Messier 8 - The Lagoon Nebula - My First Image Ever!
Date: August 5, 2019
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0001
About My First Image
Once I retired, I decided to explore Astrophotography. I did my research and I ordered a telescope (William Optics 132mm FLT f/7 APO), an amount (IOpotron CEM60 and 60), and a camera (ZWO ASI294MC-Pro) and waited for them to arrive. When the first clear night I set things up….
First time setting up my Williams Optics 132mm FLT Scope -r eady to try to capture something… anything really! (click to enlarge)
I used an old laptop that I had and was trying to use APT (Astrophography Tool) to control exposures. I had dialed in rough focus during the daytime with the camera using the free software that ZWO provided and I got the camera focused by imaging a far treetop. I had also done a rudimentary Polar Alignment using the polar scope (with the cost of sore knees and stiff neck) and I was pretty much set up for when darkness finally came. I then did a rough GOTO pointing model calibration with the Ioptron handset. When I had this done I then used the GOTO function to point the scope to M8 - The Lagoon Nebula.
At least that was what I hoped I was pointing to. I was ready to roll!
But I could not get APT to connect with my camera. Nothing was working! I was looking down at some documentation out in the dark, scratching my head, and looked up - This is what I saw…..
My first thought was that it was some kind of screen saver. But then I realized that it was an actual image of M8 - what I was pointed to! I suddenly realized that I was seeing my first 60-second sub through the system! It showed more details than I had ever seen visually and I was gobsmacked! It worked! I took the photo above and sent it to my Kids as I was so excited!
Now to actually take a series of exposures.
So. I set things up to take 14x60 second exposures. After that I stopped because I could not wait to “Process my images” - I jumped right to it!
I used DeepskyStacker to stack the images and processed the exported TIF image in Lightroom. I wondered where the color was. It seemed to want these things called darks and flats and such - I did not really understand what those ever were! So I just ran without it.
I brought the resulting image into Lightroom and played with it.
I ended up with this image:
I think I did a small victory dance when no one was looking! I was so excited. My first honest to God Astrophotograph. Look at the detail! Look at the nebulosity! Never saw that much through the eyepiece!
Despite my elation - I realize that I had just about everything WRONG:
It was not focused well at all!
No Calibrations at all: No Bias Frames, No Dark Frames, No Flats!
No guiding and I did not have the polar alignment dialed in very well.
Where’s the color? I had no idea (You have to tell Deepsky Stacker to debayer the image to get color- I did not know that then).
I did so many things wrong I am shocked to have gotten anything!
You know what - none of that mattered. I had my first image - to be it was the most Impressive thing in the world.
I was profoundly hooked - I had gotten this far - I could sort out the rest!
After much research, and a few phone calls to the helpful friendly folks at Highpoint Scientific , my first rig was on order! Within a week I had everything I needed to start doing astrophotography. But of course, I had no real clue how to actually do ANY of it. I barely knew how to put the pieces together much less make them work. This was the start of my journey.