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Skyscape?
52Caddy
Registered Users Posts: 170 Major grins
Here are a couple shots I tried with my 20D and my scope. The Orion nebula is with my 70-200mm piggy-backed on my scope. Exposure was 25 seconds at F2.8, with 400 ISO. I'm still trying to figure out the best combo. I just got the electronic drive which is a lot of fun. I need to get the polar alignment down better.
Any ideas on what I could do that would make the black backgroun d have a little more punch like the moon shot? The nebula shot looks a little washed out.
The moon shot was attaching the 20D to the scope (a Starmax 127 Maksutov Cassegrain, 1540mm F/12.1).
Focusing that thing is a bit of a pain. I think I get 1 good shot out of a couple dozen. I need to rig up a focusing motor.
Anyway, here are the attempts.
Eric
Any ideas on what I could do that would make the black backgroun d have a little more punch like the moon shot? The nebula shot looks a little washed out.
The moon shot was attaching the 20D to the scope (a Starmax 127 Maksutov Cassegrain, 1540mm F/12.1).
Focusing that thing is a bit of a pain. I think I get 1 good shot out of a couple dozen. I need to rig up a focusing motor.
Anyway, here are the attempts.
Eric
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ginger
hi Eric - great shots! I've been waiting for astrophotos to show up here! A few years ago in grad school I had numerous 8" and 14" Schmidt-Cass's at my disposal...boy I miss playing with them and my camera!
In regards to your Orion Nebula shot (gorgeous btw), and any long exposure astrophotography...you are never going to have a super black background like you did with your moon shot. Why? Well, the moon shot was probably somewhere around 1/8 of a second, right? Your camera didn't have enough time for all those "faint star" photons to be recorded. However, with your longer exposure...that many more stars that are not visible to the naked eye are showing up. See what happens when you bracket your exposures for every 15 seconds. More and more stars appear! Also, there is probably residual light pollution you are picking up from Earth (www.darksky.org), and if it was at all humid, and the Moon was up, or there are sources of light pollution, the water in the air will reflect the light back down to you (sky fog) and show up in your photos.
So, those are things you cannot prevent. To get good deep sky object photos though, you need long exposures. What to do? Post-processing! Many astrophotographers stack short exposures. I don't know how to do that...I always liked my photos as-is.
If you haven't already gotten it, you should buy Astrophotography for the Amateur by Michael Covington.
have fun! looking forward to more astrophotos! what'd be sweet is to do a long exposure wide shot of the constellation of Orion using the piggyback to your telescope. If you have a good lens you'd probably get small "star-like" lens-flares around the brighter stars, and still be able to resolve the nebula.
Adrienne