yeah you are probably right.Don't tempt me
I have to find some solution to the mount issue before I even think of taking that setup. There isn't much worse in the world than making all the effort of going to a beautiful dark site, then having your equipment let you down.
But for plain enjoyment - I would go (if I could) even without equipment. I love the night sky when there's no light pollution. And sneaking peeks through other peoples' bigger light buckets is a joy for the soul. 47-Tuc through a 16" Dobby at Leeuwenbosch is a sight to change your life forever.
konfab
Honorary Master
I am probably mad, but the challenge of astrophotography is the reason why I like it. Getting your telescope setup and aligned correctly, powered by a mass of obsolete drivers and hardware to perform precision movements to get a perfect picture really tickles me.
I also love just looking at the night sky whilst the computer is taking pictures.
konfab
Honorary Master
Awesome.
konfab
Honorary Master
I am considering getting one of these bad boys:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NY4478...olid=1KGB1RKP9Y6LB&coliid=I1PQLERZIMDAOT&th=1
It is the cheapest way IMO for me to get into AP properly without going insane.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NY4478...olid=1KGB1RKP9Y6LB&coliid=I1PQLERZIMDAOT&th=1
It is the cheapest way IMO for me to get into AP properly without going insane.
Tongs of Destiny
Expert Member
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I've got one of those skywatcher's, nice little toy
I’m looking for a 6” or 8” dob but can’t seem to find anything in my budget. The only one I can find is a 8” sky-watcher at takealot for 12k. I was hoping to get something for R8k or less so probably a 6”. I’m not seeing anything second hand like gumtree. Anyone know of sites or places I can look?
Well I’ve received the dob but unsurprisingly it was delivered without the mount. Im convinced this is their way of getting out of this deal as it was obviously a pricing error on their side. I’ve had to log a return for them to collect it and “assess” the missing piece. Part of me thinks I should just keep the scope and make a dob mount myself?
I’m thinking if I return the item they might just make up some excuse as to why the mount is missing and just credit my account.
I’m thinking if I return the item they might just make up some excuse as to why the mount is missing and just credit my account.
From reddit
M8, or the Lagoon Nebula is around 4000 light years away from Earth, and is a massive stellar nursery where new stars are born.
People usually take pictures like these with either a star tracker or a motorized equatorial mount. You've most probably seen way better photographs of nebulae and other night sky subjects on this sub, but this is my attempt to show you that you DON'T always need high end telescopes, expensive gear or a trip to a dark and remote forest in order to capture the breathtaking beauty of our Cosmos. You can do it right from your rooftop or backyard with just a cheap, entry-level DSLR (and admittedly, a fair amount of time). I captured this image from a Bortle 7 sky
If you like this shot, you can check out my other work on my insta @astronot_yet . I do Astrophotography with a cheap/affordable camera and try to demonstrate that beautiful night sky shots are possible even without burning your entire month's salary on buying expensive gear.
2) Next, we need to locate the Lagoon Nebula. The best way is to download any star chart app, and use the Augmented Reality feature that most of them have these days. I use this but you can use your own favorite.
3) A remote shutter or an intervaloemter is advised to avoid touching the camera again and again and minimize blurriness/disturbance. You can buy a cheap wired remote, or if your camera is fairly new it may already have an intervaloemeter built in. If neither of these are possible, just put your camera in a 2s delay timer and you'll essentially achieve the same result.
4) How to select your exposure length: If you take long duration exposures (let's say) 15-20s or something, what you will see are star trails where instead of pin pointed stars, you'd see them moving in a line, ruining our shot. To get sharper stars, either use the rule of 500 (beginner friendly) or the NPF rule (more accurate, but a bit more advanced). Make sure you take a few test shots, zoom in and check the focus and star trailing first before continuing.
5) You DON'T need these many exposures. I only took 3600 because I wanted to expose the nebula for a full hour. If you're just starting out, even 500-600 exposures would be good enough to bring out some details. DO NOT change any settings in between the exposures. It's a good idea to not disturb the camera at all while it's taking the shots, except slightly nudging the camera after 100-200 or so shots to make sure the Nebula doesn't leave the camera's field of view
6) Take a few(50-100) bias, dark and flat frames. These are called "Calibration Frames" and their job is to remove any noise that is being generated by the Camera itself(Heat, dust on the sensor, etc). How to take these here.
7) After all this, you can use any stacking software to process these shots. My favorite is Deep Sky Stacker and Sequator. Pixinsight is also a capable one, but it's not free so pick whichever one you like. The main job of stacking software is to align all the exposures and average out the data which decreases noise and increases the Signal to Noise ratio of our image, so the final shot has much higher details and less noise.
8) I processed the result in Pixinsight, and retouched it a bit in Photoshop. A general introductory workflow in Pixinsight here
Please note that this is a simplistic explanation, and some of the rules and technologies I wrote above might have mistakes, or may not work in your case. Please remember, experiment and experience will give you the best results. Also, if I indeed made some mistakes above, please do correct me.
As always, ask me if you guys have any questions
Details:
Left is a Single exposure straight out of the camera on how the sky looked like from my location. Right is what I got after stacking 3600 frames of the Nebula.M8, or the Lagoon Nebula is around 4000 light years away from Earth, and is a massive stellar nursery where new stars are born.
People usually take pictures like these with either a star tracker or a motorized equatorial mount. You've most probably seen way better photographs of nebulae and other night sky subjects on this sub, but this is my attempt to show you that you DON'T always need high end telescopes, expensive gear or a trip to a dark and remote forest in order to capture the breathtaking beauty of our Cosmos. You can do it right from your rooftop or backyard with just a cheap, entry-level DSLR (and admittedly, a fair amount of time). I captured this image from a Bortle 7 sky
If you like this shot, you can check out my other work on my insta @astronot_yet . I do Astrophotography with a cheap/affordable camera and try to demonstrate that beautiful night sky shots are possible even without burning your entire month's salary on buying expensive gear.
TIP:
If you don't like to read huge wall of text(like this one), I would recommend watching untracked Astrophotography tutorials like Nebula Photos: Lagoon Nebula WITHOUT a Star Tracker or Telescope, Start to Finish instead. I've learned a LOT from Nebula Photos because his videos are extremely comprehensive, helpful and beginner friendly.What is Stacking?
Stacking means taking lots of images of the same subject, align them together and take an average of all the frames. This increases the Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR) of the image and reduces the random noise that creeps up in your photos. Bottom line: You can get really high details by stacking multiple images than using just one image.Equipment-
Nikon D3100, Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto lens, a cheap tripod, a wired remote shutter(optional)EXIF:
200mm, F/4.8, ISO 12800, 1sx3600 exposuresProcess:
1) Getting the perfect focus is one of THE most important things in Astrophotography(trust me, the pain of spending hours and hours taking thousands of shots which later turn out of be slightly out of focus is... horrible). I would recommend buying a Bahtinov Mask or rather getting it 3D printed as its fairly cheap.2) Next, we need to locate the Lagoon Nebula. The best way is to download any star chart app, and use the Augmented Reality feature that most of them have these days. I use this but you can use your own favorite.
3) A remote shutter or an intervaloemter is advised to avoid touching the camera again and again and minimize blurriness/disturbance. You can buy a cheap wired remote, or if your camera is fairly new it may already have an intervaloemeter built in. If neither of these are possible, just put your camera in a 2s delay timer and you'll essentially achieve the same result.
4) How to select your exposure length: If you take long duration exposures (let's say) 15-20s or something, what you will see are star trails where instead of pin pointed stars, you'd see them moving in a line, ruining our shot. To get sharper stars, either use the rule of 500 (beginner friendly) or the NPF rule (more accurate, but a bit more advanced). Make sure you take a few test shots, zoom in and check the focus and star trailing first before continuing.
5) You DON'T need these many exposures. I only took 3600 because I wanted to expose the nebula for a full hour. If you're just starting out, even 500-600 exposures would be good enough to bring out some details. DO NOT change any settings in between the exposures. It's a good idea to not disturb the camera at all while it's taking the shots, except slightly nudging the camera after 100-200 or so shots to make sure the Nebula doesn't leave the camera's field of view
6) Take a few(50-100) bias, dark and flat frames. These are called "Calibration Frames" and their job is to remove any noise that is being generated by the Camera itself(Heat, dust on the sensor, etc). How to take these here.
7) After all this, you can use any stacking software to process these shots. My favorite is Deep Sky Stacker and Sequator. Pixinsight is also a capable one, but it's not free so pick whichever one you like. The main job of stacking software is to align all the exposures and average out the data which decreases noise and increases the Signal to Noise ratio of our image, so the final shot has much higher details and less noise.
8) I processed the result in Pixinsight, and retouched it a bit in Photoshop. A general introductory workflow in Pixinsight here
Please note that this is a simplistic explanation, and some of the rules and technologies I wrote above might have mistakes, or may not work in your case. Please remember, experiment and experience will give you the best results. Also, if I indeed made some mistakes above, please do correct me.
As always, ask me if you guys have any questions
Polymathic
Honorary Master
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I see there's 3 planets visible in the early morning these days. I'm guessing that they are Venus, Mars and Jupiter.
Sideshow Bob
Honorary Master
IMO, this is nearly like 'How long is a piece of string' type question, however it is perfectly valid question.
So, I won't be able to advise as I have only this but before buying it, I did some search, and I am not calling it a research
Here are some questions I think are important before the purchase. There could be hundred such questions but here are what I consider main ones from my perspective.
1. What do you plan to do with telescope? (photography/general sky gazing etc)
2. What is your budget?
3. Have you gone through various sites to set realistic expectations of what you would see for specific model you have in mind? e.g. https://littleastronomy.com/can-you-see-saturn-with-a-telescope/
4. Have you considered other accessories (eye pieces etc) that are needed - this is only if you have limited budget.