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Greetings from another NZ astrophotographer

iOptron SkyGuider Pro Introductions Deep Sky
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Adam Rosner avatar
Adam Rosner avatar
Seems I'm not the only one on here...

I've only just gotten started on this - I've been doing photography for ages, but I'm new to astro.

I'm on the council for my local Astronomical Society where we are building two observatories, one for Visual and one for Remote operation, in our nearby magnificent Bortle 1 soon-to-be-designated Dark Sky Reserve. So I expect to be posting some images from that eventually, but for now I'm imaging with a more modest setup



That's a Stock Canon DSLR on an iOptron SkyGuider Pro with a 61mm refractor.  I use this in my backyard which is in the outer suburbs of Wellington under Bortle 4 conditions.

Rosette Nebula

Eta Carinae Nebula

I've a special interest in the amazing deep-sky objects that we have in the southern hemisphere and I'll be re-visiting these targets when my camera is IR-modified and as my processing skills improve

Clear skies

I
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Brian Boyle avatar
Brian Boyle avatar
Welcome Adam!  That looks like a great (and very sensible) starter rig.  You will get some amazing wide-fields with that.  Not dissimilar to how I started out about 9 months ago - albeit with a 200mm lens.

I also think you have chosen the right upgrade path, improving red ssensitivity  and (post) processing skills.  These are the two things that have made the most dramatic changes to my images.

Looking forward to seeing your work.

CS, Brian
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Sean avatar
Sean avatar
Hi from the US.  The images you captured with your setup are fantastic.  How do you like your refractor?

Sean
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Adam Rosner avatar
Adam Rosner avatar
Brian Boyle:
Welcome Adam!  That looks like a great (and very sensible) starter rig.  You will get some amazing wide-fields with that.  Not dissimilar to how I started out about 9 months ago - albeit with a 200mm lens.

I also think you have chosen the right upgrade path, improving red sensitivity  and (post) processing skills.  These are the two things that have made the most dramatic changes to my images.

Thanks Brian. I've also got the Canon 70-200 lens and I took a few photos with that to begin with but nothing really worth putting on Astrobin. I saw your observatory it looks great. Yeah fingers crossed on the camera IR mod; do you know anyone in NZ that does it? I'm not game to try it myself and the closest place I've found is Melbourne so far!
Adam Rosner avatar
Adam Rosner avatar
Sean:
How do you like your refractor?

Well I don't have much to compare it with since I'm quite new to this... but it seems to do the job nicely and I don't see any chromatic aberrations or coma, so I'm happy about that. Also the total payload my rig is carrying - guidescpe and cam, telescope and flattener and camera - comes to 3.2kg which I'm happy with since the mount's max payload capacity is 5kg.

Without a  GoTo mount it can be difficult to aim but since I started using Astrophotography Tool to run my sessions, it's relatively easy to aim in the general direction, take a test shot, plate-solve, then re-aim, rinse and repeat, until on target. Prior to doing that, I had a devil of a job to align, but that's a factor of the focal length not the refractor in general.
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Brian Boyle avatar
Brian Boyle avatar
Adam Rosner:
Yeah fingers crossed on the camera IR mod; do you know anyone in NZ that does it? I'm not game to try it myself and the closest place I've found is Melbourne so far!

 No, in the end I just bought a ZWO OSC - and kept my Cano n 5D unmodified. Expensive, but wasn’t prepared to take the risk!