First go at the Orion Nebula (with bonus Running Man Nebula)

[Son_of_Thor]

I've challenged myself with trying to learn Astrophotography this Winter. Really struggling to get started, but I'm now beginning to get some results. I'm well aware that there's massive scope for improvement but you've got to start somewhere.

Taken with a D850 and 300 f4 with 1.4x TC @ 420mm. I used my MSM tracker to get me slightly longer exposures - struggled with it TBH and could only get up to 5 second exposures with that weight/focal length combination. Stack of 30 or so frames. Lots of technical issues with both the capture and processing but it's a steep learning curve and I've learnt plenty so far.

First go at an Orion Nebula stack by Simon Lundbeck, on Flickr

 

[Jannyfox]

It's a bit of a learning curve but that's a decent first attempt. You need to up your exposure times and for that you do need a good sturdy mount able to take the weight and more. I use a Canon crop/Sigma 150 - 600 C combination on a Skywatcher 3-2 mount. The mount would struggle with say a 200mm scope and camera but for what I use it's fine. I can go happily to 50 sec and could get more if I cared a bit more about the polar alignment. Beyond that the limit is the tracking accuracy of the mount drive. There's an image buried in the Astronomy album on my Flickr with 20 9s subs (for the cluster) and 20 25s sub (for the fainter detail) combined in an HDR process, I thiink it was my first image with the above combination and it could be better, but I have been doing astrophotography in various forms for a long time. There's another in the same Flickr album taken with a 200mm scope (not mine) with up to 60s subs, which shows a lot more detail again. Ignore the colour differences. It's partly because one of my cameras has the IR filter mod but I didn't use it for some reason for the shot using the Sigma lens, and partly it's subjective in processing.

 

[Norkie]

Excellent, a fine start in my view

 

[Son_of_Thor]

It's a bit of a learning curve but that's a decent first attempt. You need to up your exposure times and for that you do need a good sturdy mount able to take the weight and more. I use a Canon crop/Sigma 150 - 600 C combination on a Skywatcher 3-2 mount. The mount would struggle with say a 200mm scope and camera but for what I use it's fine. I can go happily to 50 sec and could get more if I cared a bit more about the polar alignment. Beyond that the limit is the tracking accuracy of the mount drive. There's an image buried in the Astronomy album on my Flickr with 20 9s subs (for the cluster) and 20 25s sub (for the fainter detail) combined in an HDR process, I thiink it was my first image with the above combination and it could be better, but I have been doing astrophotography in various forms for a long time. There's another in the same Flickr album taken with a 200mm scope (not mine) with up to 60s subs, which shows a lot more detail again. Ignore the colour differences. It's partly because one of my cameras has the IR filter mod but I didn't use it for some reason for the shot using the Sigma lens, and partly it's subjective in processing.

Thanks Jan, I do indeed. My subs were under-exposed. 50 seconds would be fantastic! Ideally I could also do with more FL too. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that a better sturdier mount is going to be a requirement if I want to do much more of this. I already have a fairly sturdy tripod and geared head so ideally something like a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Pro, but I'm concerned that it might not be enough for where I end up kit-wise if I really get into this. I also have a 500 f5.6 (which would be around 2.5kg with the camera body) but that may be a little too much for the smaller mount with the longer FL. It looks like the 3-2 mount has a similar payload to the Star Adventurer Pro though so I might just get away with it... I've been doing a bit of research but keep going round in circles

 

[Son_of_Thor]

Excellent, a fine start in my view

Thanks Jak