[masraum]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

Captured my first long focal length image the other night. M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. These two, interacting galaxies are 23 million light-years away from us and about 3/4 the size of our own galaxy.

Shot with Atik 16200 mono camera, 16, 3 minute sub exposures combined for 48 minutes total expose. This is the luminence channel only. I will get red, green, and blue to add color to the image later.

Scope used was 14" Meade ARC with reducer at approximately 2500mm focal length.

These 3 minute sub exposures are un-guided and show the true potential of the mount once guiding and periodic error correction are added.

As usual, very impressive stuff. I've always wanted to get a "good" view of M51. I believe I was once able to see a super faint fuzzy with averted vision. You know, where you keep looking and you think you saw it but you wonder "did I see it or did I want to see it so badly that my brain is playing tricks on me?"

Amazing image, and fantastic stability considering the focal length and time and the stars are pretty much round. It looks like you get a tiny little galaxy to the top right of the right hand galaxy.

Originally Posted by RNajarian

I’m impressed/envious of some of the photos you guys have taken.

I dusted off my Celestron 5SE and have been able to view a number of remarkable deep sky objects in addition to objects in our solar system.

I picked up a cheapo SVBony 105 optical imager and have made a few images (nothing like what you guys are doing)

My question is: If I want to step it to the next level (astrophotography-wise) what do you guys recommend?

I am still playing with the Software to see if I can improve the resolution (through stacking) but I’m curious what advice the group would have for a nubie?

Bigger Scope?
Better Optical imager?

Thanks for your thoughts

Your moon shot is good. To make that better, it needs more post processing to make it pop a bit more (basically, more contrast and maybe some saturation in the most basic terms). The full moon is tough since it's so well lit. A more dramatic moon is usually a partial so you've got more highlight and shadow on the craters that are at the edge of the lit area

Not my photo (photo from here)


As for Jupiter, if you want to see bands or the GRS or any detail, then you'll have to dial back the exposure a lot. The problem then is that you may then not pick up the moons. For sure, for planetary (Jupiter and Saturn and Mars) you'll want to take video. Then once you have video, you get one of the apps that has been discussed earlier which will pull out the best frames from the video and then stack them to give you a better image.