Another thing you could all do is create drop box files of your stack images and combine all the data together to crank up the signal to noise ratio and smooth out the noise.
Thanks Rusty I am learning how the get the most out of deep sky stacker.
And light room has some basic stuff...I dont know but it is forcing me to get what I can from what I have.
Fiddle with everything and see what everything does.
I will get something just trying to recover from the trip.
But I am surprised what you can get with only 30 sec exposures.
My images may turn out strange because I am colour blind and I select a colour tine that shows that part as clear as posible..so I get strange colours.
Alex
Does this count? 4 x 2 minute live stack with live dark frame subtraction using a CMOS video camera on a 5 inch f/5 Newt. 8 day old Moon. Image resized to 1,000 x 674 pixels from original 3,040 x 2,048 pixels. No guiding involved.
Live viewing session screen grab also shown for comparison.
8 inch 30 sec 400 iso 57 lights frame and 8 dark no bias.
Light room and an edit in the foto folder ..veryy basic.
But learning to get something out of deep sky stacker even though the go is to export it and modify with another program.
alex
Does this count? 4 x 2 minute live stack with live dark frame subtraction using a CMOS video camera on a 5 inch f/5 Newt. 8 day old Moon. Image resized to 1,000 x 674 pixels from original 3,040 x 2,048 pixels. No guiding involved.
Live viewing session screen grab also shown for comparison.
Clouds have moved back over the house. No new data :-(
However I did combine 2 nights worth.
30 of 120 sec. Gain = 100
30 of 120 sec. Gain = 70
20 of DARKS, FLATS & BIAS
Not much better really.
Tried some new processing techniques though.
For the PI enthusiasts:
LINEAR
Dynamic Crop
Rotation
Channel Extraction of Luminance, Red, Blue, Green
LRGB combination reducing the Green component.
ABE (automatic background extraction)
BN (Background Neutralisation)
CC (Colour Calibration)
ACDNR (noise reduction)
Mask Generation using the Luminance component as the mask.
Saved off as a JPEG and then adjusted in Photo Shop to reveal only the bit I was working on.
CT (curves transformation) with the appropriate mask.
NON LINEAR
HT (Histogram Transform)
Photo Shop.
Brightness, Contrast, Curves
Added a new layer with opacity set at 20% and 'painted' out some noise.
ALEX (if you read this far). That shot you took with the mobile phone of your screen is a classic! I think you should choose the next target :-)
Last edited by PKay; 09-01-2018 at 12:09 PM.
Reason: Note to ALEX
Hi Peter
You are doing great.
Following your rapid rise in ability is inspiring.
And thats why we should post our efforts.
One thing you have convinced me on is I doubt I will go narrow band.
An modded dslr is about what I need mainly to reduce what I need to set up and its great to not need a lap top when on tne move.
Maybe for Sydney but I only have 15 degrees of sky here..I need a dragon fly set up for sure.
Alex
Peter did you see my image in post 25.
I finally set up so I could post some photos.
I still have to get star tools.Playing with it made me very happy with my results.
But its a clumsy processing set up at the moment I am using deep sky stacker and light room and I think star tools will really help my images.
As to choosing a target I dont know. My tactic is if I find something I will photograph it.
I do think doing the Orion region to death is a good idea.
Alex
Thanks Alex, Chris. I'm never really sure if video astronomy results are welcome in an astro-imaging forum.
More than welcome as far as I'm concerned. I also do mostly video astro, but am now also trying AP. Although its proving difficult with my short attention span.
Video is a series of images taken one after the other, so technically anyone that that takes multiple images in succession (then stacks them) is taking a time lapse video at a slow frame rate.
I think that as technology advances and gets more affordable, "live stack" deep sky imaging will become common place.
The lower GAIN setting of 50 gave the best results by far.
PI enthuiasts:
The noise reduction from MultiscaleLinearTransform (3 layers, 3,1,1 2,1,1
1,1,1) gave a far better result than ACDNR
You muast be happy with that Peter.
Good one.
I might have a go shortly..80mm with no field flattener and a sky glow filterand a light baffle extention tube to keep out the street light hopefully.... and hopeless polar align.
Alex
alex
That's brilliant Peter, the reward for getting 6 hours of data on this object. Great colour, great framing and low noise. The best you've done so far, one you have right to be truly proud of. What scope did you use?
