March 23rd 2016.

Clear skies!
Too bad about the full moon and a strong wind!

That will not be enough to dissuade a new astro photographer like myself and the kit was set up and ready to image with about 20 minutes before the moon started to break out above the tree line.
The session lasted a good two hours.

My previous session was a test run on Eta Carina with 15 second subs.
This time around I started out on the same subject, only this time with 20 second subs and that was increased to 25 second subs as the session wore on.

At the end of the session there were well over 250 subs, sifting through these and discarded poor or below par subs I was left with 210.
Took them all, 20/25 second combined and loaded them up into DSS.

I was surprised at how long DSS took working through the data.
A couple of hours at minimum.

From there they went into Star tools.
This was the largest file I have loaded into star tools, the initial image size was over 6000X3000!
A immediate binning by 50% was needed or else my poor laptop cannot cope and hangs!

Details for this shoot are as follows:

ISO 800
100(or so) subs at 20 seconds.
100+ at 25 seconds
Combined and stacked in DSS
Post processing done in Star tools and Photoshop.

And here it is, a large improvement on my first attempt.

The time has arrived my friends!

I finally have a image taken with a camera through a telescope!
Whoo Hoooo!!

I was fortunate enough to grab a few photons one night during the week (March 14-18).
The plan did not go as anticipated and I only took the lights!
In my excitement at actually capturing photons I completely forgot to do darks etc.

Well no problem, this is Africa and we are built tough!
So putting the light subs through DSS proved to be a exercise in frustration!
Turns out my copy of DSS was corrupted and deleting it and downloading the latest model made a world of difference.

Now it would stack 90% of the subs and I had a image to put into Star Tools.
A bit of a crop here and there and some spit and polish and out popped a image that almost resembles Eta Carina.
It is not the finest image and I am aware of the glaring problems, like a decent focus, but it is mine and I have to claim this child!

Details as follows:

Canon 1200D, no modifications or any filters used.
ISO 800
36 subs at 15 second exposure time.
Stacked in DSS and post processed in Star tools and Photoshop CS2.

And I now present my very first AP image through a scope using a Canon DSLR.

At the suggestion of a friend(thanks Jen) I have also downloaded Astro photography tool, a very handy bit of software aimed at the amateur astro photographer with all the functions you will need when out by the scope.
There is a learning curve to this AP bussiness that is steep, however it is scalable and I can only improve from here on out!

Comments as always are welcomed, good or bad!

March 17 2016.

Some partially clear skies presented tonight, not enough for any serious scope viewing but enough to try some hand held shots of the moon with my Canon 1200D.

I was using the 75-300mm F4-5.6 lens at a focal length of 300mm.
ISO 400
Shutter speed of 1/125 with a aperture value of 22.

Did a little processing with Star tools and Photoshop, mostly a crop and some sharpening.
Then Photoshop for some saturation adjustments and  convert and save as a JPEG image.

And here is the result.

March 13 2016.

Tried my hand at some DSLR solar imaging today.
The images were acquired with my Canon 1200D and taken through the skywatcher 102.

Man what a learning curve that involved!
Getting the white balance right, then exposure times, then, then,then...

After almost a hour I finally had a image on screen that looked like a disc!
Trying to find the sweet spot for the focus is another headache.
These are still out of focus.

So here are the results of more than a hours labour this morning.

Full disc.

And the sunspots closer up.

This solar imaging is a lot harder than one would think and I am going to need a lot more practice at this.
It's a good start so far and I am reasonably happy with the outcome.

More hot humid and sunny days followed by cloudy damn nights have led me back to sketching from photographs!

This is my attempt at ARP 142.

This interacting galaxy duo is collectively called Arp 142. The pair contains the disturbed, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2936, along with its elliptical companion, NGC 2937.

This was drawn with black and white pastel pencils on black sketch paper.
About a hour and a half duration on the sketch!

Hope you enjoy, comments etc. welcomed!

Had some clear sky last night after sooooo long!
Decided to use the time and try out some more photographs of the night sky with the new canon 1200D on it's tripod.

Out of a good 50+ images I selected these two for posting.
A lot of the others were trying out the different ISO settings etc. to see how the camera behaves.
I am still learning the ropes here in anticipation of some short exposure AP down the road.
These two images are not very well framed as I cannot see the target through the viewfinder, it was a bit of trial and error getting them in the frame at all!!
I did not use the laptop so that made it even more challenging, a good learning exercise!

Here are two images, the first is Eta Carina and surrounds.
The second is the Crux and surrounds.
These are both single shot images, no stacking etc.
They were both processed, very minimally I might add in Star tools, mostly contrast and colour module/s.

To the right of Eta Carina you can spot the Southern Pleiades, to the top of the image is NGC 3114 (OC) and just below Eta Carina is the OC known as The wishing well cluster, NGC 3532.

The settings are as follows:
ISO 1600
10 sec exposure
Focal length 100.0 mm
F4.5



The Crux or Southern Cross.

ISO 800
30 sec exposure
F5.6
Focal length 51.0 mm

You might have a hard time spotting the Crux in among all the stars that show up in the image.
When viewing this naked eye I can only see the four main stars that make up this constellation with my LP constraints.
The camera however sees a whole different kettle of fish!