Just Enjoying the View Looking Up. M31, Zenithstar 61ii, and a DSLR ...
Messier 31 with Zenithstar 61ii and DSLR No Calibration Frames
This was one of those rare, beautiful nights when I wanted to just admire the heavens ... to do something less stressful ... something more simple ... with a very small telescope and a cheap DSLR. This William Optics Zenithstar 61ii was mounted on an iOptron CEM25P with guiding using a very small ZWO 30mm fl 120mm guidescope and PHD2 guiding software. No darks or other calibration frames were taken. Just the 10 exposures at 240 seconds each. ISO was set to 800. The site was a Bortle 4 and the temperature was 15 C (59 F). The Canon T7i DSLR sensor temperature was 21 C (70 F). I was curious how low the outside temperature had to be to use an uncooled, stock DSLR without worrying about background noise. I'm pleased with the results.
Capturing the exposures was done with APT. Processing was done with Pixinsight. Polar Alignment for the evening used SharpCap Pro. If you look closely at the NGC 206 star cluster contained in the Andromeda galaxy, you can see individual blue giant stars ... individual stars in another galaxy ... with a 61mm telescope. The technology available today is amazing.
Just Enjoying the View Looking Up. M31, Zenithstar 61ii, and a DSLR ...
Messier 31 with Zenithstar 61ii and DSLR No Calibration Frames
This was one of those rare, beautiful nights when I wanted to just admire the heavens ... to do something less stressful ... something more simple ... with a very small telescope and a cheap DSLR. This William Optics Zenithstar 61ii was mounted on an iOptron CEM25P with guiding using a very small ZWO 30mm fl 120mm guidescope and PHD2 guiding software. No darks or other calibration frames were taken. Just the 10 exposures at 240 seconds each. ISO was set to 800. The site was a Bortle 4 and the temperature was 15 C (59 F). The Canon T7i DSLR sensor temperature was 21 C (70 F). I was curious how low the outside temperature had to be to use an uncooled, stock DSLR without worrying about background noise. I'm pleased with the results.
Capturing the exposures was done with APT. Processing was done with Pixinsight. Polar Alignment for the evening used SharpCap Pro. If you look closely at the NGC 206 star cluster contained in the Andromeda galaxy, you can see individual blue giant stars ... individual stars in another galaxy ... with a 61mm telescope. The technology available today is amazing.