Skywatcher Star Adventurer

Someone kicking the tripod doesn't help either with the alignment :whistle:

John

Paul,
I think Keith’s advice makes a lot of sense that’s pretty much what I do, it’s trial and error but it works.
Are you capturing straight to the camera or have you a laptop running some software to capture
your images? It’s much easier to check your focus on a bigger screen.

Also have you considered a LP filter it will make the world of difference. Yeah there are pros and cons
but it’s all about compromises anyway.

Regarding bloated stars in M45, I had a go at it last week and results were not great but it’s very
low in the sky only just about clears my neighbour’s rooftop so I’m shooting through a lot of muck.

Good to see you out and about with your new toy.

Tony

Hi Tony

I'm not using a laptop, the zoom facility on the D7000 is pretty good, it showed the bloating of M45 and other images that had trailed slightly.

As regards the filter, Michael was using one on his Canon, shooting Orion, which was low to the horizon, and he got impressive results, the Sigma lens I use has a diameter of 82mm, I was checking ebay and to get down to 48mm requires about 7 adapter rings, will reducing the effective size of the lens effect the image, do you know?

Paul

Paul, any chance there was light condensation on the camera lens?

I don't think so, the other images I took appeared to be clear, even when I got them onto my home computer they were clean. I will wait for a time when M45 is higher in the sky and see what it looks like then.

Paul

I have suffered with this blooming before.
I was advised to step up the lens a stop. so from f2.8 to f4.
this solved the issue for me