I did this last weekend during one of the best nights I've ever had in my backyard. The conditions were pretty good compared with what I've normally had to handle.
Jo, you might envy my guiding, but I envy your skies. You can always improve your guiding, but I can't improve my skies here!
As for getting out your way, well I was hoping to get to Ten Chain this weekend, but can't make it (maybe next weekend). I'm hoping to also make 2 or so extended trips down to Girraween National Park as that is an excellent dark site for me.
Strangely enough, I've got the gear setup in the backyard, but instead of pulling it down each time, I can put a cover over it. So over a number of sessions I've refined the PA more than I would have for an individual session. No surprise it makes a difference.
I'm working on some better Southern Pinwheel Galaxy data now that I hope turns out ok.
That's super sharp. I really like it and I actually like that subtle/ephemeral quality it has because it's not massively contrasty as most renditions are. It feels like a super-visual impression of the area.
Thanks Cam. I wonder how it will look with more data added to it - I've only got 1.6 hrs for that and I bet getting more will be useful.
Chris, for me 1.6 hours is quite a respectable amount of data. But as you say the image looks like it needs a lot more, I am surprised that you would need so much more integration time than me just because of some LP? Or is your LP pretty bad? Even if I image during full moon 1.6 hours would be plenty to keep noise under control even with a lot of stretching to bring out faint stuff
What programs are you using for processing? And if it is no trouble could I see what a single unprocessed sub looks like?
I had a fiddle (hope thats ok) and reckon you could up the contrast and reduce the green level a bit.
I consider the light pollution here to be bad. Using the examples on the astrobin site for the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, I estimate around 7 (perhaps 6 if I was generous) - not the worst, but bad enough. I can generally walk around the back yard at night without the need of a torch and have little fear of tripping over anything.
At the moment, I use DSS to process the raw images and stack them. I then import the 32 bit tiff into PS and work on it from there. I like the darkness on your processed image (I went through that at one point), but I feel it loses some of the details when doing it, hence I backed off a bit. If you look at other images out on the net, they're generally wider field of view than mine and the nebula extends further. I think some of those fainter areas would come out more with further subs.
I have found that I'm having to adjust the colour in processing, moving away from green/yellow towards red/blue. I try not to push it too far, but it's possible I could have done more with this - so I'll have another go at it again. ...time passes... Just did some more experimentation. Looks like there's more to go.
I am procrastinating, but I will eventually purchase Pixinsight and do my processing that way. I had a trial and could see it would work well, but I've just been resisting that learning curve for now.
PM me to work out how I can get a 21 Mb Canon RAW file to you for the unprocessed sub.
I consider the light pollution here to be bad. Using the examples on the astrobin site for the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, I estimate around 7 (perhaps 6 if I was generous) - not the worst, but bad enough. I can generally walk around the back yard at night without the need of a torch and have little fear of tripping over anything.
At the moment, I use DSS to process the raw images and stack them. I then import the 32 bit tiff into PS and work on it from there. I like the darkness on your processed image (I went through that at one point), but I feel it loses some of the details when doing it, hence I backed off a bit. If you look at other images out on the net, they're generally wider field of view than mine and the nebula extends further. I think some of those fainter areas would come out more with further subs.
I have found that I'm having to adjust the colour in processing, moving away from green/yellow towards red/blue. I try not to push it too far, but it's possible I could have done more with this - so I'll have another go at it again. ...time passes... Just did some more experimentation. Looks like there's more to go.
I am procrastinating, but I will eventually purchase Pixinsight and do my processing that way. I had a trial and could see it would work well, but I've just been resisting that learning curve for now.
PM me to work out how I can get a 21 Mb Canon RAW file to you for the unprocessed sub.
6 or 7 IS pretty bad! I can see why you've got some drama's! Good job digging out what you have, my skies are around the 3 mark.
I use Nebulosity for my image processing and really like it, but nothing will give you what dark skies can, PI looks like the ultimate I reckon, hopefully be able to get it someday.
Don't worry about a full size sub, 200kb will do, I just wanted to see what an average sub looked like.
Same file, just 2 different qualities/sizes for the jpgs since I'm not sure how they will appear here:
(I just reviewed the astrobin Bortle Dark-Sky Scale examples. I should be picking 6 or maybe 5, as 7 was when I was doing full moon imaging ).
You've probably seen it, but here's one I did at a dark site (3 or maybe 2): http://astrob.in/69307/0/ Tarantula Nebula. It was great being able to use ISO400 as well and get some good data with very little LP. Huge difference in results and ease of post processing.
(I just reviewed the astrobin Bortle Dark-Sky Scale examples. I should be picking 6 or maybe 5, as 7 was when I was doing full moon imaging ).
You've probably seen it, but here's one I did at a dark site (3 or maybe 2): http://astrob.in/69307/0/ Tarantula Nebula. It was great being able to use ISO400 as well and get some good data with very little LP. Huge difference in results and ease of post processing.
Heck! Thats a lot of LP!! I can see what you mean about difficult processing, must be a nightmare.
Yes, I do remember the LMC shot, and a beautifully image it is, Look forward to seeing what you'll produce from your next visit to a dark site.
Have you got anything on the menu to image? I took a shot of M20 the other day and it came out a lot better than expected, better than say, M8 or M17, although M16 generally performs pretty well too.
See this thread here for an image I took the other night form home, give an idea of what the sky is like.
Jo
EDIT, it looks like you have already done M20 going by your profile image? It's a nice shot.
I was only just starting out when M16 and M17 were up last year, so I'd like to have another go at them since I never got anything really useful.
There's some nebulae near Antares that I want to have a go at. They're in the east at the moment (worst LP for me, also includes the streetlight), but might be a late night target or next month or so from the backyard.
Really though, I'm an opportunist. On a given night, I check what might be possible (going as near vertical as possible with a westerly bias) and then go for what I can get.
M20 was probably my first good result from the backyard. I reckon you could nail M8 though - it shouldn't be too difficult from your dark skies.
