Triffid

[Imme]

You know what I've worked out.....this astro game (for me) is 95% fixing issues and 5% fun.

I haven't posted a pic for a while because I have been battling image tilt, which I now think I've solved.......although I was plagued with dew while taking this. Oh the joys!

The is about an hour of data in 3 min subs, some of which was looking through a dew haze on the lens.

There are a lot of stars in that field!

[Benjamin]

Looks great 👍🏻 Glad you’ve solved tilt issues! I’m thinking I may never solve them, except via the crop tool.

[Imme]

Ray's advice sorted my tilt out Ben.....he said take it back to basics and start a rebuild of your equipment one piece at a time checking for tilt with each piece of equipment as it is added.

Mine came down to a dodgy 'as new' coma corrector purchased from a fellow ISS'er.......just goes to show, buyer beware.

I even purchased an adjustable tilt corrector to try and fix up my issues, but it was a chromatic tilt issue so that didn't help - basically a lens in my system wasn't square in its housing so it refracted light across my sensor

[Mickoid]

Hopefully now you'll have 95% fun and 5% fixing issues, the issues will never go away, so let's concentrate on maintaining the fun! Nice shot Jon, good to see you posting shots again, it's been a while. The Triffid is always pleasing to look at and you've captured it well.
Keep 'em coming. :)

[xelasnave]

Hi Jon
I know what you are saying☺
Inteligence is often rated on the ability to solve problems so I say we are all a very inteligent bunch.
The key is not to let the problems get in the way of the fun.
My plan A is to get pole align and auto guiding working and so often something prevents me doing so...but I just go for 30 seconds and if real bad go less again☺
The other night my plan c was the one that gave me a result...not what I set out to do but I took advantage of the 30 minutes that were cloud free.
Last night was like being under water but I did not let it worry me..you should have seen what came up when I started to focus..it was depressing so much so I was going to give up...but no.

I like your image I think you did very well...look at goes right not what goes wrong☺.
Alex

[raymo]

I'm glad you fixed up your tilt issues Jon.
Nice image, although the sky is too black for my taste. I suggest you
lighten the background and see which you prefer. Also the blue nebulosity is
quite a lot more extensive than shown in your image, like a collar right around it,
so I'm guessing the black clipping has diminished it.
raymo

[kosborn]

Nice image. I would never have guessed you had dew problems! Very nice detail in the dust lanes.


Kevin

[xelasnave]

Hi Raymo I wish you had posted the blue collar thing earlier than this post as my daughter and I spent ages trying to get rid of it last night and finally gave up☺
When the lappy finishes stacking which may be never given the bank up I have I will reprocess and leave the blue☺
You gotta laugh I cant wait to tell her��
Alex

[Anth10]

Nice image Imme!

[Imme]

Cheers Anthony.......still need to get you up so you can check this guiding setup out so we can start spending your money on some stuff!



Now that's funny


Originally I had 2 hours of data, this is all I could salvage......I've since gone 'boy scout' and set up a dew busting solution you could brew beer with using a few cut up electrical cords, a dimmer light switch, some shrink wrap and a beer brewers keg warmer (told you that you could brew beer with it!). I'm too scared to put it at it's hottest setting because I think it'll melt down.......at 75% the plastic sheath on keg warmer started smoking......It works great at about 30% of full power. Cost - $30



I'll give it a crack tonite......your advice has helped so far so why stop taking it now! :thumbsup:



I think it is time I smash out a looooong exposure on something Mick, I've been playing (and failing most of the time) on short 30m-60m shots. I've set a personal goal to try and get 10 hours on something over multiple nights in the next month.....still trying to work out a target though......maybe Triffids next door neighbor, Lagoon.

[DavidU]

Very nice indeed.

[Anth10]

Mate, the thought is tempting but my conscience says beware!
I'm only just starting to feel comfortable with my setup and have yet to try out my coma corrector but the thought of guiding.....well tell me is the grass greener?

Good to hear you've sorted out your setup, you can now move full steam ahead!

[Imme]

Grass is a little longer....but it’s definately greener.

Ask yourself, what’s the one common denominator with the top 25% of pictures on IIS?
Answer is guiding.

Refractor, reflector, Cassegrain, coma correctors, cooled cameras or whatever.........the common theme is guided subs. Our goal is photons on sensor. Guiding allows you to do that more effeciantly than not guiding

[Anth10]

Hahahaha,
That salesman pitch could sell ice to the Eskimos Imme.
So when do I see a test run before I sign up...

Mate if you can tame my heavy Newt then I'll be a convert, although you are right, it is somewhat my destiny, but I must see it to believe it.
Might have to take you up on that over the school holidays coming up....

Why me Imme, why:confused2:

[Imme]

What does the scope weigh? Add another 1-1.5kg to your current weight for guiding gear.

My total rig currently weighs 14.5kg and it’s on a neq6 pro. Wind can be an issue but you face that anyway....if anything the guiding will help correct wind tracking issues.

Welcome to come and check out what I have running anytime.

[raymo]

Not that I'm advocating it, but it is amazing what can be achieved
without guiding, just have a look at Cometcatcher's latest effort
in the deep space section of this forum.
I manually guided for over 40yrs in the days of film, but entering
the digital age as a 70+yr old computer near illiterate, I couldn't get
my head around all this whizbang stuff, so stuck with unguided, and
no flats or biases, just enabled in camera noise reduction, and used
JPEGS, and have managed to get a number of images published in S&T.
raymo

[Imme]

I’m not arguing with you at all Ray......many pics much better than I could ever hope for that are unguided.
Guess I’m saying it just makes things easier.
One less thing to worry about (then again, maybe one more thing to worry about!)

[raymo]

The last line of your post is spot on; by the way, if you look at Cometcatcher's
image, make sure you look at the Astrobin versions, especially the most recent of the two.
raymo

P.S. Don't put yourself down, aim for the stars,[no pun intended].

[Imme]

Encouraged by some of the comments on this post I've been spending a bit of time burying my head in Startools to develop my skill/knowledge of what it can do.

So here's a reworked image....same data as the first pic......just much more time 'tweaking'.

I'm by no means an expert but think I have made a definite step forward in presentation of the final image. It has probably been over-cooked a little but hey, that's why I'm still in the beginner forum!

Give it to me people....thoughts?

[Anth10]

Imme,
Heaps more detail extracted here, plenty of nebulosity showing now where it wasn’t so much initially and some more definition in the ha region. The black point has been reduced too giving a more subtle space look and the star colours are coming through. I liked the blue in the first image though, but just goes to show that you can achieve different results each time. The background is a little mottled and that comes from the “life” module. I think it enhances too much in some instances.
But overall significant improvements can be seen for sure.

Anth
PS I could surely use a few tips myself with startools there are so many options I think it’s a matter of selecting the more appropriate ones for each image.:question:

[Imme]

It's definitely not perfect....but much better I think.

That mottled effect came about when I was trying to reduce the number of stars showing in the image......it was a bit of a smudge effect which back fired a little. Before I did it however I had so many stars showing you couldn't see much else!

I find going through the various modules and selecting what looks best and then tweaking from there has helped me. Also greater use of masks has helped me to make some big changes in how I do things.

[Imme]

.....and another re-work.

This one is for Anth.....bringing back the blue for ya'

There's really no end is there!

[raymo]

The left pic in your yesterday's post is looking good. Everyone is talking
double Dutch[as the old saying went] as far as I am concerned when they talk about removing stars and accentuating or diminishing different colours, and all sorts of other tweaking. I just align the RGB cones in DSS and go with that. Absolutely basic, no spending hours and hours trying to come up with my particular version.
I have attached one of my first digital images from years ago.
20x30secs 8" Newt 1100D ISO 1600 All done in DSS in about 10 minutes.
It is a bit black clipped but otherwise I was happy with it.
If I have hijacked your thread I will delete this post.
raymo

[Imme]

No...dont delete.... Rather people chimed in with whatever they feel like saying!

I guess everything is in the eye of the beholder isnt it......some like one version, others like another.