Finally a clear night again. There were a few high clouds, but nevertheless I could finally try out the new ZWO ASI 6200 MC Pro on February 16. The clouds were noticeable in the photos, but the result was still promising. At least I could try out a few things and among other things initialize and activate the autofocus function in the Voyager. So from now on I can automatically refocus during longer image sequences. On February 17th it was clear and I had programmed the following objects to be photographed: - M 31 - Andromeda Galaxy - M 42 - Orion Nebula - M 45 - Pleiades - IC 434 - Horsehead Nebula The Andromeda galaxy soon disappeared behind the house, and so I could take only 10 pictures, which were not enough to make a good photo. Next I processed the Pleiades. From 48 pictures à 30s the following picture was created: M 45 - Pleiades: ZWO ASI 6200 MC Pro, C 11 EdgeHD, Hyperstar V4.0 After that I started with the Orion Nebula. From 138 images à 30s the following image was created: M...
The results of 100 stacked shots of the Crab Nebula did not really convince me. The improvement over the 11 stacked pictures was not very big. So I planned to double the exposure time (1min instead of 30s) or even increase it. Now I have read several articles. The best ISO setting for astrophotography with the EOS 550d is apparently at 800, although 1600 is still quite good. It tends to be better to use a higher ISO setting than to extend the exposure time. The longer the exposure time, the more noise there is in the picture, with less noise due to higher ISO settings (at least for ISO 800 and 1600). The shutter speed should be set so that the peak of the histogram is about 1/3 of the range (from the left). So next time I try to do a series at ISO 800 and 1600 respectively. Whereby I will first try the exposure time based on the histogram. With these settings, I will then take a series of photos and stack. I'm really looking forward to the result.
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.
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