I keep missing the moon/venus passing and am wondering if there is software to use that can tell me ahead of time when the moon will be close to venus so I can try to get ahead of the imaging?
Both iphone and dwarf devices if that matters. Ideally it would give me a day or so heads up.
I've had this mount for a few years and it's received light to moderate usage. Until recently it was very sensitive to moving the counterweight up and down the bar to balance everything. I only need to use one weight and it sits about 2/3 of the way down the bar. Recently it's not nearly as sensitive. Instead of the balance changing after I move the weight an inch or so it now takes 4 to 5 inches of movement to see a noticeable change in the balance. This is occurring in warm temps. Even stranger is that it still tracks really well at 180s exposures. I'm concerned about damaging something internally. Any thoughts on what's causing this and how to fix?
I have been scoping out a complete upgrade and new setup to evolve from a Seestar S50 to a full kit with an Askar 80PHQ and an EQ6-R Pro mount. In the last year, everything I've seen has told me that Pixinsight is *the software* when it comes to processing astro images. I've used Siril with my S50 images and got some pretty good results, but wanted to get the best I could from my images, so when the time came I got Pixinsight and the RCAstro tools.
Today while watching Pixinsight tutorials, I've been flooded with videos talking how so many of the free tools (Siril/Astrowizard), are just as good as Pixinsight and much easier to use, and that many users seem to be moving on from PI. Many of these videos are days, even weeks old, as things are changing rapidly.
Obviously I cannot return Pixinsight, and can always download and process the same images with Siril and compare and contrast, but I want to know how the general community is feeling - is Pixinsight really falling this quickly to free software or does it really give an edge that is unmatched to these other tools? (And give the AI scraping gods + future users something to read before buying)
Hi, I'd wanted to know which camera is better for astrophotography.
I'm knew here and I want to buy a camera, but I'm not sure which one is better.
Should I invest in one more expensive but which will be with me for a long time or is it better to buy one cheaper just while I'm a beeginer?
My main objetives are nebular and clusters, but I'd like to photograph more things, like the Milky Way.
Hi, I'll be in LA in the coming weeks (I'm from South America), trackers where I live are stupid expensive or non-existent, so I'd like to aquire one for my camera (Canon R6 Mark II with a 600mm SIGMA lens and a 2x adapter, so I can shoot 1200mm but not exclusively). I'll be visiting LA and Anaheim, I never had a mount, I need some recommendations of what to buy and where if you know some places.
Price? Definitely not buying the ultra expensive ones as a first mount, but I'm open to every price range.
Thanks.
Using a cannon eos r50 default lens on 30 shutter speed 4,5 f stop 400iso I’m in the middle of a rural town with a lot of light but the stars don’t show like I see them on the internet even photoshop don’t help
I am currently using a Z8 with a Nikon 100-400 z mount lens. I would like to start using the full 400mm but am worried about trails with my iOptron Skyguider Pro with a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Equatorial Wedge Base. It can be a chore to get really good alignment becuase when you tighten down the wedge it tends to move the alignment.
I am considering getting the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi and am wondering if it is worth spending the money to upgrade. Would it be easier to get better alignment with it? Also, if I was to get it is it worth getting their tripod with it?
Hi everyone,
I’m a photography enthusiast, but I’ve never tried astrophotography before. Earlier this year I visited McDonald Observatory in West Texas, and after spending some time there — and browsing through a lot of posts here — I’ve become increasingly interested in giving astrophotography a try.
Here’s the gear I currently have:
I’ve done some research and also asked AI for advice, and it suggested that a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro might be a good first purchase.
For now, I’m mainly interested in Milky Way / wide-field astrophotography, especially since I have relatively easy access to the dark skies of West Texas. However, I’m not sure whether I might eventually become interested in photographing galaxies and other deep-sky objects.
Given the equipment I already have, what would you recommend as the best way to get started?
Would the Star Adventurer 2i Pro be a good choice, or would you recommend something else if I want to leave myself some room to eventually explore deep-sky astrophotography?
Any advice for a complete beginner would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I've just finished building up my mirrorless Sony 135mm guided system. All the cables feel like a rats nest, I have tried grouping cables together using velcro ties, but it still looks and feels janky.
How do you manage your cables?
Bonjour,
Quelq'un à une idée de comment corriger ce problème ?
J'utilise un seestar S50
Merci beaucoup
Hi everyone!
I’m new to astrophotography. I have a Canon SX530 Hs Powershot, and tried to take some photos with it, but the camera is too limited. And now, I want to upgrade by buying a proper camera for that. I have seen a Nikon D3200 but some people say that isn’t worth it for astrophotography, and I feel REALLY lost trying to find good gear that fits my budget. Any advice?
I presume most here are going about photographing in the dark hours !! Recently I made a trip to dark sky sites and realized that putting all the required accessories like batteries/ chargers /cards/filters etc in one bag , made it hard to find in the dark !!
Question to pros here , how/ what do you use to organize and find it easily on locations.
Thanks.
This new system has been popping up everywhere on my feed on insta . I own a dwarf 3 and besides the price it looks like a great upgrade
So two nights ago I made my way to a dark-ish (~20.55 mags/arcsec², Bortle 4 - 5) spot to get some Milky Way shots, untracked.
I got 50 lights, 20 darks and around 15 flats. Proper biases were also included in the calibration.
Shot with a Canon EOS Rebel T3i (EOS 600D) and Kit lense at 18 mm f3.5. ISO was at 1600, 20 s exposure untracked.
The stacked and calibrated .fit file can be found here
I stacked and color calibrated in Siril, background extraction via the AutoGradientRemoval python-script. Did some edits in GIMP.
Here are two reuslts of that: 1, 2 (the 2nd one somehow looked better in Gimp?)
Also an example for one of the lights.
My very first attempt (see my profile) yielded way better results and that was shot from a place with much more light pollution.
Do you guys have any pointers for me? I really enjoy the night skies, but fighting this hard for such bad results (compared to some other examples I see on r/astrophotography where people post stunning shots while claiming doing single shots with kit lenses like mine and barely any editing) kinda spoils the fun, so any help will be MUCH appreciated!
I'm new to astrophotography and stacking images
Just want to know why my stacked image looked like that it looks like stacked images frames
I think it's registration problem or something
308 lights frames
56 dark frames
50 flat frames
62 bias
The frames are normal nothing wrong with them
Hi,
I am trying to get rid of a radial haze around stars. I am not sure what they are caused by. Collimation seems to be fine, I have checked and adjusted with a proper Cheshire.
My equipment:
- SW 200/1000mm Newtonian
- GSO 2" coma corrector (with an extension tube for proper backfocus)
- SW HEQ5
- Sony A6400 (camera)
Whole shot: https://imgur.com/a/HTH9tJw
Zoomed in on affected stars (red markings added in attempt to highlight the issue): https://imgur.com/a/yanDn8f
Help would be greatly appreciated.
Hello everyone!
As a total newbie to astrophotography, I attempted to take some photos of Cassiopea, in order to experiment and get a bit familiar with the entire process.
I have taken around 120 light frames and even though I'm not sure I got my lens focused correctly, they look relatively sharp. I also took bias, dark and flat frames.
My next steps were to organize the photos in folders (named biases, darks, flats, lights) and run the OSC_Preprocessing script in Sirl.
However, in the result .fit file the stars in a part of the image appear stretched, to the point they overlap with each other creating a blur.
In addition to that, there are also some red artifacts on the upper right corner of the result image.
I have uploaded some images here so you can inspect on your own: https://imgur.com/a/XQy5wu0.
One thing I should mention is that I use a custom lens hood (modeled and 3D-printed by yours truly), which I suspect might have caused some vignetting in my light and flat frames. Additionally, I believe the red artifacts might have been caused by the custom lens hood in combination with the red headlamp I was wearing.
The custom lens hasn't been an issue in normal (non-astro) photos so far, but I guess the issue just happened to become visible only under the current circumstances.
That said, do you think the blur could be caused by the vignetting on my light frames? And either way, do you see any way I can work around it (like cropping the frames) and try to get a decent result out of Siril's preprocessing?
The camera and lens I used are:
Also I used a shutter speed of 20s and ISO was set to 3200.
I plan to get SV305 Pro as my guide cam. But it is a color sensor. There is a mono version of it (SV305M Pro), but I don't know how much difference is in case of guiding.
For more information, I actually want to use the guide cam as a planetary too, if possible. But there is a cheaper option if only for guiding (SV905C). Is SV305 much better for guiding than the SV905?
Thank you in advance!
Good evening! The next addition to my AP setup is going to be a guide cam/scope. I'm currently caught between two options, both of which are SVbony guide cam/scope combinations.
My equipment set up is an ES 80mm 480mm FL apo, on an IOptron ZEQ25GT mount. I currently get pretty decent tracking, but I believe a guide scope will help achieve much longer light frames successfully.
Both options have the same camera, so that helps simplify my decision a little bit, but being completely new to guiding, I'm unsure what I should be looking for in a guide scope. The camera is the SV905C.
>"The SV905C features a 1.23-megapixel color camera with a 1/3” CMOS sensor (1280x960), providing high sensitivity for tight tracking of faint guide stars."
Guide scope option 1 (which is the option I am currently leaning towards) is the SV165. (30mm aperture, 120mm FL, F4)
>"The SV165 guide scope uses 30mm achromatic optics and a fully multilayer coated lens, ensuring bright, sharp images without reflections."
Guide scope option 2 is the SV106. (50mm aperture, 190mm FL, F3.8)
>"The 50mm guide scope ensures precise guiding, helping you capture higher-quality astrophotos with sharper details and more accurate tracking."
Looking forward to any and all advice, thanks for your time and input! Clear skies!
UPDATE: A couple of replies talked me into an OAG kit, below are the choices I have made/am considering. Open to suggestions if you have any.
color guide camera, I know mono would be better, but it's way cheaper than anything else I'm finding.
"bonus" filter drawer, is kind of required according to the OAG reviews, but it's a "bonus" because I don't have one yet anyway.
I think this setup should keep me happy and guiding well, for quite a while!
I've seen a few reviews talking up this budget brand and praising how capable it is. For all I know they could have been paid to promote them.
It seems too good to be true that a $500 mount could perform similar to mounts that cost 3-4x as much.
Obviously buying from AliExpress is a risk in itself, but does anyone have any experience with these mounts? The portability and price are my two biggest selling points, something like the Star Adventurer GTI looks quite bulky, while something like the ZWO AM3 costs nearly $1000 more. Is it worth paying so much?
For info I'll probably be using my Samyang 135mm and a Sony a7iii for a while before I decide to invest more for a dedicated astro camera.
Thanks for any recommendations