How I got into Astrophotography part 3/3
During September 2017 I was looking for a telescope with shorter focal length for guiding but also imaging on its own. At the end of the month I got a secondhand Bresser Messier AR-102S/600 Hexafoc I couldn't wait to test it. When I finally got the opportunity I went to my cottage 30km away from Brno where the sky is much darker and Milkyway visible.
This was actually the first time I got to use my CG5 mount too because at the time I thought that I won't be able to use it on the balcony. I got everything set up and decided that my first target taken with this gear should be the Pleiades.
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| 50x50s with Canon 100D |
I was blown away by the quality of the image when I started editing it. I tried shooting Pleiades several times but I never got the nebulosity to pop out. I know that the chromatic aberration of this telescope is bad but it was such an improvement over the AZ mount. Not only that, I could do nearly minute long exposures but also the focal ratio of the Bresser is f/5.8 comparing to the Celestrons f/11.8, that means that the Bresser can catch twice as much light as Celestron over the same time period.
For the first time since I started with Astrophotography I was at least partialy satisfied. Since I can't shoot at my cottage every day I've decided to buy a light pollution filter. I got Optolong UHC 1.25'' and I used it ever since, the difference in the pictures is huge and it also supresses the chromatic aberration a lot. This was for a short time my complete set up that didn't change and I was finally taking some decent Astrophotos.
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| The Dumbbell nebula (Apple core nebula) |
Now we're finally getting to some recent events. I wanted to give myself a solar telescope as a Christmas gift. The problem was as per every astro item, solar telescopes are expensive but not in kinda expensive way but as in very expensive way. Most of them costs more than my whole set up. I've decided for Coronado PST as it is a beginners H-Alpha solar telescope. I found one on ebay and started bidding. I was the highest bidder but the price started to go really high and I've decided to let it go because it almost got to the price of a new one.
After a lost auction I quickly switched to plan B which was modifying my DSLR. The problem was that my DLSR was still in warranty and I didn't want it to lose it. Other reason was that it's my only DLSR and I would end up with pinkish pictures. Those could be easily corrected in the post processing but pain in the ass nevertheless. So I started browsing sites with used DSLRs, I found out that my favorite shop with cameras has secondhand section and that they're selling Canon 600D for really good price. Without any hesitation I bought it, one of the reasons was that I've always wanted DSLR with flip out display because it makes things so easy when it's mounted to the telescope and you can just flip the screen and you don't have to kneel or twist your head like crazy. The same day I ordered a Baader BCF astroconversion filter.
When I got to the conversion I knew I wanted to do it but it was just so weird to risk breaking your new toy. I watched a lot of videos on how to do it and read a lot of articles but the best and most detailed guide one was done by Gary Honis (← click to go to his page) He has great pictures of every step and made the guide for almost every Canon model. I love disassembling stuff to see how it works or how I can fix it and I've disassembled/fixed a lot of computer, laptops or phones but never a DSLR. To be honest it was a little more complicated that regular laptop but what I was mainly afraid of was that it's much more sensitive. I've never handled naked imaging chip, this was my first.
In the picture above there are actually still two filters covering the chip, the blue/green one was the one that was swapped, now my chip is pink. Everything went well and I got it all back together and working. I knew that this modification will let the camera capture H-Alpha wavelength so I wanted to test it on some target that is mostly H-Alpha. Even though I tested it on multiple targets the best one to show is probably the Horsehead nebula. I knew that I cant see it much from the city so it was the perfect target for comparison of the result.
I think that image is speaking for itself and the fact that for the bottom picture was actually used less images with shorter exposition time and lower ISO makes the difference even bigger.
If you were paying attention then you must have notice that I didn't mention the guiding. Simply because I still haven't figured it out completely. I really wish to make it work really soon as I just got Astronomik 12nm H-Alpha filter which I would love to use. I know that guiding will let me take longer exposures than I ever took and it will let be do better picture and with combination with that new filter. I'm pretty excited about this year.
This is summary of what I've been doing for the past few years and I would like to mention what I'm planning on doing next. I'm getting really close to getting the guiding working so that is my current priority, unfortunately the weather is so far terrible so I don't have a way to test it. The next purchase is probably going to be some short focal length APO telescope because that would also improve my images a lot. Maybe then some solar telescope will come and I'll start with some proper solar imaging. We'll see...
Clear skies to you all
Jan
After a lost auction I quickly switched to plan B which was modifying my DSLR. The problem was that my DLSR was still in warranty and I didn't want it to lose it. Other reason was that it's my only DLSR and I would end up with pinkish pictures. Those could be easily corrected in the post processing but pain in the ass nevertheless. So I started browsing sites with used DSLRs, I found out that my favorite shop with cameras has secondhand section and that they're selling Canon 600D for really good price. Without any hesitation I bought it, one of the reasons was that I've always wanted DSLR with flip out display because it makes things so easy when it's mounted to the telescope and you can just flip the screen and you don't have to kneel or twist your head like crazy. The same day I ordered a Baader BCF astroconversion filter.
 |
| My Canon 600D |
When I got to the conversion I knew I wanted to do it but it was just so weird to risk breaking your new toy. I watched a lot of videos on how to do it and read a lot of articles but the best and most detailed guide one was done by Gary Honis (← click to go to his page) He has great pictures of every step and made the guide for almost every Canon model. I love disassembling stuff to see how it works or how I can fix it and I've disassembled/fixed a lot of computer, laptops or phones but never a DSLR. To be honest it was a little more complicated that regular laptop but what I was mainly afraid of was that it's much more sensitive. I've never handled naked imaging chip, this was my first.
 |
| Canon imaging chip when I took it out of the camera body |
In the picture above there are actually still two filters covering the chip, the blue/green one was the one that was swapped, now my chip is pink. Everything went well and I got it all back together and working. I knew that this modification will let the camera capture H-Alpha wavelength so I wanted to test it on some target that is mostly H-Alpha. Even though I tested it on multiple targets the best one to show is probably the Horsehead nebula. I knew that I cant see it much from the city so it was the perfect target for comparison of the result.
 |
| Hersehead nebula taken with unmodified and modified DSLR |
I think that image is speaking for itself and the fact that for the bottom picture was actually used less images with shorter exposition time and lower ISO makes the difference even bigger.
If you were paying attention then you must have notice that I didn't mention the guiding. Simply because I still haven't figured it out completely. I really wish to make it work really soon as I just got Astronomik 12nm H-Alpha filter which I would love to use. I know that guiding will let me take longer exposures than I ever took and it will let be do better picture and with combination with that new filter. I'm pretty excited about this year.
This is summary of what I've been doing for the past few years and I would like to mention what I'm planning on doing next. I'm getting really close to getting the guiding working so that is my current priority, unfortunately the weather is so far terrible so I don't have a way to test it. The next purchase is probably going to be some short focal length APO telescope because that would also improve my images a lot. Maybe then some solar telescope will come and I'll start with some proper solar imaging. We'll see...
Clear skies to you all
Jan
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