LMC - part thereof

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

This was taken at the November 2018 Snake Valley Camp and processed while waiting for the weather to clear at Snake Valley presently.

I've tried the LMC several times without guiding and the results were not good. The camera scope combination also under samples the image and I have not been happy with that.

So how to improve without buying new gear? And how to improve the DSLR art form without giving up.

While I would normally use iso800 and three minutes at a dark site, on this occasion iso400 avoided the usual star bloating. I just took a lot more subs - 58 in total - dithered 12 pixels in a box pattern. Edit: Canon 450D - cooled -5C.

A 2 x drizzle (during registration) further improved image resolution. The final stacked image was huge - so resize 50% with ImageMagick and drop into StarTools.

Post processing on a laptop so just guessing the colour saturation. It could be pushed a little more. The green in the Tarantula and other nebs in the area is noticeable in the hi-res without a lot of saturation.

Processed in Siril (IRIS for Linux) which in its current version is adequately on par with PixInsight for pre-processing. Bias darks and flats. No noise reduction.


Link to higher res - colour needs some work.

[glend (Glen)]

Very nice Roland. Was that taken with your cooled DSLR?

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Thanks Glen. I should have mentioned that - yes with my cooled 450D.

[raymo]

Thats lovely Rowland, and you are right, with the colour corrected it will be
a fine image.
raymo

[mynameiscd (Andy)]

Fantastic image Rowland,
you do get great images with your 450d.
I bet the cooling makes a real difference with noise. Im only begining to work out how to use my 450d but with no cooling.
Not the best weekend for SV astro camp. I was going for Sunday, Monday but cloud kept me home (bit slack)
November camp was really clear esp the Saturday night and I bet that's when you took this image.
Cheers
Andy.

[ChrisV (Chris)]

Love the way it's framed Roland. The spider is taking it all in

[Capt_buscemi (Mark)]

Lovely framing, yes! The spider form really well defined, good work on processing.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Originally Posted by raymo

Thats lovely Rowland, and you are right, with the colour corrected it will be
a fine image.
raymo

Thanks Ray. I tweaked saturation a bit more. Drizzle makes a noticeable difference.

Originally Posted by mynameiscd

Fantastic image Rowland,
you do get great images with your 450d.
I bet the cooling makes a real difference with noise. Im only begining to work out how to use my 450d but with no cooling.
Not the best weekend for SV astro camp. I was going for Sunday, Monday but cloud kept me home (bit slack)
November camp was really clear esp the Saturday night and I bet that's when you took this image.
Cheers
Andy.

Thanks Andy. Cooling simplifies calibration and results are more predictable. It takes practice. But if you keep your darks and lights at a similar temperature you'll be ahead.

I guess it was the Saturday night.

Originally Posted by ChrisV

Love the way it's framed Roland. The spider is taking it all in

Thanks Chris.

Originally Posted by Capt_buscemi

Lovely framing, yes! The spider form really well defined, good work on processing.

Thanks Mark.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

For anyone interested here is the link to the Siril download page. It can be installed on Windows and Mac. Very sophisticated preprocessing utility. Not overly difficult to use. It's free and has reasonable documentation.

[xelasnave]

I dont know how I missed this one Rowland???
That is a absolutely fantastic shot..so clear and perfect colour (not that I am any judge on colour).
Alex

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Thanks Alex.

Nice to get it right once in a while.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Nice field. Lots of details and good focus.