M42 - Ist attempt with new digital camera

[JohnP]

Hi All,

Went around Chris's house Monday night & connected my 300D to his 400mm refractor all piggy backed on his LX90. Took this image of M42 which is the result of 10X50secs stacks - processed in PS. I'm quite pleased for 1st attempt considering it was misty, terrible skyglow & light pollution (flood lights) & Orion was low over neigbours house.

Cheers,  John.



[ This Message was edited by: johnp on 2005-02-09 12:08 ]

[Whitters]

I'm impressed last night looked terible for deep sky, I could only see six stars in the plough!

[JohnP]

Hi Paul,

It was actually Monday night not last night but it was still terrible conditions - Fog, mist, Skyglow not to mention the zillion watt floodlights at the end of Chris's garden. If you look closely at the image there is actually quite a lot of nebulosity - I'm sure if I knew how I could bring this out.....

Cheers,  John

[Ian]

very nice pic John. Look forward to seeing more

Try for the horsehead and flame next?

[JohnP]

Ian,

We had a quick look at the Horsehead using Chris's SAC-8 - No chance of seeing it that evening (or at least not from where we were) - I do want to give it a go though before Orion says goodbye for the season...

John

[ This Message was edited by: johnp on 2005-02-09 16:57 ]

[Mike]

John,

Is this image the true size or have you blown it up? Or maybe you used a 5x Barlow? I don't know about the Canon but my Nikon produces extremely wide field images. I attached it to the ETX on Sunday night at DSC to get some pics of Saturn, but was getting great wide field shots, but with a tiny Saturn in the middle.

Was this image through the eyepiece or at the focal plane?

[JohnP]

Hi Mike,

This is a full size image cropped from the original raw frame. The images from the EOS are 3072 X 2048 pixels (I guess D70 is similar) - The image I've shown here is approx' 650 X 500 pixels (cropped from the middle of the large frame) It is not zoomed or increased in anyway. The camera was attached at prime focus on Chris's 400mm refractor. Remember that the Orion Nebula is approx 90arc mins X 60arc mins - Saturn by comparison has a diameter of only 20arc secs.

I also took a picture of Saturn & some of its moons using the same set up & Saturn is really small. I'll try & post this evening so you can compare. The EOS is definitely not the camera to use if you want nice pictures of Saturn - a webcam or similar is much better.

Cheers,  John

[Mike]

I would like to find a scope that would enable deep sky images using the Nikon though as it is such a good camera and so is the Canon. I am guessing that a scope with a long focal length would be best or using a good quality barlow such as a 5x powermate on a very beefy mount. I am coming round to the idea of buying a small refractor with an oversized mount.

[JohnP]

Mike,

A small refractor is great - something like an Orion ED80 - Lots of people on the digital astro group use this (I'm thinking of getting one)- If you've got any USA contacts you can pick them up for about $450 - Some of the images are stunning. Of course you will also need a good sturdy mount capable of at least 1min exposures or more (you should probably implement autotracking).

Does the D70 do ISO 3200? The Eos is limited to 1600.

Cheers,  John

[Mike]

The highest ISO is 1600 on the Nikon as well. I wouldn't really want to go any higher than this anyway as the images start to get noisy and grainy. I have been tending to keep the ISO lower than 1600 (usually 800)when doing any astro shots to get a good compromise between noise and light sensitivity.

[JohnP]

Me 2 - The shot above was 50 secs at ISO800 - John