Beginner widefield astrophotography

[zygalski]

Hi all.
I've recently started trying this after a few years of interest in astronomy.
I started out wanting to do some wide field Deep Sky Object imaging, so over the course of the last year or so, saved for and purchased the items needed.

All in, a decent kit can be had for £1500-£2000.
This should include a DSLR (ideally astro-modified by one of the various online vendors), Star Tracker, a decent lens such as the Samyang/Rokinon 135mm f2, a good tripod, and a few other bits & pieces such as a lens heater band, USB power bank, bahtinov mask (available on Ebay), and a wireless camera shutter controller.
Image stacking and processsing software such as Siril & Starnet++ are free.

Here are my first 3 efforts.

M31 The Andromeda Galaxy to me was an obvious first target.
I'm lucky to live in a Bortle 4 region of SE England.

My set up was as follows.
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 3200
Samyang 135mm f2 set at f2.8
322 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 13 hrs 42 minutes on my old laptop...
I'm very pleased with the result.
The initial stretch did show considerable horizontal banding, but the debanding function on Siril took care of that.

 

[zygalski]

M45 The Pleiades / Seven Sisters
Clearly visible with the unaided eye, the young stars in this famous open cluster emit high levels of blue nebulosity. This was a good choice for my second target.

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm f2 (set at f4)
205 x 45 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 8hrs 30m on my old laptop.

 

[zygalski]

NGC 1909 / IC 2188 aka The Witch Head Nebula
This is a very faint reflection nebula right next to Rigel in Orion, but the nebula is just inside the Eridanus constellation.
The image is flipped 180 degrees. Bortle 4 really helps with this target. A lot of folk in larger towns and cities have very little chance of getting a usable image. Rigel (shown on the right) has been reduced considerably in luminosity by using Starnet++ or else it would completely overwhelm our creepy friend...

My set up was as follows.
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm f2; set at f2.8
270 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++

Stacking on our new ACER Aspire TC-1780 Desktop PC - Intel® Core™ i7, 1 TB SSD with 32GB RAM installed took a fraction over 10 minutes.
Such a relief - I don't have to worry about blowing the laptop up any more

 

[amateur]

Very interesting photos. I look forward to continuing.

 

[Saxonbowman]

Great images @zygalski!

 

[zygalski]

A couple of hours worth of break in the clouds gave me the chance to capture the rich star and hydrogen alpha fields in Cygnus, which lies across the main band of the Milky Way.

Deneb to Sadr in Cygnus

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm f2 (set at f2.8)

175 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++

 

[Mr. Shavington]

It must be very exciting to get images like this. Amazing to be able to do this now with amateur equipment. I used to be into astronomy when I was a kid, and there was much less light pollution then. I haven’t seen the milky way across the sky for decades now, although I recently visited a friend in Dorset and the night sky was pretty good there. I bet you can’t wait to get out and freeze your nuts off every time you get a clear sky. Thanks for sharing your pictures.

 

[Craigbob]

Very nice images. You captured some nice dust on M45 and the Witchhead.

 

[Ravenonrock]

These pictures are great! I dabble with spray paint art, creating planets and nebulas and cosmic scenes. Your photos have given me some inspiration. Please keep them coming!

 

[zygalski]

Orion's belt & nebulae.
Plenty to see here, including the Flame Nebula, Horsehead Nebula, and of course M42 - the Great Orion Nebula.
Considering how low Orion is at the moment, and how windy it was when taking the subs, I'm very pleased with the end result.
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm set at f2.8
343 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 8m 8s.

 

[zygalski]

 

[zygalski]

The Rosette Nebula and surrounding region in the constellation Monoceros

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 800
Samyang 135mm set at f2.8
393 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 9m 28s.

 

[Ad Astra]

These are great, thanks! Just starting to play with a Seestar S50 over here ...


AA

 

[zygalski]

NGC 2264 heavily cropped and reprocessed, from the image above of Rosette nebula region.

 

[zygalski]

Flaming Star Nebula region, in the constellation Auriga

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 800
Samyang 135mm set at f2.8
455 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 11m 50s.

 

[zygalski]

Lovely clear, crisp skies with little wind last night, for a change...

California Nebula in the constellation Perseus

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Canon 750D (astro modified) ISO 1600
Samyang 135mm set at f2.8
274 x 40 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++
Stacking took 6m 23s.

 

[Craigbob]

Nice stuff there.

 

[zygalski]

Last night I decided to try something a bit different.
I used my old, standard cheapo Nikon D3300 along with a late 1980's Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED AF lens to image the old favourite M45 The Pleiades.

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Nikon D3300 ISO 800
Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED AF (set at f/4)
333 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.0 along with Starnet++

I'm very pleased with the result given the combination of an older (albeit highly thought of) lens, and an entry-level DSLR which first came to the market 10 years ago.

 

[zygalski]

Another experiment with the late 80's Nikon lens.

The Flaming Star nebula region of Auriga

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Nikon D5300 (Astro modified) ISO 400
Nikon 180mm f/2.8 ED AF (set at f/4)
385 x 30 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.1 along with Starnet++

 

[zygalski]

The first decent night for ages...
I wanted to try out the Redcat 51 I bought several months ago!
The target was M13 the Hercules Globular Cluster. The only trouble - M13 is fairly low in the sky until the Summer. I started at 11pm (it was then at about 30 degrees up) and was finished 1 o'clock this morning!
I'm impressed with the colour rendering on the various classes of stars. I added precisely zero colour saturation. If you look carefully, there are also a few surprises in the image.

M13 Hercules Globular Cluster
Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i Pro
Nikon D5300 (Astro modified) ISO 200
Redcat 51 F/4.9
183 x 45 second lights
50 flats
50 biases
50 darks
I used Siril 1.2.1 along with Starnet++