Aterlatus

Maybe time to take up a third hobby including BB guns? Any tips on a good place to go shopping for the above bits and pieces? Gone off the place we got the scope from now because they stuffed us on an accessory set. The barlow was meant to have a thread making it a t adaptor, but the thread was missing and they're dragging their heels over putting it right. Been three months now!

That shot was with the Canon 600D and a 55-250mm lens, at 107mm. Exposure was set at 2 seconds (longer was giving star trails), aperture f5.0 and ISO at 800. Took 50 pictures (OK, over 200 - at different levels of zoom) and 15 darks (with lens cap on). Loaded them up in deepskystacker and waited almost half an hour... Result was a very black pic with just a couple of stars showing. I had to mess with the colour levels with DSS (triangle on the right dragged quite a way to the left to make the bell curve for each colour wider then using the middle triangle to move the bell curve to the right slightly) to get the galaxy to show. Edit: As far as finding the galaxy goes, stellarium proved invaluable.

Half luck, half pointing in roughly the right spot and using different focal lengths, but managed to spot Andromeda tonight. Full size available too Took some playing with the colour levels to get the galaxy to show up, so there's a bit of detail 'burnt out' through clipping (hence the light grey background) but it was still nice to catch a galaxy. Now I'm going to have to find a way to mount the cam to the (tracking) scope for longer exposures...

Aperture was wide open anyhows - and moaning about there not being enough light still. Was going to try a longer exposure next time the sky's clear. See if I'll have any luck tonight in a couple of hours...

Canon 600D, 18-55 lens (at 18) and a tripod. Took 100 shots and 10 darks with a 2 second exposure and ISO 800, auto aperture. Was quite pleasantly surprised by just how many stars come out in it. Looking at the sky (even with night vision starting to kick in) there was barely a dozen visible, and even those were very feint.

My first try with DSS. I really need to find someplace dark.... Full size, if anyone's interested.

So buy the kids a play house between them, and make sure you can remove the roof?

Still quite cloudy round these parts tonight, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Up in the North West. For once, it's you Southerners getting the crappy weather.

ISO isn't too tough - it's the 'sensitivity' of the sensor. The sensor's basically sitting there counting how many photons of each colour hit it. At a low ISO setting, it might give '1 red point' for '1 red photon'. At a higher ISO setting, you might get '10 red points' for '1 red photon'. That means with a higher ISO you can get a picture with less available light, but it sacrifices quality because it can't pick out subtle differences in the amount of light anymore (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 versus 10, 20, 30, 40, 50) and it tends to introduce a lot of noise (seen as 'speckles' on the picture) with too high an ISO. Edit: I've an overwhelming urge to get back out there and crack on now I've seen your shot of Daneb. Hell, I've an overwhelming urge to drive to the hills so I get better quality light too.

Right, first play with my own camera on the mount. Two shots of the same star, 2x and 4x barlow on there. I took it by setting the camera grip I've got to take 50 shots 1s apart. I'm guessing the flicking of the mirror caused a bit too much movement and left the pics a bit blurrier/streaked than they should be. Need to find myself a nice way around that one. Still, it's fun to do so I'll keep at it. Edit: Just to add, they were Daneb too. Back garden isn't the ideal place to shoot from because of nearby street lighting. Could only see maybe a dozen or two stars after almost half an hour out there. Can see so much more through the scope though. Considering it's the wife's present, I'm loving it as much as she is.

It's true - although I'm still in denial, Pluto is now classified as a dwarf planet. Supposedly they had to reclassify it otherwise they'd have to start reclassifying some large rocks in the asteroid belt as planets.

Well would you look who took a peek over the neighbours roof tonight... Of course over a roof is about the worst viewing conditions you can get, but it looked so much better in the eyepiece. Can't wait to use my own camera instead of my brother's - should get some purdy pics. Edit: Can also recommend Antares as worth a look. Had an awesome colourful flicker to it, thanks to it's MASSIVE size (if it was our sun, it would stretch to somewhere between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter!) and very nearby secondary star. Almost looks like a UFO.

Got a couple of clear evenings due round these parts in the first few days of the week. Wifey's birthday has passed, so should be able to go find someplace nice and dark and have a play. Sods law that every day and night has been thick cloud since her birthday, really.

It's obviously The Nazi's.