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Hi everyone, It's good to see a few people have joined now, I honestly forgot that I created even created this group  I do most of my astrophotography out of the Waikato but also some further south. Curious to hear where abouts everyone else is from and where your favourite locations are for astrophotography  Cheers, Blake |
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Hi Blake, I mostly image from Auckland but also have the opportunity to do some imaging in Northland in Bortle 2 to 3 skies. Cheers Logan |
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Logan Carpenter: Awesome! I can imagine the skies are pretty nice far up North. Your photography is unreal Cheers, Blake |
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Hi All, I image out of Plimmerton, Porirua...........clear nights (without wind) are few and far between .......anyone else down here?
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Hi Blake, I image mostly from Hamilton East a few kms from the CBD. As long as I point S/E I get Bortle 5/6 skies. Occasionally if there is room in the vehicle, I take my gear to my mother's place on the outskirts of New Plymouth, which would be a Bortle 3/4. Cheers Geoff |
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Hi Blake, I image mostly from Hamilton East a few kms from the CBD. As long as I point S/E I get Bortle 5/6 skies. Occasionally if there is room in the vehicle, I take my gear to my mother's place on the outskirts of New Plymouth, which would be a Bortle 3/4. Awesome, I have family just out of New Plymouth too with rural skies. Makes a huge difference Cheers Blake |
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Hey Blake, ideally I muster the time and energy to drive 2 hours return from Christchurch to a site above Little River on Banks Peninsula with nice Bortle 2/3 skies (as long as you don't point towards Christchurch). It's quite exposed to winds though ... I found an alternative near Windwhistle but have only been that way once for a lunar eclipse on a super dry -10° night.  If unsuitable I'd consider pitching on a lawn at the Canterbury Astronomical Society (Bortle 4/5 or 5/6) but I find the site too prone to humidity or too exposed to norwester conditions for my taste. If all else fails I do image from my garden in Christchurch with Bortle 7/8 skies, main drawback is streetlights, roofs and trees blocking the vast majority of the sky, so only suitable some objects when I'm tired and wanna nap on my couch while imaging. Last year I got a nice string of suitable nights in autumn and winter, but since then the one or two good nights didn't line up with my availability (no need to describe the frustration at seeing my gear gather dust and my skills getting dull ...). May be instead of snatching my partner out of Mt Cook Village I should have moved in with her and enjoy the magnificent MacKenzie Country nights! |
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Peter Ambrose: Hey Peter, shooting from Brooklyn in Wellington, and it's definitely not better from here. |
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Hey all, I do all of my imaging from my backyard just outside Dunedin, in Waldronville, in Bortle 4.5 skies. A clear night lately has been as rare as a chocks tooth. Alot of clouds right beside the Ocean, but nice when it is clear (as far as I remember)! Cheers JIM |
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Hi Blake, I am based in Gibbston and I image from my roll-off roof Weather is generally good, I would open up around 1 night in every 3-4 nights, although the seeing is not great [4arcsec]. The weather is also quite stable, so I can open up and go to bed without worrying that will rain on my equipment. What living in the rain shadow of the Alps gives in terms clear weather, it takes away in terms of turbulence. Even in the mountains, I still access the sky down to altitudes of 15 degrees or so. Matariki is within reach [just] but anything with dec > 30 north is inaccessible. Don't do much AP away from home, but have done a few shots with my portable rig for our Kawarau [Remarkables/Gibbton/Pisa] Dark Sky application currently under development and for the similar Glenorchy application. My next project is a hike up the Earnslaw Burn to do some AP under the Earnslaw glacier with Orion as the backdrop. Here is a composite image of my location and set up.  CS Brian |
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Brian Boyle: Hi Brian, Wow! What a stunning view  . Thanks for sharing.Cheers, Blake |
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Hi everyone, I'm near Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast. To date I've done all my imaging from my backyard as it's just so convenient. I'd love to know if there was anyone else in this area doing this amazing hobby. Cheers Peter |
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Curious to hear where abouts everyone else is from and where your favourite locations are for astrophotography Whitby, Porirua, not far at all from Peter Ambrose who replied earlier. The sky quality here is rubbish for visual,thanks largely to the street lights), but not too bad if you get away from them. For narrowband astro though it's fine. |
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Hi All, I image mainly from our rural backyard in the Western Bay of Plenty with a darkish Bortle 2/3 sky (but often with not very good seeing due to air flowing down at night off the Kaimai ranges that rise up right behind our place, which is a Kiwifruit orchard). I have my main 10Micron brand Eq mount in a Skyshed POD dome there at home, but I also image from another location at Kinloch, west of Taupo, where the seeing is often excellent, but I have some street and house lights to deal with, although it is still a nice sky for imaging. I've been having some fun lately with two tiny ZWO Seestar S50 and Dwarflab Dwarf II smartscopes, and really enjoying their simplicity and extreme ease of use compared to my other much bigger/more complex mount and OTAs. Cheers, Chris |
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Hi I'm new to Astrobin and just got a tip to join this group. I'm in Stokes Valley, north of Wellington. It's a Bortle 4 area with decent seeing condition, albeit a valley, so the dew is a major problem. As I mentioned in the "Southern Hemisphere Astronomy" group (who suggested this group): I just managed to get the hang of the basics of my (what I think is) my amazing Celestron 9.25 and ASI294MC and I want to know what to go for I've lived in New Zealand for 8 years, but I picked up astrophotography again in earnest about a year ago. I had experience of an Meade ETX90 and thought "It's just a bigger telescope". Wow, was I wrong. But, I can now master 2 minute exposures and are getting decent results. I'm still a beginner, but I love the learning experience. I've fallen in love with the Large Magellanic cloud, but I've realised that integration time is everything, so I want some help to find my next big project. What do you love to image? What would you recommend that I go for? Also, I saw a an amazing picture where a few people had gotten together and imaged the same object. they raked up 205 hours and the result were amazing. I know I'm rushing ahead here, but I'd love to do something like that. I'll let go for the mic now. Sorry :-) Cheers, Dan |
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Daniel Petzen: Hi Dan. One way to find targets that I use a lot is to use the Telescopius.com website, join up as a member ( its free) and enter/save your imaging location and your scope/camera (in equipment) and then go to Targets/Deep Sky (at top left) and from there you can filter its list of objects for tonight to select only types of targets you want listed (eg emission nebulae/planetary nebulae/dark nebulae/galaxies/galaxy groups, etc, etc) and can also select how close to the moon you'll allow targets to be (which would be different on nights when the moon is bright from nights its dim or not up) ,how high in the sky (for how many hours) listed objects will be tonight, what size and brightness of objects you want listed, what declination range of objects you want (to only get objects that you can see from NZ and that will get to a decent height above the horizon - for here in NZ I tend to use Dec -90 to about +20). For a preview of what an object will look like with your cam and scope use the "telescope simulator" (further down the page for each object) and tell it your scope and camera if youve entered those in your equipment list (you can adjust the screen brightness of the simulation under "survey", for dim or very bright objects). There's also a nice chart over on the right for each object showing where it will be in the sky at each time tonight. To make imaging life much easier, and faster, if you don't have one already you could get Celestron's x .63 focal reducer for your C9.25 (or the x.7 reducer if your's is a 9.25 Edge HD model), or if you want a much wider field of view and MUCH faster imaging times, then Starizona's Hyperstar lenses for Celestron SCTs are amazing, making the scope work at about f/2 which means very short imaging times. The x.7 Edge HD reducers and Hyperstar are though properly expensive, while the x.63 reducer for non edge hd scopes is much less so. I'm in the Bay of Plenty and image with either a C11 Edge HD (usually with Hyperstar at F/2) or a 10 inch aperture f/5.8 Corrected Dall Kirkham premium scope, or largeish 130mm and 140mm aperture refractors. Like you I also have a 294MC cam (the cooled pro version), and a larger ASI2600MC Pro as well. I'd like to get a bigger ASI62000 camera as my CDK scope has a very wide flat field that allows use of large full-frame cameras, but the 6200 is pricey so I haven't bitten that bullet yet. Another, perhaps much simpler way to find targets to image from NZ would be just to look at the astrobin images of the members of this group and see what they have been imaging (while checking what scope/lens and camera they were using to see if the object might also suit your rig) . Some objects will only be up in the night sky at some times of year though. For very southern objects (objects with very negative declinations) they will tend to be up in the sky at night for much more of the year than for more northern sky objects (objects with positive declinations), some of which may only have an imaging window of opportunity of a few weeks each year from NZ. Good luck Chris |
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Hi Dan I am just over the hill in Plimmerton, so if you take a look at my profile, all my images are from my back deck https://www.astrobin.com/users/PeterAmbrose/ The latest few are from my Celestron EdgeHD 9.25 which is a great scope. I woudl be interested in such a project for a bit of fun if a few other were as well Peter |
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Daniel Petzen: Hi Dan, I find that Stellarium is a good way to find targets and get a feel for the framing before going out. I also sometimes use an app called Sky Guide that basically does the same thing. The Lambda Centauri nebula is one that I have gone for recently and really like the result. It is around the south celestial pole and never sets overnight so I just leave my setup out to capture as much as possible I would also definitely be interested in a joint project, I think that's an awesome idea Is anyone else going to the Northern star party this coming weekend?Cheers, Blake |
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Hi Blake Stellarium has been my goto to find targets. I've also used Telescopius, but I find the filters a bit temperamental. I eventually managed to configure the FoV for Stellarium so that I could see the size of my capture area, which has helped tremendously. It does also tell me when I can't capture an object, which seems to be the case for Lambda Centauri:  I've actually looked at Running Chicken Nebula, bud decided it was too big. It may be that I can get most of Statue of Liberty nebula "close" by. It looks like you're using a Refractor and DSLR (amazing pictures by the way!) with a huge field of view compared to me. I would really have liked to do a joint project, but I may be the odd one out using an SCT for deep sky objects. I will eventually get a refractor, but I've spent way to much on astronomy equipment as of late. The latest addition is an off axis guider and a very good guide camera that are making their way from Testar in AU as we speak. I have a slight guiding error that limits my exposures to about 2 minutes (the high magnification doesn't help, of course). I'm all the way down in Wellington, so it would be a bit of a stretch for me to get to the Star Party. I am hoping to visit the WAS Wairarapa dark site in not too long, though. My equipment is still tethered to my mains, so I need to get even more stuff to be able to do astrophotography out in the bush. Cheers, Dan |
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Peter Ambrose: |
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Dan I use ASI2600MC-pro at the moment but will buy the ASI2600MM later this year…..my galaxy filter is just the Antlia Triband. For emission nebula I use the Antlia ALT-P mainly. Our FoV will be similar…SCT native 2350 at f10 which can be a challenge when needing 10minute exposures like my current project. I am in Bortle 4 skies as well but not a lot of suitable nights from north of Wellington. |
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Daniel Petzen: Hi Chris Thank you for the very elaborative and informative answer to my post. I'm sorry for the bleated response. I didn't receive any notifications, so I had no idea anyone responded. I really like Telescopius and I've use it to plan my sessions several times. I've used the filters, and had a few really good sessions, but I struggle a bit to get a list of the objects I'm most interested in getting at times. I'm going to try your recommendation when it comes to settings. I had a look at the 0.7 (I didn't know about the 0.63) reducer, but it's quite a lot of money and I will use my small FoV for now. I'd love a n HyperStar, but that is too much money right now. I upgraded from a QHY5III485C, so my ASI294 is pretty amazing right now. I've used mono in the past, but I'm taking that step when I'm more comfortable with tings. I joined AstroBin to be able to look at what other people with my equipment managed to photograph, so that is definitely something I'm exploring. I love New Zealand and living in the southern hemisphere, so I my focus is entirely to explore the southern hemisphere and all the stuff I've never heard about before :-) I'd be super keen to do a joint project, though! |
