Astrophotography

Hi Prasad,
I am an advanced beginner and have interest as well. Based on your background I was thinking that perhaps a hybrid approach might be of interest. I know the basics of the astrophotography side and you are an expert star-hopper, a skill that I know nothing about. With go-to mounts and plate solving finding a target isn't challenging once you can effectively use the equipment (not that challenging). My thought is to organize a trek to a dark site. I could go through the basics of starting and executing a capture sequence; the equipment I use, how to prepare the equipment for a session, picking and finding a target, the capture software and what kind of subs are taken to get an image ready for processing (light frames and calibration frames). This would be presented, as appropriate, based on the audience. Once the capture sequence is started there is not much to do other than monitor the process. That time could be used with you showing the group the basics of star-hopping.

Your thoughts?

Dan

Dan,

Please feel free to contribute anything you might find helpful but it would benefit the entire club to keep the conversation live on the forum where everyone can have an opportunity to contribute.

We encourage everyone who can, to contribute answers when they can but we prefer the conversation remains live on the forum. It gives the opportunity for other people to chime in if there are multiple methods to address a specific problem/topic and also allows those interested to follow the thread in the future. This functionality would become lost in a private email correspondence and is the specific reason we implemented this forum.

Clear skies,

-Lou

Canon EOS Rebel XS (full spectrum mod)

Astronomik CLS CCD

Orion thin off axis guider

QHY5L-II M guide camera

Celestron CGX,Edge HD 8,0.7x focal reducer

Optec TCF-Leo focuser

Hello Prasad,

I am sorry that we haven't been able to address your questions in the workshops yet.

We are attempting to put these workshops together from a specific aspect of astrophotography which may not always apply to everyone. We will get to more topics and other aspects as we go forward. However, we are here to help, you don't need to wait for a future workshop. If there is something specific you want answered, please reply to this thread and we will do our best to address your question if we can.

Keep in mind when the weather is nicer we will have live "hands on" workshops at a dark sky site which I will encourage everyone, interested in astrophotography to attend. This format should make it easier to address questions more completely, especially for beginners.

Aside from the live on-site demonstrations we are also developing content to present during the Zoom workshops but we need to know what topics most people are interested in discussing. We encourage everyone to ask their questions here on the forum first to give us an idea of what content to present in the future.

Hang in there, I know this can be frustrating in the beginning, everyone of us had to take time to cut through the confusion before things slowly started to make sense.

Remember, we are here to help and there is no such thing as a dumb question. Astrophotography is a very complicated topic which we are trying to unravel for everyone, this is not an easy task. This hobby can be very rewarding but it also requires a great deal of patience along with determination to master. We are grateful for your input and are doing what we can in our free time to help everyone we can.

Again, I am sorry if we haven't gotten to answer your questions yet, If you have a(n) specific question(s) please ask now by replying to this thread. One or more of us will reply if we can with an answer or if we don't know the answer we can direct you to the appropriate resource.

Clear skies,

-Lou

Canon EOS Rebel XS (full spectrum mod)

Astronomik CLS CCD

Orion thin off axis guider

QHY5L-II M guide camera

Celestron CGX,Edge HD 8,0.7x focal reducer

Optec TCF-Leo focuser

Prasad,
I'm an advanced beginner and am interested as well. You can contact me off-line at dstern@comcast.net.

Dan Stern

I have a question. Is it possible to organize these AP - Astrophotography Workshops aimed strictly at beginners into AP techniques? I mean, where beginners will be able to freely ask "beginner level questions" and get answers too. I have attended some of these workshops but the discussions remained at a very high level as all the participation/discussions were monopolized or dominated by the many highly noted Titans of the DVAA club. I call these members as Titans because they are already highly advanced and experienced in AP and as a result of their domination of the session most of the discussions stayed at a very high/advanced level. I felt discouraged to express my doubts and/or ask questions which I felt, may sound very silly to the star crowd of the session. I also noticed that there weren't any beginner level questions from any other participants at all. Or maybe I was the only beginner. I don't know.

All along, for over 30+ years, I have been an ATM'er, and visual observer and I stayed away from AP. Recently pandemic made the "AP-bug" bite me. I believe this qualifies me to call myself a beginner. I have a couple of Nikons, a planetary ZWO camera, (and a couple of old Firewire monochrome cameras which I no longer use). I also have a few Equatorial GOTO mounts, and a handful of refractors (with apertures ranging from 70mm, going to 152mm), an 8 inch SCT and a self made 8 inch Dob which won an award at Stellafane 2015 for its optical performance.

Please do not misunderstand me. I know and recognize, DVAA has many bright shining "stars" whom I sincerely respect. These are the people I called Titans because they are the real achievers.

Thank you for reading,

Prasad