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[KillGore]

I recently got a telescope from my best friend (a fellow gaffer) so I've been toying with it for a couple of months now. I don't have a DSLR camera to use with the telescope so I've been using my smartphone. Quality is obviously inferior but it's better than nothing.

Took these when Jupiter was right next to the Moon.

 

[Tornado Condor]

Nice pics. What telescope you got?

 

[KillGore]

Nice pics. What telescope you got?

Celestron 4 SE

 

[Tornado Condor]

Celestron 4 SE

Really nice

 

[LordCanti]

Celestron 4 SE

I need...

I need better wealthier friends.

 

[KillGore]

Really nice

Thanks! I just wish I had a DSLR cam. I have zero experience with one, but I have to start somewhere. I believe there are some eyepieces for my telescope where you can "plug" in the cam.

I need...

I need better wealthier friends.

It's the first time I've gotten such an expensive gift. You can imagine my face when I opened it.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Whoa cool. I want to do this. I have an Lx3.
Where do I even start, lol.

 

[LordCanti]

Thanks! I just wish I had a DSLR cam. I have zero experience with one, but I have to start somewhere. I believe there are some eyepieces for my telescope where you can "plug" in the cam.



It's the first time I've gotten such an expensive gift. You can imagine my face when I opened it.

There are inexpensive lens mounts you can get for DSLR lenses, or you can get a Celestron NexImage which is a little camera that attaches like an eyepiece. Then you can connect it to the computer and see the images you're getting in real time.

I probably would have died after opening a gift like that from a friend. My first thought would have been "THIS IS AMAZING!" and my second thought would have been "Oh my God, now I have to top this".

 

[KillGore]

There are inexpensive lens mounts you can get for DSLR lenses, or you can get a Celestron NexImage which is a little camera that attaches like an eyepiece. Then you can connect it to the computer and see the images you're getting in real time.

I probably would have died after opening a gift like that from a friend. My first thought would have been "THIS IS AMAZING!" and my second thought would have been "Oh my God, now I have to top this".

Hmm, will definitely check this out. Thank you very much.

 

[Tornado Condor]

Whoa cool. I want to do this. I have an Lx3.
Where do I even start, lol.

First find a place where there's not too much light pollution. Second of all, point your camera towards the sky (you can try the Big Dipper first) and take some long exposure shots. In my case, i took around 10-11 images of 6 seconds each. Play around with the ISO. This is a single frame of the images i stacked:

http://i.imgur.com/TbCSAbr.jpg

Now download DeepSkyStacker (it's free) and watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWWaKkCUm6c

 

[Charlie McCarthy]

Not to toot my own horn but I got to observe with this last month:

It is astonishingly huge in-person.

Wow, that would have been absolutely amazing! What sort of stuff could you see? I guess you looked at Jupiter, how much detail could you see? Were the moons clearly spherical or still just "dots"? Could you see any galaxies? Sorry for all the questions but seeing out there through a telescope like that would be so awesome.

I have a large dobsonian telescope and Jupiter was quite underwhelming, but the moon looks awesome, and I think one night I spotted something that could have been a galaxy. It wasn't clear at all but looked more elongated than the rest of the stars. I never really thought about doing the photography side of it, as I have read its way more complicated than just taking a normal picture, but as people have shown here, nice looking shots are possible.

How do you take the photo? Do you look through the eyepiece or is the camera mounted somewhere?

 

[XMonkey]

Milky Way in Joshua Tree (single exposure)

 

[Tornado Condor]

Wow, that would have been absolutely amazing! What sort of stuff could you see? I guess you looked at Jupiter, how much detail could you see? Were the moons clearly spherical or still just "dots"? Could you see any galaxies? Sorry for all the questions but seeing out there through a telescope like that would be so awesome.

I have a large dobsonian telescope and Jupiter was quite underwhelming, but the moon looks awesome, and I think one night I spotted something that could have been a galaxy. It wasn't clear at all but looked more elongated than the rest of the stars. I never really thought about doing the photography side of it, as I have read its way more complicated than just taking a normal picture, but as people have shown here, nice looking shots are possible.

How do you take the photo? Do you look through the eyepiece or is the camera mounted somewhere?

Your dobsonian is probably an 8''. With that kind of telescope, you can see all Messier objects and more from other catalogs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Messier_objects

If i was you, i'd start with the M51 (the whirpool galaxy) and the M42 (the Orion nebula). They are really easy to spot. The former is right by the Big Dipper and the latter is just under Orion's belt. Really easy to spot.

As for astrophotography with the dobsonian, it's going to be tough. Yes, you mount the camera on the telescope with this kind of object:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000XMUKK/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Because the dobsonian is really heavy, it cannot be set in an equatorial mount. So i would advise against trying astrophotography with it.

Milky Way in Joshua Tree (single exposure)

Is that really a single exposure? If so, that's crazy.

 

[Charlie McCarthy]

Your dobsonian is probably an 8''. With that kind of telescope, you can see all Messier objects and more from other catalogs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Messier_objects

If i was you, i'd start with the M51 (the whirpool galaxy) and the M42 (the Orion nebula). They are really easy to spot. The former is right by the Big Dipper and the latter is just under Orion's belt. Really easy to spot.

As for astrophotography with the dobsonian, it's going to be tough. Yes, you mount the camera on the telescope with this kind of object:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000XMUKK/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Because the dobsonian is really heavy, it cannot be set in an equatorial mount. So i would advise against trying astrophotography with it.

My dobsonian is a 12 inch. Its huge and quite heavy and awkward to move around. Yeah I have been looking for other galaxies but conditions where I am aren't perfect and the one particular night I spotted the galaxy, all my neighbourhood streetlights were out so it was much darker than usual. Thanks for that list, I will be looking for some of these when I take it out of the suburbs.

I will just keep looking rather than photos, but this thread has some people that clearly know what their doing.

 

[elfinke]

Great thread with some great photos, well done everyone and thanks for sharing.

I've got some a-focal(1) shots I've taken with ages old Canon S3IS through my 8" Dobsonian - I'll share a couple now as I'm about to go grab some dinner. Apologies for the JPG compression business, but honestly, you're not missing much - this is as entry level beginner AP as it gets!

This obviously, is the moon, from the 17th March (from memory it was through a 2x Barlow and my 25mm Plossl):

This is a stacked image of Jupiter from the same evening, same lens I think (I think it was a 5 second video which I pulled into ~150 JPGS, which in turn I took the best 50 images from and stacked(2) on top of one another using avidub/AutoStakkert/AviStack/Registax - I forget, Autostakkert may be responsible for this one I think):

And just for a bonus, here is a pic of Saturn from my iPhone4 after coming home drunk and noticing Saturn had cleared the nearby street light, also taken a-focally but through my 10mm Plossl before I had the Barlow:

With a better camera these would be markedly better images using the basic technique I'm using now, but hey, AP is an afterthought at the moment I've got some more recent video footage which I'm still processing into decent images, that I took when I drove 2 minutes out of town to a complete dark sight. That was a great evening, ticked off a stack of the Messier catalogue that evening!

It's also worth noting that visually these target are clear and detailed as can be. Jupiter I can see a bunch of moons and the Red Spot no worries at all. Saturn there is detail in the polar regions as well as clear details in the rings. The moon when viewed at any magnification is breathtaking. My camera doesn't do them justice.

---

1For those not on top of the term, a-focal is where you hold the camera/phone up to the telescope and lens and take a photo. It's quite difficult but I've found it to be a lot of fun after I'm done with any visual work I've set out to do that night.

2'Stacking' is best explained by this ripper 2 minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6oIqcA8EMY

 

[Charlie McCarthy]

Man Elfinke, that Saturn shot is unreal. Where I am Saturn is far to low on the horizon to ever see. I amazed at the clarity of the rings.

Is that Jupiter the size you see it through your telescope? Because through mine it appears far smaller and more "brighter" white, with very faint detail of the bands, unlike your photo. I can see the 3 or 4 moons that are visable but they only appear as very small dots.

 

[elfinke]

Man Elfinke, that Saturn shot is unreal. Where I am Saturn is far to low on the horizon to ever see. I amazed at the clarity of the rings.

Is that Jupiter the size you see it through your telescope? Because through mine it appears far smaller and more "brighter" white, with very faint detail of the bands, unlike your photo. I can see the 3 or 4 moons that are visable but they only appear as very small dots.

Until recently Saturn was a 'stay up until midnight thing (or get up early)', but it's now rising in sync with the moon and tracks wonderfully across the northern sky and I get a decent amount of observing in (though the current full moon doesn't help!)

Regarding Jupiter obviously it depends a little bit on the lens I use. At 25mm I get a huge field of view and can see all of Jup's moons clearly (though they are only light points), but it is a pretty small object (though still with lots of identifiable detail). At 10mm it is a lot closer to the image posted above (but it is much clearer than those images above).

I've found that using my 2x Barlow in conjunction with the 25mm gives the best results, as there is a decent amount of eye relief and still a large FOV with the 25mm lens but now with the effective magnitude of a 12.5mm lens (I hope that makes sense?)

The 10mm with the 2x Barlow simply means everything zooms across your eyepiece and unless viewing is absolutely perfect (no jetstreams, temperatures so on and on) it's unusable. But when the heavens align to allow viewing of Jupiter or Saturn (or any number of the Messier catalogue, Leo triplets, Andromeda, Crab, Orion etc) however briefly before you must realign, it's glorious!

This is my 'scope. A delightful, low cost of entry, easy to manoeuvre and setup, 'scope. I empathise with the difficulty of shifting a 12", but if it is collimated and you've got some good lenses, your light-gathering ability far outweighs me and you ought to be able to get some stunning views of these targets too.

 

[Tornado Condor]

Great thread with some great photos, well done everyone and thanks for sharing.

I've got some a-focal(1) shots I've taken with ages old Canon S3IS through my 8" Dobsonian - I'll share a couple now as I'm about to go grab some dinner. Apologies for the JPG compression business, but honestly, you're not missing much - this is as entry level beginner AP as it gets!

This obviously, is the moon, from the 17th March (from memory it was through a 2x Barlow and my 25mm Plossl):



This is a stacked image of Jupiter from the same evening, same lens I think (I think it was a 5 second video which I pulled into ~150 JPGS, which in turn I took the best 50 images from and stacked(2) on top of one another using avidub/AutoStakkert/AviStack/Registax - I forget, Autostakkert may be responsible for this one I think):



And just for a bonus, here is a pic of Saturn from my iPhone4 after coming home drunk and noticing Saturn had cleared the nearby street light, also taken a-focally but through my 10mm Plossl before I had the Barlow:



With a better camera these would be markedly better images using the basic technique I'm using now, but hey, AP is an afterthought at the moment I've got some more recent video footage which I'm still processing into decent images, that I took when I drove 2 minutes out of town to a complete dark sight. That was a great evening, ticked off a stack of the Messier catalogue that evening!

It's also worth noting that visually these target are clear and detailed as can be. Jupiter I can see a bunch of moons and the Red Spot no worries at all. Saturn there is detail in the polar regions as well as clear details in the rings. The moon when viewed at any magnification is breathtaking. My camera doesn't do them justice.

---

1For those not on top of the term, a-focal is where you hold the camera/phone up to the telescope and lens and take a photo. It's quite difficult but I've found it to be a lot of fun after I'm done with any visual work I've set out to do that night.

2'Stacking' is best explained by this ripper 2 minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6oIqcA8EMY

Really, REALLY nice photos. The closet thing i have to a telescope is a shitty pair of Bushnell binoculars. I can't even view the Whirpool galaxy with them. Terrible.

My dobsonian is a 12 inch. Its huge and quite heavy and awkward to move around. Yeah I have been looking for other galaxies but conditions where I am aren't perfect and the one particular night I spotted the galaxy, all my neighbourhood streetlights were out so it was much darker than usual. Thanks for that list, I will be looking for some of these when I take it out of the suburbs.

I will just keep looking rather than photos, but this thread has some people that clearly know what their doing.

Wow, a 12 inch dobsonian? I'm so damn jealous.

 

[XMonkey]

Is that really a single exposure? If so, that's crazy.

Ya I used a 5D2 with a 17-40mm f/4L @ 17mm, 15s, f/4, ISO 1600. The full-res photo is quite sharp, not too much blur at 15s at that focal length. Teased a fair amount of data out in Photoshop. I wasn't even in the darkest part of the park that night either. Next time I'm gonna rent a f/2.8 wide angle and do some proper stacking.

 

[LordCanti]

This is a stacked image of Jupiter from the same evening, same lens I think (I think it was a 5 second video which I pulled into ~150 JPGS, which in turn I took the best 50 images from and stacked(2) on top of one another using avidub/AutoStakkert/AviStack/Registax - I forget, Autostakkert may be responsible for this one I think):

I'd like to point out that the preceding description of how he got that shot is exactly why I had to quit. I didn't have the patience.

I tip my hat to you sir.

 

[Eight Diagram Bat Fighter]

Watch timescapes by Tom Lowe. He also has a forum there for astrophotography.

http://timescapes.org/

 

[elfinke]

Really, REALLY nice photos. The closet thing i have to a telescope is a shitty pair of Bushnell binoculars. I can't even view the Whirpool galaxy with them. Terrible.

I'd like to point out that the preceding description of how he got that shot is exactly why I had to quit. I didn't have the patience.

I tip my hat to you sir.

Thanks!

LordCanti, which programs were you using? I have found both Autostakkert and AviStack to be pretty simple, whereas Registax frequently annoyed me (despite there being many great tutorials for it out there).

With the former two programs, it takes me ~5 minutes to run through a bunch of videos/images and end up with a reasonable result.

Do you have any images to share anyway?

 

[Log4Girlz]

Post pictures of Uranus.

 

[LordCanti]

Thanks!

LordCanti, which programs were you using? I have found both Autostakkert and AviStack to be pretty simple, whereas Registax frequently annoyed me (despite there being many great tutorials for it out there).

With the former two programs, it takes me ~5 minutes to run through a bunch of videos/images and end up with a reasonable result.

Do you have any images to share anyway?

I think it was Registax. I don't know where the couple of decent pictures I made are currently located, but none of them were good enough that I'd want to show them anyway. They basically look like your photos, except blurry.

Post pictures of Uranus.

I'm going to need a macro lens adapter if you want pictures of that.

 

[VALIS]

Beautiful! I've wanted a telescope forever, but having lived in places like Boston, Jersey City, Hoboken, the light pollution has always been a total non-starter. Wouldn't be able to see shit unless I hauled it for an hour to some dark sky park. Jealous.

 

[Tornado Condor]

Beautiful! I've wanted a telescope forever, but having lived in places like Boston, Jersey City, Hoboken, the light pollution has always been a total non-starter. Wouldn't be able to see shit unless I hauled it for an hour to some dark sky park. So jealous of you guys.

Editing out the light pollution does wonders

For example, check out a single frame of the stacked picture:

You can see that the light pollution is pretty bad.

 

[Charlie McCarthy]

Until recently Saturn was a 'stay up until midnight thing (or get up early)', but it's now rising in sync with the moon and tracks wonderfully across the northern sky and I get a decent amount of observing in (though the current full moon doesn't help!)

Regarding Jupiter obviously it depends a little bit on the lens I use. At 25mm I get a huge field of view and can see all of Jup's moons clearly (though they are only light points), but it is a pretty small object (though still with lots of identifiable detail). At 10mm it is a lot closer to the image posted above (but it is much clearer than those images above).

I've found that using my 2x Barlow in conjunction with the 25mm gives the best results, as there is a decent amount of eye relief and still a large FOV with the 25mm lens but now with the effective magnitude of a 12.5mm lens (I hope that makes sense?)

The 10mm with the 2x Barlow simply means everything zooms across your eyepiece and unless viewing is absolutely perfect (no jetstreams, temperatures so on and on) it's unusable. But when the heavens align to allow viewing of Jupiter or Saturn (or any number of the Messier catalogue, Leo triplets, Andromeda, Crab, Orion etc) however briefly before you must realign, it's glorious!

This is my 'scope. A delightful, low cost of entry, easy to manoeuvre and setup, 'scope. I empathise with the difficulty of shifting a 12", but if it is collimated and you've got some good lenses, your light-gathering ability far outweighs me and you ought to be able to get some stunning views of these targets too.

I think being in the southern hemisphere (Australia) means that I may only be able to see Saturn at certain times of the year and only if I was high enough up to see over everything. Disappointing, as its something I would love to see with my own eyes.

I may have to play around with some of the different lens I got with the telescope. Up until now I have only been using the biggest one, which reading your post, may be the 25mm. Thanks for this, I know it seems like common sense but I never thought to mess around with the other lens.

Here is my telescope http://www.bintel.com.au/Telescopes/Dobsonian/Bintel-BT302-B-12--Dobsonian/73/productview.aspx

From the moment I seen it, I just had to have it. I didn't regard at all the logistics of having such a large telescope. I love it but I should've went with the 8", just more for convenience.

Wow, a 12 inch dobsonian? I'm so damn jealous.

Like I said above, I love it but because I don't have access to great viewing conditions (I am about 40 mins out of a major city), it inconvenient to just go out for a quick look. To take it further out for better viewing conditions is a whole ordeal. It barely fits in my car.

 

[elfinke]

I think being in the southern hemisphere (Australia) means that I may only be able to see Saturn at certain times of the year and only if I was high enough up to see over everything. Disappointing, as its something I would love to see with my own eyes.

I may have to play around with some of the different lens I got with the telescope. Up until now I have only been using the biggest one, which reading your post, may be the 25mm. Thanks for this, I know it seems like common sense but I never thought to mess around with the other lens.

Here is my telescope http://www.bintel.com.au/Telescopes/Dobsonian/Bintel-BT302-B-12--Dobsonian/73/productview.aspx

From the moment I seen it, I just had to have it. I didn't regard at all the logistics of having such a large telescope. I love it but I should've went with the 8", just more for convenience.

Yeah I'm in northern NSW (Richard Torbay's ex-political seat, to be precise), so I've got fantastic night sky to work with. If you haven't used it already, download this program (I'm on iPad so you'll have to google it, sorry!): Stellarium. With it you can very very easily find and chart where everything you could ever want to see is in your sky, and when. Makes planning a night out very easy.

Once the moon wanes away a little more you absolutely should set up your scope and try the different lenses. Get it out on your deck/porch whatever pointing north at 5 in the arvo and leave it there until after dinner and dusk sets (daylight savings ends soon so that'll make it a bit earlier) and just spend a night playing around. Even with poor seeing conditions a light bucket like yours will give astonishing views.

Also, if it has been sitting dormant for awhile you may want to check if it needs collimating as a misaligned Dob can certainly yield lousy results. Luckily collimation is a pretty simple process, even if you have never done it before (YouTube has a stack of helpful videos, including one from Orion scopes). The only tip I'll leave you for the process is make sure you have your tube horizontal when playing with your secondary mirror!

 

[Forsete]

I think this was taken with a 50mm 1.4 on a Sony A900.

sky2 by fastson, on Flickr

This is Jupiter

jupiter by fastson, on Flickr

 

[MNC]

I'm probably way too easily impressed but all these photos look amazing to me.

 

[Prowl]

It's a bit cloudy tonight :|

 

[Hitokage]

Not to toot my own horn but I got to observe with this last month:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...MaunaKea_Subaru.jpg/800px-MaunaKea_Subaru.jpg

It is astonishingly huge in-person.

I've heard that you need to checklist everything and more up there because the low oxygen makes you stupid.

 

[Lach]

I'm going to start astrophotography too. Wanted to go do some two weeks ago but the weather didn't play along. Will be using normal DSLR + 300mm lense (or smaller) + I bought a Vixen Solarie mount for star tracking (so the earths rotation is canceled out and the stars don't become stripes).

I'll make another try in two weeks. Will be in the swiss alps, so not much light polution and a bit of altitude should help with the quality I hope...

 

[elseanio]

The light pollution in my city makes for really crappy pictures, but it's not so bad observing. I'm thinking of taking a trip to a dark site for the weekend, but the weather is too unpredictable at the moment.

Anyway, here are a few shots:

Afocal picture of the moon, just using my camera phone

Pleiades using a digital camera on a tripod.

The Moon, with Jupiter just visible in the lower left corner

First and last attempt at getting anything from the Orion Nebula. Don't have a tracking device, and really need longer exposures to bring this out.

 

[opticalmace]

I've heard that you need to checklist everything and more up there because the low oxygen makes you stupid.

Completely true. In fact, most of us were using personal oxygen canisters all night.

Also, playing pool at altitude is hilarious and frustrating.

Wow, that would have been absolutely amazing! What sort of stuff could you see? I guess you looked at Jupiter, how much detail could you see? Were the moons clearly spherical or still just "dots"? Could you see any galaxies? Sorry for all the questions but seeing out there through a telescope like that would be so awesome.

I have a large dobsonian telescope and Jupiter was quite underwhelming, but the moon looks awesome, and I think one night I spotted something that could have been a galaxy. It wasn't clear at all but looked more elongated than the rest of the stars. I never really thought about doing the photography side of it, as I have read its way more complicated than just taking a normal picture, but as people have shown here, nice looking shots are possible.

How do you take the photo? Do you look through the eyepiece or is the camera mounted somewhere?

It was a lot of fun. We were looking at a set of stars in the plane of our Galaxy, much further away than our Solar System. There is no eyepiece because the telescope is huge. Instead, like you said, there are cameras that can be mounted near the base of the telescope.

Here is a picture of one of the instruments. They are on a mechanical swivel so you can swap instruments when needed.

 

[Aztec_82]

The one with the plane in the background is amazing. I really like it, good job.

 

[MilesWebber]

I had a fling with that a while back here's some of pics I took:

I used a tripod and cable release with a Canon XSi Rebel

you can see more at my flickr (some NSFW pics)

 

[OpinionatedCyborg]

Oh yeah? Well I took this picture using a webcam and a telescope fashioned out of a toilet paper roll and some cellophane:

 

[Tornado Condor]

I had a fling with that a while back here's some of pics I took:

I used a tripod and cable release with a Canon XSi Rebel

you can see more at my flickr (some NSFW pics)

Those are amazing shots. Where was the first pic taken?

 

[MilesWebber]

Those are amazing shots. Where was the first pic taken?

It's a place called Redstone in the Desert near Lake Mead in Nevada. The rocks were light painted during the exposure.

Glad you like them.

 

[Atsumi]

Andromeda galaxy

That's awesome. What kind of setup did that take?

 

[gkryhewy]

The one with the plane in the background is amazing. I really like it, good job.

Are you talking about mine? Thanks!

 

[Tornado Condor]

That's awesome. What kind of setup did that take?

http://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotog...l_at_least_i_tried_eh_andromeda_with_my_dslr/

 

[elfinke]

http://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotog...l_at_least_i_tried_eh_andromeda_with_my_dslr/

For a handful of non-tracked 3.2sec exposure images that's a ripper image, with faint detail in the dust lanes of M31 viewable. As the reddit author suggests, with extra dark frames and I think, some colour adjustments in Photoshop or similar, there'd be even greater detail available in that image. Terrific stuff.

It's only April so we're several months away from tax return time (and my birthday) yet, but I've already flagged a part of that money for a new camera. I've been eyeing off the mid-range Canon 60D, which even unmodified is supremely capable of widefield AP (just type '60d astrophotography' into image search for examples), as well as prime focus photography.

TheWiicast, thanks for sharing your photos, too. They're terrific. I particularly liked a couple of your Hoover Dam photos on your Flickr, really nice.

 

[Hitokage]

How do you take the photo? Do you look through the eyepiece or is the camera mounted somewhere?

All large telescopes are CCD based these days, but like he posted before the specific instrument can vary.

 

[MilesWebber]

TheWiicast, thanks for sharing your photos, too. They're terrific. I particularly liked a couple of your Hoover Dam photos on your Flickr, really nice.

Thanks bud. They have a fantastic lighting designer. It's a beautiful dam.

I'm looking into the 60D myself. Need. Higher. ISO! Lol

 

[opticalmace]

Thanks bud. They have a fantastic lighting designer. It's a beautiful dam.

I'm looking into the 60D myself. Need. Higher. ISO! Lol

Outstanding pictures. I'm very impressed!

 

[Tornado Condor]

I took a picture of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies the other day. Unfortunately, i had to compress a 30mb pic to 300 kbs so it's pretty much impossible to see the triangulum galaxy ;b

 

[speedpop]

It's always a humbling experience when you can see Andromeda.

 

[elfinke]

I took a picture of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies the other day. Unfortunately, i had to compress a 30mb pic to 300 kbs so it's pretty much impossible to see the triangulum galaxy ;b

[/IMG]http://i.imgur.com/yLEHBA2.png[/IMG]

Excellent photo, well done!

I recently built a Barndoor tracker which I've been trialling - though it's still much too cold for me to really have a go with.

But even without it I've managed to take some decent snaps:

I bought some prime-focus mounting gear for my telescope this week which should arrive in early September. I can't wait to try that out. And then once my tax return comes through, I'm gonna grab one of these guys and really put my skills to the test!