Hello from Hudson Valley NY

Polar Alignment Backyard Astrophotography Introductions
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Zensurgeon avatar
Zensurgeon avatar
Hello everyone:

I live and work in Newburgh NY.  My home is in a semi-rural area but I do have cities nearby with their light pollution.  I do most of my imaging from my backyard.

I got my first SCT about 20 years ago and spent a lot of time with visual astronomy.   When a lot of other things in life got in the way I put it aside for a long time.  In the last year I picked up an LX85/Astrograph 70mm APO Quadruplet combo.  Had a hard time learning how to polar align and plate solve to track targets.  I got that down pretty well now and have been imaging as much as I can with mixed results, although I feel I am overall improving.

Hoping to learn more here - The pictures I see are inspiring.  Want to improve my processing skills, which is new to me.

Member of Mid-Hudson Astronomical Association
https://www.meetup.com/mhastro

Thanks for reading!

Tom

Equipment:
Meade LX85 GEM
Meade Astrograph 70mm APO Quadruplet
ZWO ASI 071MC-Pro
ZWO ASI290MC - Was main - now going to add to a guide scope which is coming in the mail soon

Software:
Sharpcap for PA
APT for plate solving
Astro Pixel Processor
Photoshop
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rhedden avatar
rhedden avatar
Hello from Rensselaer County!  I also do most of my imaging from home these days, with an occasional trip to the north for dark skies.

Getting good at processing is a matter of putting lots time into practicing it.  I've been at it for 8 years, and I am still learning new tricks every time I produce an image.  In retrospect, my advice is to image the brighter, more famous DSOs first, even if you are tired of seeing them.  The goal is to learn the processing techniques well enough on the "easy" smile objects so that your images start to look like your favorites on Astrobin.

I've always learned more from processing the famous objects, which are usually not "easy" to process by the way.  You need a good set of data to really learn about processing, though.  Even after 8 years of imaging, I am still struggling with an M31 image from last month because the RGB frames didn't combine correctly.  It's just the start of a life-long learning curve, that's all.   smile
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Zensurgeon avatar
Zensurgeon avatar
That's great advice.  I have multiple versions of Andromeda, Orion, M45.  I use them as a gauge for my progress, and they still fascinate me anyway.  Photoshop is new to me so I am learning that.  Just got the demo copy of Pixinsight and I have no clue what I am doing.

Hopefully will be at lake Taghhanic for a star party in December - my backyard has mediocre skies.

Tom
Aaron Freimark avatar
Aaron Freimark avatar
Hey Tom! I'm in Cold Spring, just across the river. Did we meet at the last MHAA star party?
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Zensurgeon avatar
Zensurgeon avatar
Hi! Yes!

The pic of me was taken there - We got there early.  Love your pics!
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