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I've played a bit with this before - but decided it would be nice to try it again.",[211,215,216],{},"To that end I dug into what sort of small tracking head I could get. It looked like it was either the Sky-Watcher or iOptron as a starter. Both have a large and a small unit, in both cases the small unit couldn't take the weight of one of my cameras. It then came down to availability - and I was able to get hold of the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer kit.",[211,218,219],{},"So - on a quick visit down to Femsjøen for a few nights this Easter I've been testing the Star Adventurer.",[221,222,224],"h2",{"id":223},"widelandscape","Wide\u002FLandscape",[211,226,227],{},"The first evening - I was testing it for wide sky landscape shots. This was with the Nikon 14-24 out at 14mm f\u002F2,8.",[211,229,230],{},"The following shot was taken using 10x 2 minute tracked shots stacked with Starry Landscape Stacker and then photoshop to merge in an untracked (and therefore) unblurred foreground.",[211,232,233,234,244],{},"There is a fair amount of light pollution, you can see the glow nearer the ground. This is unavoidable at this location sadly (",[235,236,243],"a",{"href":237,"rel":238,"target":242},"https:\u002F\u002Fdarksitefinder.com\u002Fmaps\u002Fworld.html#11\u002F59.1660\u002F11.5296",[239,240,241],"nofollow","noopener","noreferer","_blank","Light Pollution map","), but if you look closely you can faintly see the Milky Way arcing across from left centre down behind the foreground front and centre.",[211,246,247],{},"You have to merge in the foreground in post - the 2 minute exposures with the tracker have enough movement that the foreground is blurred and is in different places in different shots. Not the part of Photoshop I'm that good at - but it was easier in that the foreground was in silhouette.",[249,250],"flickr",{"height":251,"id":252,"image":253,"title":254,"width":255},682,"33727856238","https:\u002F\u002Flive.staticflickr.com\u002F7915\u002F33727856238_ab0f2339d6_b.jpg","Femsjøen sky",1024,[221,257,259],{"id":258},"deep-sky","Deep Sky",[211,261,262],{},"The second evening - I decided to test something further away. I had no idea if this was going to work. Basically it was the sony 100-400 out at 400 f\u002F5,6. I had googled \"easy deep sky photography\" and it had given me a list of different objects - most of them messier objects.",[211,264,265,266,271],{},"I followed some advice and chose Messier-101 - the ",[235,267,270],{"href":268,"rel":269,"target":242},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FPinwheel_Galaxy",[239,240,241],"Pinwheel Galaxy",".",[211,273,274,275,280],{},"I struggled a bit to get good polar alignment. I find that the reticule in the star adventurer is hard to see. It could be my eyesight - I adjust the diopter on all my cameras - and the tracker doesn't have this adjustment. I also found that the illuminator didn't illuminate enough. However - it could simply be that it was cold and I didn't use enough time. One thing that should make it easier is to get a 90° eyepiece - bending down to look up at a 55° angle isn't that comfortable. I may also try 3d printing a ",[235,276,279],{"href":277,"rel":278,"target":242},"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.thingiverse.com\u002Fthing:2814028",[239,240,241],"glow in the dark illuminator"," at some point.",[211,282,283],{},"However - I was not able to go longer than 10 seconds per shot.",[211,285,286],{},"This shot is 400x 10 second shots at 400mm f\u002F5,6 (which is as wide as my 100-400 will go at the 400 end).",[211,288,289],{},"Stacked using Starry Sky Stacker, then levels adjust etc in photoshop.",[211,291,292],{},[293,294],"img",{"alt":295,"src":296},"M101 - full image frame","\u002Fimages\u002Fposts\u002F2019\u002F04\u002Fm101-sky.jpg",[211,298,299],{},[293,300],{"alt":301,"src":302},"M101 - zoomed in on galaxy","\u002Fimages\u002Fposts\u002F2019\u002F04\u002Fm101-zoom.jpg",[211,304,305],{},"It could definitely be improved - longer exposures would give less noise (so - better polar tracking). It's also affected by the light pollution here - I had to remove a deep colour cast of the sky in photoshop due to this.",[211,307,308,309,313],{},"But ",[310,311,312],"strong",{},"that's a real galaxy!"," - seriously - when I saw the shot for the first time come together in the stacker that's exactly what I was thinking. I can see how this can get addictive.",{"title":315,"searchDepth":316,"depth":316,"links":317},"",2,[318,319],{"id":223,"depth":316,"text":224},{"id":258,"depth":316,"text":259},"2019-04-15 13:49 +0200","md",null,"First tests of both wide angle and deep sky astrophotograhy with the Star Adventurer",{},true,"\u002F2019\u002F04\u002F15\u002Ftesting-the-sky-watcher-star-adventurer",{"title":206,"description":213},{"loc":326},"2019\u002F04\u002F15\u002Ftesting-the-sky-watcher-star-adventurer",[331,332,333,334,335,336,337,338,339],"sky-watcher","star adventurer","star","tracking","stacking","M101","pinwheel galaxy","galaxy","astrophotography","8PTp0Er0QYJX2CpEEfxB8W3Ko4sTeeCCdQaG9Gy6Or4",1775293009677]