The STW Astronomy and Astrophotography Thread

As there are sporadic posts about astronomy, particularly what starter telescopes to buy etc and to save me starting a new thread every time I do an image and so hopefully other people share their images, I thought I would kick this thread off.

If no one wants to join in that’s fine. I’ll just share my images and put some pieces up about what I use, what the process is, imaging workflows etc 🙂 . Of course if anyone does have any questions or wants advice on anything astro related then just ask away.

I’ll kick things off with my two best images to date; the core of M31 – Andromeda Galaxy and M13 – The Great Herculean Cluster. I will follow up with something on the kit I use, how it all hangs together etc soon also.

Cool. I saw the TV series Cosmos when it was first on TV many years ago and have been interested in Space & Astronomy ever since, although I rarely fully understand what’s being explained!

Good work 🙂

Top idea for a thread – I’m always fascinated when you start a new one, so it will be great to have one place to come and be awed!

Great image of Andromeda – be interesting to see what it looks like though the dust clouds when the James Webb telescope gets going.

Interested to see how you do the imaging and processing.

Got a few projects in mind. One is a mosaic of Andromeda as due to the focal length of my scope the image above is all that will fit in to the field of view. Luckily the software and computer control stuff will automate the whole process. The biggest issue is simply imaging time. Say 1 1/2 hours per panel and I would need 6-8 panels that is 12 hours or so of imaging time in total.

However the nice thing about things like galaxies is they tend to hang around for a bit (a few billion years or so) so you can even spread the imaging time out over year.

Got into astronomy many, many years ago watching the moon landings and being inspired by Patrick Moore on The Sky at Night. Over the following decades it got pushed to the side by other stuff but never fully went away. However since retiring a few years ago I’ve realised it’s one of the things I have a real passion for.

I’ve still not bought a telescope (the internet has sufficed until now) but planning to invest in one in 2022. Almost certainly one that lets me try astrophotography too.

So yes, I’ll be a regular follower of this thread.

I’ve always had a passing intrest and wonder.

Since downloading the stellararium I’ve been able to develop a bit of knowledge. I managed to photograph the Andromeda galaxy the other night but the results were pretty poor. I had just got a canon r6 and was playing around with crazy high ISOs. I was shooting at 300mm with a 1.4 teleconverter at f5.6.
I’d love a scope, mount etc but probably wouldn’t get the use just now.

@jamiemcf – you would not have to spend a lot (relative to a full imaging rig). on a tracking mount to get some excellent results from the R6. £350-450 ish for something that would easily handle the camera and be able to track sufficiently accurately for 60-120 second exposures.

The basic technique is to take several long exposure sub-frames (subs) and then stack and stretch them using specialist software (there are some excellent free packages) to get the detail.

Anybody local to me want a starter telescope?  free / cheap as chips to a good home – its just cluttering up my flat.  5″ reflector  PM me

Awesome photos to kick off the thread! Hope to be a regular contributor, but struggle to get out with the scope as often as I’d like.

This is a recent-ish attempt at Saturn, using my phone held by hand to the eye-piece of the telescope… Under the circumstances I’m pretty pleased 😊

I’ve got an old Nikon D80 gathering dust and I’ve bought a telescope mount for it, so hopefully the quality will improve.

Great photos, OP. I bought an Orion guided scope a couple of years ago and use it intermittently (unfortunately, we have quite a few trees around us which limits the areas of sky I can see). It is fascinating to find and track objects like M13. (I have to say the synscan software is good at tracking but a bit hit and miss for alignment).

On a plus note, I didn’t realize that Venus shows as phases, like the moon, until I peered at it on Saturday Eve and saw it as a crescent!

@WillH – nice. Getting the planets with just holding a phone up to the eyepiece is hard. I know, I have tried and failed!

@Twodogs – do you do the full alignment process? I find with SynScan when you are doing the star alignment it often starts out quite a long way off however once you have centred the alignment stars and confirmed it is usually pretty good from then on in. Similarly I can only see the Eastern sky and even then houses and trees block the lower portion of it. Need to get out to my RC club’s field where the skies are much darker and I have a 360 view.

For astrophotography work I use a method called plate solving which is deadly accurate but will post more on that later.

This is my imaging rig. I have since added an autofocus unit to it as well but have not had much chance to use that yet and I am now mainly using a Raspberry Pi for the computer control. Once I have my scope back from the telescope shop I am hoping for some clear skies and can get a few images done.

This is a recent-ish attempt at Saturn, using my phone held by hand to the eye-piece of the telescope… Under the circumstances I’m pretty pleased 😊

I used to have a 200mm dob, and whenever I showed anyone Saturn they would think it was absolutely awesome (using that word in actual, correct way!). It’s such a beautiful object in the eyepiece.

I loved the fact that you could spot and identify the moons as well, like with Jupiter. (Some of them, anyway.) Watching a moon crossing in front of a planet suddenly makes flat-earth theories even more laughable.

Agree – first time I saw Saturn I was totally blown away. And the weather bands on Jupiter. Yet to see the GRS but it is on the list of things to try and achieve sooner rather than later.

I also find the moon fascinating – get a really good scope and pump some magnification in and it feels like you’re flying across the surface. The Lunar 100 is a great challenge also and it encourages observations throughout the various phases.

Many targets can be ticked off just with a pair of binoculars also.

The Lunar 100

@Twodogs – do you do the full alignment process? I find with SynScan when you are doing the star alignment it often starts out quite a long way off however once you have centred the alignment stars and confirmed it is usually pretty good from then on in.

I try to but for some reason it doesn’t always allow me to complete it, and it’s different between the handset and the software on my phone. For example, on Saturday, the software let me choose Capella and Jupiter as my two “stars”. I got Capella centred and the software swung the scope vaguely towards Jupiter, but stuck without giving me the option to fine tune the final position (and it was a long way off)…just a cancel button showing!
On the handset, I wasn’t even offered Jupiter as my second object. I don’t know if I’ve accidentally changed something on the handset to limit what is offered

Incidently the version of the android app that was around when I first got the scope was way better, but stopped working when a new android version came out…the version they eventually released has been far worse (need to check for updates….)

Which mount do you have?

Yet to see the GRS but it is on the list of things to try and achieve sooner rather than later.

I was flicking through my astro notebook a few day ago, coincidentally, and noticed my sketches of the bands on Jupiter, the GRS, Saturn’s Cassini division etc. I got rid of the ‘scope about 8 or 9 years ago because it took up so much space – I need to find a more compact alternative but with the same amount of light gathering. 😀

Which mount do you have

Orion motorised alt-az

The weather is rubbish and my scope is still at the shop having its optics measured and tested so decided to give my mount its first service.

Going pretty well for a first go and actually the most of the grease is in better condition than I thought it would be but still a good job to get out of the way.

Particularly for astrophotography a smooth running mount is key. Even judders and snags that would be almost imperceptible to touch can ruin an image.

@Twodogs – I’ll get the obvious bits out of the way first. Do you always have the North leg of the tripod pointing reasonably close to North and do you use a crosshair eyepiece to centre the first star?

Also do you ensure the time and date are correct in the handset?

I’ve been looking at getting a scope for smart phone photos ( with adapter)just the moon and maybe Saturn would the scope below be any good for a novice.
Celestron nex star xlt 4se telescope
There is on local for 250

Thanks

@pk13 – nice little scope and you will get excellent planetary and lunar views with it. Things like the Orion Nebula (M42) and star clusters will be visible too and Andromeda galaxy (M31) will show as a grey smudge also. But what smudge – an actual other galaxy 🙂

And yes, a smartphone adapter will allow for planetary photos and you can get some really very good lunar photos that way. For deep space it is not so good as the mount is an Alt AZ one and not an EQ one so it cannot follow the rotation of objects in the sky over time.

But, for the money and to get you into it, it is a solid buy.

Thank you I’ve put it on my Santa list 😊

I’ll get the obvious bits out of the way first. Do you always have the North leg of the tripod pointing reasonably close to North and do you use a crosshair eyepiece to centre the first star?

Time and date are correct, yes to the crosshair eyepiece (and also refocus the main scope to get the star centred….)

However, when I think about it…I may well not have lined up the scope to true North last time (Or I did, then I moved it). The instructions for the Synscan seemed a bit vague tho, as it could be read that this is only important either for a EQ mount OR for just pointing an altaz mount at an object and tracking, without doing an alignment. I’m almost certainly misreading them tho!

Any thoughts on a good app for a tablet for viewing the skies at night (with the naked eye)? Not looking for any bells or whistles, just something clear and easy to use. Happy to pay a bit, especially if it means being ad free.

From what research I’ve done Star Walk 2 seems to fit my needs, but curious as to what others think/use?

I use Mobile Observatory Pro (MO Pro)

@kennyp – Stellarium is excellent. The paid for version on Android and iOS is worth the asking price and the PC version is free and even better. Great for planning observation sessions.

@Twodogs – not come across that, will check it out. As to the mount; an EQ mount needs to be aligned to Polaris and it can be fiddly. This means the actual mount head needs to be adjusted correctly and not just the tripod. For visual obs it is not critical but for AP it has to be as right as you can get it.

An Alt AZ mount only needs to be pointing approximately North. It needs to do this as it needs a reference point to align from but it does not have to be 100% bang on. And remember the date is in US format – has tripped me up more than once!

Thanks Danny…I need to have a proper session next time it’s clear. I usually seem to be nipping out for a quick look at Saturn or whatever, so need to take a bit more time

I feel your pain. The number of decent nights I’ve lost to stuff just not quite working is unreal.

I’m spending these cloudy nights doing dry runs of anything I can do try and iron out any issues so I can be as confident as possible it’ll all work next decent night we get.

Alignment can be a pain. Astrophotography where you’re trying to get multiple bits of kit to all talk to each other is another level altogether!

Trouble is, the bits that tend to go wrong; alignment, plate solving, guiding and focusing as a rule are very difficult to practise without it actually being dark and cloud free!

Cheers guys, I think Stellarium may well be the one. Ticks all the boxes.

Here is my baby on the Zygo testbench at Rother Valley Optics. Basically they fire a laser through the lens of the telescope to measure how good the optics are. The main number people look for is the Strehl number. The maximum theoretical value is 1 (or 100% – some manufacturers express it as a x.xx number and others as a xx.xx number, the latter being a percentage) but due to the way optics a value of 1 is impossible.

Anything above 0.95 is considered as optically perfect as a refractor needs to be. Mine is 0.984 which is very high indeed. But then it should be given the price and pedigree of the scope 🙂

RVO also cleaned and collimated the lens cell so I am good to go once the clouds clear…

Excellent thread. I own a not-bad Meade ETX90 Autostar, with the old-school mount. It does the job, but as the weather is often inclement, I usually break out my spotting scope for quick looks.

My family have been generally dismissive of this hobby since forever, until last Saturday night. It was very cold, dry and clear here in Central Scotland. I finally twigged that by setting up the scope on a tripod upstairs, they could stay warm and dry and view the object I’d aligned.

“Whats that?” I asked. “Its a crescent, so it must be the Moon?” they replied. Uh-uh, the Moon is over there (points away). That’s Venus 🙂

It was apparently excellent and worth the delayed viewing of Strictly!

Well that’s the mount dismantled, cleaned and re-greased. As per the above the scope is serviced and ready to go. At the moment I am just in the process of making sure my RPi4 is up to date with the control software and that it talks to everything first time and each time I hook it all up.

Now I just need a cloud free night or two to actually do some imaging. Got a few targets in mind so will have to see what I can get done…

This is something I’ve been interested in for years, but never really had time or disposable to properly indulge. I’ve been out with binoculars on occasion, and I’ve seen the Galilean moons of Jupiter, and just about picked out Saturn’s rings and a couple of it’s larger moons. I was reading an article earlier today about a photographer who managed to get the Neowise comet along with the Milky Way, and by a stroke of luck got a Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, or STEVE, basically an aurora at the same time. Interesting article, he goes into a fair bit of detail about his research to get the comet, but it required travelling into the Canadian Rockies for the perfect shots!

https://mymodernmet.com/stanley-aryanto-neowise-milky-way-panorama/</span&gt;

I bought a telescope for my daughter for Christmas a couple of years ago, but couldn’t see anything through it, before you ask, the lens cap was off, any suggestions? (At the risk of sounding like a numpty, We were using it indoors, is it imperative that they are used outdoors?)

@augustuswindsock – I assume you mean you were using it indoors but through a window?

A few things spring to mind but more information is needed; what is the make and model of the scope and did you use a smaller finder scope to make sure you were pointing at something?

Yes, it was through a window, its a vivo 76700 telescope and it does have a finder scope.

Cool – right a few things to start off with; what were you trying to look at, did you align the finderscope with the main scope and do you happen to have any eyepieces other than the ones that came with it.

Looking at the spec it comes with an 8mm and 4mm eyepiece. The 8mm will be just about useable, they only included the 4mm to make daft claims about the magnification of the scope.

https://singletrackworld.com/user/dannybgoode/ it was a little while ago, but iirc we were trying to look at the moon to start off with, we did try the different lenses as I didn’t know which one to go with, form what you’re saying it sounds like the 8mm is the all rounder?