Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions. It really is appreciated; the learning curve is bloody steep!
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Originally Posted by Jasp05
I recommend watching Astrobackyard on Youtube if you use photoshop.
Orion is a tricky one to shoot with the core blowing out so easily. Try taking some 10-30sec subs and layer them in with your longer subs to retain the details in the core.
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I watch Trevor already, love his channel. Actually, he was partly the reason I also went with the Explore Scientific ED102. I'll look into some of his Photoshop tutorials for sure! Cheers.
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Originally Posted by xelasnave
Great start. I can tell you some tricks but I can't offer a reason unfortunately.
Take some short exposures so you don't blow out the trap region.
Put the blown out version and the non blown out photos I photo shop layers and use the rubber tool to merge the two so you retain the trap and the nebulous putter regions.
Also run the dodge tool around the nebulosity and see if you can get a little more..it's there I bet.
Alex
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That's a great tip - thanks. So far I've really just been playing around with levels but am learning quickly that you can easily blow things out and lose/waste a lot of your data if you go too far. Shorter exposures to capture the core then layering sounds like a really good way of capturing and keeping the right amount here! As for the dodge tool - I've never used it, I really am just starting out with Photoshop but I will definitely look into it (and more!). Thanks!
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Originally Posted by Sunfish
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I've only had time to quickly go through this but it looks brilliant! I know what I'll be reading to/from work this week, thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanJones
If you lower your ISO you may think you’ll loose out on the feint stuff. This isn’t true. The photons are still hitting your sensor, they just are very feint and get lost in the noise. This is where patience comes in. Take double, triple, quadruple the number of subs. What you’ll find is that you increase the signal to noise ratio substantially. You’ll get to a point where you won’t need to stretch the image as much to bring out the feint nebulosity. Less stretching means less chance of blowing out the core. There is no doubt in my experience that the better the data to start with and the less you have to play with it, the better the end result. There are ways to deal with the highlights individually in Photoshop and to isolate certain areas to enhance but you have to be careful with them and again I repeat, the less of this you have to do the better. These techniques can be used for fine tuning and adding depth.
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That's some really good advice, thanks Ryan! Unfortunately Orion is only visible for about an hour between two dirty great apartment blocks near my backyard. But, I think it would be interesting if I did an hour or so each time I go out and after a good few runs I'd have enough data for a great image. A nice long-term project whilst I image other things as well. I'll give ISO 400 a go, thanks!
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