Hi all,
Finally got a reasonable night on Saturday.
Still a fair bit of smoke haze about but clearest it's been for a while.
Guiding wasn't too bad as it's the first time I've tried 5 min subs.
I was so tired that I fell asleep in my chair outside and woke up at about 5am
Just a quick process a different way for a test.
I used Astro Pixel Processor to stack only and then loaded the *.fits file into PS and used Fits Liberator and saved 3 colour channels and then combined them in Photoshop.
A bit of stretching and sharpening, no cropping and a quick play with the colours a bit.
A totally different way but it didn't turn out that bad.
I'll try the usual Startools and then APP as well and check the difference.
20 x 5 mins Lights
Darks, Flats, and Bias subracted
Guided Canon 450d modes.
Skywatcher 150mm BD newt
Processed in APP and PS.
Andy
Lovely image of Carina Nebula
Stars are nice and round which is a testament to your guiding
Yes it’s hard work sometimes when it’s a clear night and your eyeballs are hanging out of your head , but you just want a few more subs or finish your darks and you just want to get some shut eye. That’s what makes this hobby exciting , tiring and challenging
Well done !!
One interesting observation I made was that your FOV using a 150mm f5 newt and a 450 D APS-C sensor seems to be a lot smaller than my 150mm f6 newt and 600D APS-C sensor
When you run the calcs through for FOV (Camera chip width/ height x 3460 \ telescope focal length )
Your focal length at f5 presuming it’s 750mm
My focal length at f6 is 900mm
Mathematically you should have a much wider image field than me
Did you crop your image ??
Or am I reading this all wrong !!
Here is your posted image and mine from last summer , check the field sizes ??
Cheers
Thanks Alex and Martin,
I spent a fair bit of time re-leveling my mount and getting home position exactly right. I did a polar alignment with sharpcap and went from there so it must be pretty good PA
Martin I didn't crop at all but I tried my Bintel coma corrector out the other night.
Maybe there is a but of reduction there. I check some old images a see if there is any difference.
Thanks again
Andy
Andy
I forgot to mention, are you using Startools V1.4 or V1.5
I’ve upgraded to V1.5 ( free when you have a license) and it has some nice additions and improvements
I’ve only used it once on M42 back in November , no imaging since then due to the fires but things are on the improve so can’t wait to capture some objects and use V1.5 a bit more
Cheers
Nice Eta Andy. Nice guiding and a nice star field. Looking at images like this makes me see how much I’m missing in star colour in my images. Using a dual NB filter to combat my heavy light pollution leaves me with very colourless stars. All in the challenges we face eh ? Great effort, well done.
Andy (sorry to digress from your original post )
Ryan
I think I mentioned a few times last year and the year before that I image In Sydney under Bortle 8 with my 600D (no filters ) and get great results with Startools
The wipe module and few other modules remove most of the gradients without sacrificing your data
It’s worth looking into if you have the inclination and time
Ivo Jager the developer provides great support too
I’ve just upgraded to Version 1.5 but haven’t done any imaging for 2 months due to the fires to experiment with the new version.The new version is getting positive feedback
Cheers
Martin
Yeah, we definitely have discussed this over the last couple of years. I have tried no filter imaging and until last year, that was all I did. I don't know what the difference is between our respective situations or equipment for that matter but I could never get close to the cleanliness of your images. It may well just be in the way we've learnt to process. Overall, I'm not a big fan of Startools and that's why I've stuck with Photoshop. That's not to say one is better than the other but they defiantly produce different results and go about it differently. I guess what I may have missed out on are those special tools to assist in cleaning up sky glow. Having said that, I do enjoy the way I image and process despite as I mentioned in my reply, lacking star colour.
Thanks Ryan and Martin.
I'm pretty lucky to have no no light pollution here, only what I create and the old farmer during cropping season. I bought a Ha filter and have used it once but my focusing was out.
It must be hard for you guys in the city having to rely on filters as I found it really hard to focus because the stars were so dim with the filter on.
You must experience this every night but you both produce outstanding images.
I used to live in suburban Adelaide but I wasn't imaging then and I remember how much trouble I had getting PA when you couldn't see the octans.
Martin, I've got Startools VS 1.5.369mr2 and normally use it with Deep Sky Stacker.
Lately Ive been using Astro Pixel Processor for everything with a bit of Photoshop. Its quite a bit of a learning curve but I do like gradients, and sharpen module in startools better.
I've had really good experience with DSS and Startools so I might have a go and try the same data and see what get.
Thanks again
Andy
Thanks Ryan and Andy
Great feedback and comments
Let’s hope 2020 is a good year for imaging
I might break ranks mid year and buy a ZWO OSC Camera.My DSLR will still be used for imaging but probably only during the winter months
I’ve been fiddling around with a trial version of APT on my desktop and sort of got my head around it but until I image with it , I’m just guessing
Cheers
Thanks Ryan and Andy
Great feedback and comments
Let’s hope 2020 is a good year for imaging
I might break ranks mid year and buy a ZWO OSC Camera.My DSLR will still be used for imaging but probably only during the winter months
I’ve been fiddling around with a trial version of APT on my desktop and sort of got my head around it but until I image with it , I’m just guessing
Cheers
Me too Martin. I recently bought an ASIair and guide cam which I'm just using for guiding for now. In the pipeline, when funds permit, I'll be moving over to a ASI071MC pro. Might not be for a while though. I'm insistent on buying an APSc size sensor which pretty much doubles the price.
Just did a stack in DSS and then Processed in Startools last night.
Bit tired to really analyze but there are definitely differences in framing.
I didn't do any cropping so maybe APP does some auto cropping.
First is the original. Second is DSS and Startools. Third is DSS and Startools with some subtle star removal.
Cheers
Andy
Andy
Yes there is definitely a difference in image aspect and size
That’s unusual but I guess it doesn’t matter that much
Thanks for going through the trouble of comparing
Cheers
Quite a difference across the 3 images there Andy. I feel in the middle one You’ve lost a bit of the feint nebulosity. It’s all horses for courses when you get to this point. Some like high contrast and heavily saturated images and others like maybe a softer more subtle renditions. I personally like to tone down my star field to make my nebulosity stand out rather than enhancing the nebulosity over the top of the stars but that does make my images less poppy than others. What you have is great data and with that you can make the choice that suits your taste. Without good data you don’t get that choice.
What I have also noticed in your images is that with a modded camera you still get a good balance of blues and reds. When I went to modded I found that my Keyhole neb was heavily taken over by the Ha in the region.
The difference in the framing could be due to DSS. If you choose intersection mode in stacking preferences, one of the subs may be in a different position, ( such as when you're setting up framing your field of view ) and it will crop to an area with similar stars in all subs.
