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Sunday, December 1, 2024
After the disappointing failure of my first attempt to take photographs using my custom-designed piggyback mount, I knew the part needed a few improvements. Obviously, most of the problems with the original picture of Rho Ophiuchi were caused more by my lack of experience than problems with the equipment, but there were still a few things I wanted to change to limit as much error as possible.
I started by adjusting the locations of the screw holes on the bottom. While V1 technically fit the telescope, fastening the screws was slightly difficult because the threads were almost flush with the rounded edges of the holes. Luckily, the curve aligned with the tube assembly remarkably well the first time, so I didn't need to change that. Other trivial changes included adjusting the arcs for the supports for mostly aesthetic purposes and adding extra fillets to round out some rough edges.
The most notable change, however, is the widened camera mount base. During the V1 test, I noticed that the camera had a concerning amount of wobble coming from the natural flexing of the plastic itself. The best way to counteract this was by simply making the attachment point larger. The more contact the surfaces have, the less they're inclined to move. The added width protrudes into the scope, so from the back, V2 looks the same as V1.
This also changed the way the screw hole for the scope was positioned, and the spacing now allows for the battery compartment to open without having to remove the camera entirely. This was completely accidental since I put the hole in an arbitrary location based on what I thought looked good, but I'll take it.
Of course, I can ramble on about all the technical details of how I designed the part etc... etc... but I think the 5 people who will actually read this are more concerned about the results.
For the first test of Piggyback Mount V2, I photographed the Andromeda Galaxy. The conditions were much better than when I tried Rho Ophiuchi for V1, and since I had photographed the object before, I was a lot more confident in what I was doing.
Overall, the results were promising, but not perfect. I zoomed out too far, making Andromeda rather small in the frame. It wasn't the end of the world, but the image has some slight pixelation since almost half of it was cropped in post-processing.
The smaller focal length also had the benefit of allowing for longer exposure times before the stars started creating trails, which really helped deal with file sizes.
Test 1: Andromeda
Test 2: Veil Nebula
Test 3: Comet A3
Test 4: Pleiades (M45)
After a few more tests, I finally took a photo that I was happy with.
The Pleiades, also known as the seven sisters or M45, is a cluster of several bright blue stars with some ghostly pale nebulae surrounding them. It's been known since ancient times, and many cultures had at least one myth explaining their existence. It's also one of the few objects that I've photographed that is easily visible with the naked eye even from the light-polluted (especially now during the Christmas season) skies in my neighborhood.
M45 is technically a beginner target, and objectively, what I should have started with had I done more research about astrophotography before jumping in with a telescope. I had mostly avoided the target simply because my telescope didn't zoom out far enough, but with the successes of V2, I figured it was time.
From a technical standpoint, this was a pretty easy image to take, and I didn't have to do as much stretching to get some of the nebula to show, nor did I have to use Starnet. The stars are also far more in focus than they have been in the past.
So, V2 was a success! I'm not sure if it's worth pursuing a V3 at the moment since I want to see how far I can take my DSLR skills without any extra special stuff. Either way, I'm looking into buying a new camera with less readout noise that is better suited for astrophotography, so a redesign might be necessary anyway. But for now, I'll keep using this model.
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