Daniel Petzen:
Hi
I'm new to Astrobin and just got a tip to join this group.
I'm in Stokes Valley, north of Wellington. It's a Bortle 4 area with decent seeing condition, albeit a valley, so the dew is a major problem.
As I mentioned in the "Southern Hemisphere Astronomy" group (who suggested this group):
I just managed to get the hang of the basics of my (what I think is) my amazing Celestron 9.25 and ASI294MC and I want to know what to go for
I've lived in New Zealand for 8 years, but I picked up astrophotography again in earnest about a year ago. I had experience of an Meade ETX90 and thought "It's just a bigger telescope". Wow, was I wrong. But, I can now master 2 minute exposures and are getting decent results. I'm still a beginner, but I love the learning experience.
I've fallen in love with the Large Magellanic cloud, but I've realised that integration time is everything, so I want some help to find my next big project. What do you love to image? What would you recommend that I go for?
Also, I saw a an amazing picture where a few people had gotten together and imaged the same object. they raked up 205 hours and the result were amazing.
I know I'm rushing ahead here, but I'd love to do something like that.
I'll let go for the mic now. Sorry :-)
Cheers,
Dan
Hi Dan. One way to find targets that I use a lot is to use the Telescopius.com website, join up as a member ( its free) and enter/save your imaging location and your scope/camera (in equipment) and then go to Targets/Deep Sky (at top left) and from there you can filter its list of objects for tonight to select only types of targets you want listed (eg emission nebulae/planetary nebulae/dark nebulae/galaxies/galaxy groups, etc, etc) and can also select how close to the moon you'll allow targets to be (which would be different on nights when the moon is bright from nights its dim or not up) ,how high in the sky (for how many hours) listed objects will be tonight, what size and brightness of objects you want listed, what declination range of objects you want (to only get objects that you can see from NZ and that will get to a decent height above the horizon - for here in NZ I tend to use Dec -90 to about +20). For a preview of what an object will look like with your cam and scope use the "telescope simulator" (further down the page for each object) and tell it your scope and camera if youve entered those in your equipment list (you can adjust the screen brightness of the simulation under "survey", for dim or very bright objects). There's also a nice chart over on the right for each object showing where it will be in the sky at each time tonight. To make imaging life much easier, and faster, if you don't have one already you could get Celestron's x .63 focal reducer for your C9.25 (or the x.7 reducer if your's is a 9.25 Edge HD model), or if you want a much wider field of view and MUCH faster imaging times, then Starizona's Hyperstar lenses for Celestron SCTs are amazing, making the scope work at about f/2 which means very short imaging times. The x.7 Edge HD reducers and Hyperstar are though properly expensive, while the x.63 reducer for non edge hd scopes is much less so. I'm in the Bay of Plenty and image with either a C11 Edge HD (usually with Hyperstar at F/2) or a 10 inch aperture f/5.8 Corrected Dall Kirkham premium scope, or largeish 130mm and 140mm aperture refractors. Like you I also have a 294MC cam (the cooled pro version), and a larger ASI2600MC Pro as well. I'd like to get a bigger ASI62000 camera as my CDK scope has a very wide flat field that allows use of large full-frame cameras, but the 6200 is pricey so I haven't bitten that bullet yet.
Another, perhaps much simpler way to find targets to image from NZ would be just to look at the astrobin images of the members of this group and see what they have been imaging (while checking what scope/lens and camera they were using to see if the object might also suit your rig) . Some objects will only be up in the night sky at some times of year though. For very southern objects (objects with very negative declinations) they will tend to be up in the sky at night for much more of the year than for more northern sky objects (objects with positive declinations), some of which may only have an imaging window of opportunity of a few weeks each year from NZ.
Good luck
Chris
Hi Chris
Thank you for the very elaborative and informative answer to my post. I'm sorry for the bleated response. I didn't receive any notifications, so I had no idea anyone responded.
I really like Telescopius and I've use it to plan my sessions several times. I've used the filters, and had a few really good sessions, but I struggle a bit to get a list of the objects I'm most interested in getting at times. I'm going to try your recommendation when it comes to settings.
I had a look at the 0.7 (I didn't know about the 0.63) reducer, but it's quite a lot of money and I will use my small FoV for now.
I'd love a n HyperStar, but that is too much money right now.
I upgraded from a QHY5III485C, so my ASI294 is pretty amazing right now. I've used mono in the past, but I'm taking that step when I'm more comfortable with tings.
I joined AstroBin to be able to look at what other people with my equipment managed to photograph, so that is definitely something I'm exploring.
I love New Zealand and living in the southern hemisphere, so I my focus is entirely to explore the southern hemisphere and all the stuff I've never heard about before :-)
I'd be super keen to do a joint project, though!