What's the next step?

[skogpingvin]

Hi folks, Bill here, just introducing myself - I've been lurking for a while.

I'm an experienced bird watcher and photographer, so not quite a noob, but not far off... I got into astronomy at school in the late 1970s, making friends at the school astronomy club (yeah, privileged?)

I started off with some wide-field shows, using nothing but a camera lens and a tripod. Then I got the Pentax K3-II which has an Astrotracer for short-period (3 minute) tracking. I wanted more.

I finally decided to get a scope (for my science teacher wife, you see) and plumped for a Meade LS6 - back in the days when Bintel was in Melbourne. Great tool for the job, which was to dump in the boot, take it to school, set it up in the middle of an oval, turn it on, watch it align itself, then tell it you want to see M42 or Eta Carinae, and it just did.

But me being me, I wanted more. For photography, I tried autoguiding the Meade with an Orion 80mm scope and an ASI120MM and lots of advice from a guy on AstronomyForum.com, but the alt-az mount defeated me over and over. I want more. Eventually I chucked a wobbly, went out to the shop and came back with an NEQ6 mount. Oh my, the satisfaction of getting it aligned right, and seeing that 6-minute exposure with round stars! But Melbourne has so much light pollution...

But I want more. The other day I got a half-way reasonable shot of the Horsehead nebula with a stack of 113 2 minute exposures from a dark (but windy) site near Hopetoun in NW Vic.

Now I want more. Stacking images, trying to learn about post-processing. The question is, what's better, time spent getting the data or time spent processing it? Obsessed? Me? I can give it up at any time.

I'm selling the Meade, and I'll use that to upgrade to an astrograph like an RC8, which has a much nicer f/ ratio.

Where next? I don't know. But I want better photos. I'm nowhere near as good as most of the people here, but it's fun trying. Perhaps an H-a filter will give me my next high...

I suspect the journey is far from over. I want more.

[Wavytone]

1. A shot of anti-GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome).
2. Take wallet out the back and shoot it.

[sil]

Data or processing? both. Some nights I just need to get outside and let the mozzies feed because something I havent shot yet is in a good position. Astrophotography targets are like Pokemon: gotta catch them all! Some nights the weather is against you so having unprocessed data on hand to process is always good when the mood takes you. Plus never delete source data, over time as you improve your processing you can return to earlier data and bring out more detail and structure. To me the processing is the most important part. You'll never have the best telescope or camera, there will always be something technically better to buy, but if you dont understand the gear and its impact on the captured data you cant process it to its full potential.

Plus there is spectroscopy and radio astronomy and solar astronomy to get on with too in the mean time :)

[ZeroID]

You've got the EQ6, possibly a scope upgrade might help but it really sounds like you need to get your image processing skills improved to get the best out of what you are capturing. One 'half way reasonable' image is not the end result you want.
As Sil says, I have gone back to earlier data and discovered there was more than I first thought and applied better processing techniques to get far more from them. And learned a lot more about both the target and the techniques needed to get better pix.

[skogpingvin]

Oh, it died a while back! I'm drip feeding now, with a hopeful eBay infusion soon.

Bill

[skogpingvin]

If I wanted to display one of my subs (each one a DNG and just shy of 30 megs) in order to have people give me tips, how can I do it on this forum? Drop box? Getting decent subs is probably more necessary than developing post skills (I think?).

And does anyone else use Pentax DSLRs here?

[ZeroID]

Convert to Jpeg, resize to under 200k (site limits). Should still be good enough to give people a chance to comment.

Canon is the preferred for DSLR as you've probably noticed, some SONY and NIKON as well. Don't know of any Pentax users but maybe one or two will pop up to say something.

If you can get an interval timer then anything is possible. Not sure about Pentax RAW mode and stacking software options though.

[RickS]

The usual thing is to attach a small image, as Brent suggested, and provide a link to a larger version hosted elsewhere. I use astrobin.com but there are plenty of other image sharing sites.

Wrt capture vs processing, you'll need to invest time & effort in both but I'd suggest you concentrate on capture to begin with. Once you're getting good quality data you can get serious about processing it.

Cheers,
Rick.

[sil]

Improving your processing isn't just about expecting others to you what you need to do. Start with a set you've taken and check online for processing tutorials , using the software you have. The target of the image doesn't matter its about learning the techniques to improve your understanding and images on your own. If you only have free software to work with you may be limiting yourself, and if you are considering buying some software watch tutorial videos and see for yourself if its maybe too complicated for you to learn or not.

The "problems" with astrophotos tend to be universal so understanding how to identify them and then deal with them is the path to better results.