Limerick Astronomy Club

Nice shot Frank. I have an old 80mm Orion short tube you should try on the astrotrak. It willl give you a wider field of view and a longer exposure time will be possible. Its also shorter and thus easier to balance for better tracking.
You need about an hour worth of subs even on a bright object like M42. Try and take some flats to remove the vignetting you have on such a set up. Place a piece of white paper in front of the scope and illuminate gently with a flashlight. Set the camera to AV and expose until it moves up half the histogram. Take about 10 of these. Don't forget the darks-take at least 4-this will reduce the dark noise by 2. Remember the same ISO and exposure time with the scope cap on. Darks not only remove hot pixels but the invisible dark noise you don't see until you stack a few exposures together. The more darks you take the lower the average dark noise will be. DSS will process the lot for you and create master darks and flats so you only need to do this once in a session.

Thanks for that John!
I'm just lazy and TBH...
it's the main reasn why I've never ventured too deep into
the deep sky water.
(or RGB planetary imaging for that matter)

I'm happy to get the 'quick fix' shots


The Jerry Ludgrass CD ROM book I was talking about gives
very detailed work process for DS shooting...
TBH, I nearly fell asleep reading it.
I get it, I just dont dig it.

The way I see it.
If I showed the pic above to a non astronomer friend
(with a bit of interest) they'd go, Wow thats cool...
especially when you explain what it is.
They'd still have the same reaction to a shot that took
hours upon hours to do...
now I know thats no excuse but,
it's like when Cosmopolitan Mag did a survay with thier readers
and asked 'who do you dress to impress'
90% of women replied with 'other women'
So,
wierd comparison but,
I sometimes get the feeling that some astrophotographers
are only trying to impress other astrophotographers by pushing and
pushing to get the 'best' shot.

(If this is making sense let me know! )

Hey also,
you have to change your 'location'
not sure if there is an 'OZ' or 'Down Under' in the drop down box though...

Jaysus...don't let Carl O'B or Dave Grennan hear you say that
You could start a new star party for the average joe --COSMO--

Stinking hot here and overcast the past 3 days. I've been to both of the scope shops in the city to suss out the club scene. I'll be joining the Southern astronomical society (www.sas.org.au) about 20 minutes drive away. They have their own dark sky site with toilets, cooking facilities and camping so you can go for a full weekend if you like. They seem more active than the other clubs (armchair types). Supernova discoverer Peter Marples is a committee member.

Sweet!
So green it's not funny!