Tony's images from DSC

[JohnP]

Tony, sent me the 4 images he had taken at DSC recently & asked me to have a look at them. So I did a few curves & levels iterations, cropped & then resized for 800 pixel width & did quick colour balance & some NR. Images are below. Tony - I think these are all amazing considering they are only single images taken in Jpeg mode with no guiding - We will be expecting a lot more on the forum now.... M45 has small amount of drift...

Cheers,  John

[Mike]

Excellent images Tony. Well better than my first attempts at astrophotography

Love the Orion and Running Man.!!

[Tony G]

Thanks for the images John,

Now that I  can take the photo's, I'll have to learn how to process them because there is a lot of difference between yours and mine.
Mike, to be honest it was my second attempt, as I lost the whole of Andromeda on the Friday night, and that was something that even David Copperfield (the magician, not Dickens) could not manage.

Tony G

[MarkS]

Tony,

Those are so impressive for unguided single exposures of 2-4 minutes - only one has any trailing.  Well done!

Do you want to swap your mount for a hardly used EQ6? 

Mark

[Mike]

.....Do you want to swap your mount for a hardly used EQ6?...

I have to say that since using the H-EQ5 over the last few nights, it seems a lot smoother with better PE than my EQ6. When I was guiding on Sunday night the average error was around 0.1 pixels. Either I got a duff EQ6, the new batch of mounts have better PE or the H-EQ5 's are better suited to my ED80/ST80 combination. The GoTo seems far more accurate too (though that may be due to the new v3.20 firmware). Weirdly, the H-EQ5 needs both counterweights for these scopes when on the EQ6 I just need one.

[JohnP]

So Mike - What you been imaging then...? John

[Mike]

Not a lot really - last night I didn't as I was finishing off TOAST, but the night before I was doing asteroids Klio and Asp..?(something) which were magnitudes 12.0 and 13.9. I was just really trying to see :-

a) That the GoTo was accurate with the new firmware in the handset (v3.20) - (Yes it is)
b) What kind of magnitude I could reach with the ED80 within 4 minutes (not checked yet but I reckon around mag 17 - though light pollution was bad that night).

Hopefully over the weekend I can get out and do The Rosette Nebula in Ha.

[JohnP]

Do you do 3-star align? John

[Carole]

Fantastic pictures Tony, I have been showing my colleagues at work, they can't believe you are a learner. 
The enhancement from John has made a huge difference. 

Hope I can follow in your footsteps.

Carole

[Mike]

Do you do 3-star align?

I usually just do the 2 star align.

[Fay]

Tony, I am blown away by your images. Unguided & just so good, star trailing M45, which is a shame as it would have been good. You make it look like it can all be done with no effort.

I hope you are not boring Fliss with them at home. I can imagine you doing a Christmas Eve slide show of your images!!!!!!!!!

[Fay]

Mike, I remember you looking at my setup wondering why I was using 2 weights.
I was thinking it may have been the weight of the dual plate, which may have just tipped it over the weight edge.

Fay