Hi Nick. Thanks for this very helpful video and on how to use this to achieve perfect focus! Glad you convinced me to buy one. So cheap and yet it works every time! Thanks for sharing and and how to use it! Clear skies! This little setup I've got I just can't wait till the dark skies come back again as all night twilight here it never gets dark enough. Thanks again!
No problem! I’ve just started to get a little bit of astro dark back now. This week I’ll have about an hour of it each night if it’s clear. It makes all the difference!
Also don't forget you should recheck focus about every 1 hr if temps change during the night as colder it gets focus will change as well shooting with NB filters.
Does the Bahtinov mask need to be as close to the lens as possible, or is it at least equally effective when a bit off the front lens. It's easier me to put the mask on top of my lens hood/dew shield. With my setup, adding and removing the hood/shield can adversely alter the manual focus. So, I'd rather not mess with the hood and just pop the mask over it, focus, and remove it. My results haven't been great and I'm wondering it's me or if this is improper use/positioning of the mask
First: no Second: yes. Think how telescope works, some of these have just mirrors, not lenses. But you can think curved mirror to be lens, because it makes same effect basically.
Hi Nick, enjoyed the video, however I wonder do you have to put the mask on in a particular way, i.e. is there a 12 o'clock? Also, I have seen different masks with slightly different mounting pegs, how tight to the scope does it have to be and I expect it should be dead centre? Cheers.
Hi Alan. Yes it does need to be dead centre and it should be touching the scope. I put the mask on as oriented in the thumbnail of the video, however you can turn it 90 degrees and it still works, it just creates the diffraction spikes in a different orientation. Hope that helps
@@AstroExploring Thanks Nick, looking forward to the next video. Just a suggestion, as a newbie, what is the criteria for using extenders? I ask because I am having trouble focusing at night time when I have a camera on my scope ( I cant focus in the day as I have a lot of buildings and trees around preventing me from doing a focus of distance,), OK with the eyepiece so I wonder do I need an extender and if so how do you know the length? Another short video perhaps? I cant find anything on YT that covers this. :)
Nice video Nick! Well I've got a drawer full of the things so I guess I think they're pretty important. If you forget your Bahtinov mask when imaging away from home, you can just find a small Y shaped twig or branch to use as a Y-mask instead. You might know this already but just in case :) Also probably depends on how expensive your optics are e.g. you probably don't want tree bark and ants on your Takahashi object lens :D
Using live view as not aware of a mask for canon lenses. Good enough but the lens barrel moves ever so slightly after getting focus so it's going to be frustrating regardless of how I focus. Also side note, shame the house builders are keeping up pace, not long until they are behind your back fence :(
Ah that sucks! Hopefully it doesn't impact too much. I feel your pain though...I'm surrounded on 3 sides by blocks of flats (the other side is street lights haha) which means I can only see from around 25 degrees above the horizon. Particularly annoying for anything in Sagittarius.
How about printing it to sheet of plastic what used with "old" projectors? They are A4 size and some of these can used in laser printer too. Just be sure it stay straight and in right position. That cannot be hard.
Hi Steve, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate that would've been very useful! The gallery on my website has my images, everything before my North America nebula image was without the bahtinov mask and everything else is after - Elephant's Trunk, North America, Heart, Soul as it isn't obvious when it's cycling through. You can see the stars are smaller and more pin point in these images. Hope that helps. Gallery can be found here: astroexploring.com/gallery
Everyone know what it looks like when settings were wrong when taking photo. Sometime you even can't see whole object, no matter if it's size of galaxy x)
What equipment do you use to focus your equipment? Comment below!
I used roll meter before masks and that was expensive stuff. And I missed whole roll every time, because earth is spinning.
Nick u have convinced me lol and congrats on 1.6k followers this is amazing mate u totally deserve it mate
Thanks Mike! Doing my best 🙂
can I aslo use it one a DSLR without live viewing?
using a sigma 600mm lens would it make any difference if i placed it on the lens hood or directly on the lens then put hood on after ?
Hi Nick. Thanks for this very helpful video and on how to use this to achieve perfect focus! Glad you convinced me to buy one. So cheap and yet it works every time! Thanks for sharing and and how to use it! Clear skies! This little setup I've got I just can't wait till the dark skies come back again as all night twilight here it never gets dark enough. Thanks again!
No problem! I’ve just started to get a little bit of astro dark back now. This week I’ll have about an hour of it each night if it’s clear. It makes all the difference!
Another helpful video Nick! Thank you!
Thanks Michael!
Also don't forget you should recheck focus about every 1 hr if temps change during the night as colder it gets focus will change as well shooting with NB filters.
Very good point, thanks for raising it
What is that lens called? Telescope? Lens for camera? It has focus knob. What is that whole thing called?
Expensive?
I 3D printed one for my 200mm lens.
Nice!
Thank you for another great video! Luckly my Mask is built in (Zentihstar 61II APO)
Nice! Those WO scopes are real quality 👍🏻
@@AstroExploring It's a great scope man! I'm just getting started in the hobby, so i'm still learning!
Does the Bahtinov mask need to be as close to the lens as possible, or is it at least equally effective when a bit off the front lens. It's easier me to put the mask on top of my lens hood/dew shield. With my setup, adding and removing the hood/shield can adversely alter the manual focus. So, I'd rather not mess with the hood and just pop the mask over it, focus, and remove it. My results haven't been great and I'm wondering it's me or if this is improper use/positioning of the mask
I hang mine off the hood of the telescope, which is basically the same as you doing it on your lens hood. This should work fine so keep trying
First: no
Second: yes.
Think how telescope works, some of these have just mirrors, not lenses. But you can think curved mirror to be lens, because it makes same effect basically.
Hi Nick, enjoyed the video, however I wonder do you have to put the mask on in a particular way, i.e. is there a 12 o'clock? Also, I have seen different masks with slightly different mounting pegs, how tight to the scope does it have to be and I expect it should be dead centre? Cheers.
Hi Alan. Yes it does need to be dead centre and it should be touching the scope. I put the mask on as oriented in the thumbnail of the video, however you can turn it 90 degrees and it still works, it just creates the diffraction spikes in a different orientation. Hope that helps
@@AstroExploring Thanks Nick, looking forward to the next video. Just a suggestion, as a newbie, what is the criteria for using extenders? I ask because I am having trouble focusing at night time when I have a camera on my scope ( I cant focus in the day as I have a lot of buildings and trees around preventing me from doing a focus of distance,), OK with the eyepiece so I wonder do I need an extender and if so how do you know the length? Another short video perhaps? I cant find anything on YT that covers this. :)
Nice video Nick! Well I've got a drawer full of the things so I guess I think they're pretty important. If you forget your Bahtinov mask when imaging away from home, you can just find a small Y shaped twig or branch to use as a Y-mask instead. You might know this already but just in case :) Also probably depends on how expensive your optics are e.g. you probably don't want tree bark and ants on your Takahashi object lens :D
Great advice! I hadn’t thought of doing that!
Using live view as not aware of a mask for canon lenses. Good enough but the lens barrel moves ever so slightly after getting focus so it's going to be frustrating regardless of how I focus. Also side note, shame the house builders are keeping up pace, not long until they are behind your back fence :(
Yes they are ☹️ half my back fence will be the side of someone’s house. Hopefully it won’t affect me too much!
Ah that sucks! Hopefully it doesn't impact too much. I feel your pain though...I'm surrounded on 3 sides by blocks of flats (the other side is street lights haha) which means I can only see from around 25 degrees above the horizon. Particularly annoying for anything in Sagittarius.
Matt Adams that’s very frustrating! I can’t complain too much, I live in a Bortle 4 area with decent views for most of the sky at the moment
I'm using a Bahtinov Mask too, but I still find it kinda meh on the DSLR liveview, cuz the spikes are still really small.
They are really small but I find the dots work fine for me 🙂
You should consider getting a transparent, acrylic one from William Optics. It produces larger spikes for focusing!
@@cyberbunny777 Oh, I'm just using my 3D-Printed one, and the results are really poor. I'll see about the transparent ones, thank you :)
Yeah the transparent ones will let a lot more light through so will be better for a DSLR 🙂
How about printing it to sheet of plastic what used with "old" projectors? They are A4 size and some of these can used in laser printer too. Just be sure it stay straight and in right position. That cannot be hard.
LiveView in Backyard EOS
I was hoping for a before and after image
Hi Steve, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate that would've been very useful! The gallery on my website has my images, everything before my North America nebula image was without the bahtinov mask and everything else is after - Elephant's Trunk, North America, Heart, Soul as it isn't obvious when it's cycling through. You can see the stars are smaller and more pin point in these images. Hope that helps. Gallery can be found here: astroexploring.com/gallery
Everyone know what it looks like when settings were wrong when taking photo. Sometime you even can't see whole object, no matter if it's size of galaxy x)
Hello bro can we do a collab,I make similar content!