M42

I took out the Astrotrac a few nights ago to take a few preperaton
shots of M42 to see how it would perform and to get a few settings
for shooting the Orion area properly in the coming months.

Sky glow was a serious problem and anything over 30 sec gave a nasty orange look.

So trips to the Burren will be frequent during the winter season.
IAs for the astrotrac. I did a rough polar alignment and it
showed no trailing on fully zoomed in stars
up to 3min exposures.
Camera was a 350D and a canon ef lens at F 300.


Here are 3 shots stacked in registax.
No darks, flats or that...
Image is cropped and resized down.

Frank, I have to say I am very impressed with the astotrac you got there, using a 300mm lens plus the 1.6x factor for the 350d, that's equivalent to a 480mm lens, at 3mins that's excellent tracking

Detail captured is as always with M42, excellent ! Here's to a great winter of clear skies : cheer:
Keith..

Frank,

Nice image with your set up. The Astrotrack does well in tracking at that focal length with such a long exposure.

Look forward to more images,in particular, from the Burren.

Well done!

Eamonn A

www.kingslandobservatory.com

Yes indeed lads here's to a winter of clear nights!!
I've only now seen this image on my PC monitor and to me
the stars look a tad purple.
confounded laptop screens!

I'm beginning the process of constructing a dove tail style
mount for the the astrotrac to mount a small scope onto.

Was going to say about the magenta/purple hue also. Otherwise some good detail for such a short focal length. Whats the max F length with the astrotrac?? R you going to mod your 350D I'm going to get mine modded shortly.

Dave Gradwell

btw flats may help with your light pollution to get longer iterations.

The Astrotrac has typical unguided tracking error of around 5 arcseconds peak-to-peak or better over a 5 minute period.
You can easily capture pin sharp stars at 500 mm or more focal length.

I've decided to invest in the new year in a 450D so I may just mod the 350D.
Although if I do it I'll send it off to get it done.

As for flats and darks and all that
I'll have to make more of an effort in the future to include these.