Astronomy and Astrofotography

I always had problems with the WiFi module which I could not explain. It always worked in the garage but not outside in front of the garage. In some places it sometimes worked, but often the connection is broken at the latest during the alignment. Now I made an update of the firmware today, whereby the update of the WiFi module was always unsuccessfully. Until now, I always had it in direct mode. So I made a try and reconfigured it to Access Point Mode. With this configuration it works now outside on the garage. Unfortunately, shortly after the darkening it got foggy, so I could not perform an alignment and take any photos. But just the fact that the WiFi module seems to work now is a success.

Today I would like to try to photograph the Orion Nebula without eyepiece projection with the EOS 550d. At the same time I would also like to test the new filters to see what they bring to this object. The results are much better than with the eyepiece projection. Despite much stray light, the pictures have become quite good. I uploaded the unedited photos here. Orion Nebula with UHC-S fog filter (EOS 550d, 2 minutes with ISO 200): Orion Nebula with neodymium Moon and skyglow filters (EOS 550d, 2 minutes with ISO 200):

So far, I've done all the alignments with a standard 17mm eyepiece. This is of course not so accurate, because it is difficult to estimate whether the object is now exactly in the middle. Nevertheless, all approached objects were visible in the eyepiece. But when I wanted to take pictures of Mars with the Celestron NexImage 10, it was not visible on the picture, but just next to it. With a chip size of 6.4 x 4.6 mm, the image field is also very limited. That's why I first did an alignment with the StarSense, then the StarSense was readjusted with the reticule eyepiece. Then again an alignment with the StarSense and then einnorden with the crosshair eyepiece. Then again a new alignment with additional reference stars to increase the accuracy. I hit some objects (Orion Nebula, Crab Nebula, Bode Galaxy) and they were all very well centered. If you set everything up well then the accuracy is really good.

On February 15th, I made another attempt. Since I always had problems with the fogging of the optics and the newly ordered heating has brought no improvement (apparently it is defective) I have warmed the front plate with the hair dryer so that it does not mist. I took a few pictures with the Celestron NexImage 10 from Mars. Then I photographed with the EOS behind the eyepiece the moon and then the Orion Nebula. The moon still had a blue fringe of color and the Orion Nebula showed a true color spectrum in the stars. I suspect that this comes from the eyepiece and will therefore make the next attempts without an eyepiece and connect the camera directly to the telescope. Moon with ISO 200 1/60s: I made several images of the Orion Nebula. First an image with 3 minutes exposure time at ISO 200: You can already see the red color of the Nebula. Another image with 2 minutes exposure time at ISO 200: Also here the red color of the Nebula is already visible. An ima...

Nice weather is announced for tonight and I have prepared myself a little bit. First, I want to perform an alignment, then perform north orientation and then again an alignment. I setup the equipment west of the building so I hopefully can use the wifi (southwest does not work, presumably it has some jamming there). Then I would like to take a few pictures of the Orion Nebula and possibly the Horsehead Nebula with the EOS 550d. The first plans are ISO 1600, then ISO 800 and possibly ISO 400. Probably I will start at ISO 1600 with about 20s exposure time and see what the result looks like. First, I photographed the moon again: After that, I took some pictures of the Orion Nebula. Here is a first (not very successful) picture. I've exposed it to ISO 400 for 30s with the EOS 550D. As you can see on the pictures I still have a lot of work to do ... Right now I'm mainly fighting with the dew. After a short time, the optics begins to fog up and after an hour, almost the entire s...