Camera Labs

I collected it this morning after an apparent mix up in deliver addresses. Waited until it was dark, pre-cooling the lens while waiting. Popped it in the camera, pointed it in the general direction of cygnus and... saw nothing through the viewfinder. That's ok, I was expecting it to be darker. Live view should fix that. Nope, that's totally dark too. Of course this left me with a focusing problem. I can't use the lens markings as that's not accurate anyway, plus the filter shifts the focus.

I recalled the astronomik filters are supposed to be parfocal, so I dropped in the CLS filter which gave me enough light to focus with. Put that Ha back in and tried a short test exposure. Hmm... the two bright stars didn't look very pin point. Focus is still off. How am I going to focus it if I can't see anything?

I had a cunning plan. I ran upstairs so I could see some distant houses on the horizon. Hopefully one of them would have something bright... success! I have no idea what I focused on, but that I had something at all was a good start.

Back down to the garden, I did a 30 second exposure. It's still very faint, but there's red blotchy patches. Ok, let's ramp it up. 4 minutes... wow! So much stuff going on. My blind aiming got some interesting bits pretty much straight on, so I've left it running.

With hindsight, I could have swapped the SD cards to see what I got so far. Actually, I can do that now! Definitely hope to post pics later, although long duration noise will be a pain to shift!

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Very quick sampler

Noticed Jupiter is above the horizon now so I can try using that for another focus check. If that isn't bright enough, what is?

_________________
Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Click for bigger version. This is a bit of a better edit from a single raw. Just starting to do darks for it now... absolutely tons of hot pixels.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Hi popo,

Great work. Interesting that focussing is such a challenge - we have got spoilt with Live View.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

I need Live View Plus! More gain. More zoom. More... everything. Think it was mentioned the Sony cameras do "turn it up" more in live view... no, I'm not getting one of those!

The temptation to get the other narrowband filters is getting rather stronger now...

Letting camera do the darks in background. Shall have to do flats and the rest tomorrow I think. I might need more batteries to swap around too.

_________________
Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Looks very interesting. I would never had considered narrowband with a DSLR. I wonder how well it will do.

Looks like you managed to get the North America Nebula there as well - very nice.

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Lee Diggle
My Astronomy Blog | My Photography Gallery

That was my target, as well as whatever else happened to fall into the field of view. If skies remain clear tonight I'll try a longer focal length on it.

My only problem with using a DSLR for this is that of course the bandwidth is so small only the sensor red channel is effective so I've got 1/4 area resolution.

Am quite tempted to get OIII next, as at least that can be used on an unmodified DSLR without a big sensitivity penalty.

_________________
Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Ooh, now thats interesting I never thought about OIII.

I was planning to get some filters to use on my DSLR whilst I save up for a dedicated CCD, but I must admit I dont really follow the science behind it. I do understand the downside of using Ha with a DSLR though.

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Lee Diggle
My Astronomy Blog | My Photography Gallery

OIII should get picked up well by the green channel, and a not insignificant amount in the blue too, so the effective resolution should be pretty reasonable with a decent sensitivity too. I'm hoping that would give the impression of high resolution when combined with the H-alpha.

I'm actually intending to get an arm so I can mount two cameras at once to the tracking mount... although at this time I have no intention of doubling my lenses too! The sensors are different resolutions too so it'll be as much a test of my processing skills as well as the acquisition in the first place. So matching focal lengths shouldn't be an essential requirement.

I'm not so sure if I should "do a Hubble" and go for SII false in a false colour trio combo...

_________________
Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Using the 135 got me a bit more... this is still quite a crop.

_________________
Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Very interesting popo...

Hi popo,

Having (finally!) got a clear night I made the discovery that while my Astrodon filters are advertised as parfocal the Pentax MF lens I used this evening definitely isn't! Oh well, at least the MaximDL software I was using to control the camera has helpful statistics about the size of the brightest star in the field which helps with manual focussing.

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Get anything good? I'm kicking myself for missing a chance last night. When I looked outside the glow was rather high and I didn't think it worth bothering. As I went to bed, looking out of the window I saw Orion just about making it over the glow. Doh!

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Well, I used PixInsight to open a single "light" of the same area as in your first Sept. 28th image last night and I saw enough to convince me that the data set will repay time and effort during post-processing. And, as this is the first time I've had a set of Hα plus R, G and B images to play with, I'll be doing lots of learning on the way. Whether I can achieve the look I want will be an interesting journey...

Bob.

_________________
OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.