Lagoon with ED80

[Solitarian]

Had my first real session with the ED80 and 1100D last night.
Picked on the Lagoon for the first up test, the seeing wasn't real flash with a lot of moisture, so I limited the shots to 30 seconds at 3200.
I took 100 shots and stacked them in DSS. That's the image attached.

In DSS it gives each image a score, last nights ranged from 160000 down to 110000, a 30% drop in score from high to low.

What is the general opinion on what to use? Go hard and keep only the best ? Top 5%? 10% ?

Also can I take more tonight and add them to last nights stacked image, or would I have to restack them all anew?

Cheers

[PeterEde]

That's a nice shot. Lots of detail.
DSS has three tabs to play with.
RGB sliders
Luninance
Saturation
Play with them all and see how it affects your image.
First up line up the RGB to be the same then play with position and then the other tabs.
Enjoy
Oh and I just go with what DSS decides. More info the better I figure until something looks of

[LightningNZ]

Looks like there's a bit of purplish colour across the whole image but that'll be easily corrected.

With DSS, I throw away subs which a) have less than 3/4 of the stars of the best images b) have significant tracking errors or large FWHM scores. It's worth mousing some stars in each image and checking their shape. If they are too elongated I just delete image off my hard-drive. I'll never use them anyway.

[Flugel88]

hello Solitarian
That's a superb you have.
Hope you dont mind i have been trying to learn photoshop and i spent some time playing around with your image last night while doing some subs of my own.
anyway here's what i come up with not sure if you would call it better i think its just a different look with more black.

[Solitarian]

Thanks, The detail surprised me as well
I hate DSS in that you have to click apply to see the change, I'll play around with it though, I need to give it a fair try.
Cheers



Thanks for that Cam, that's the answer I needed in regards to choosing subs.
I took another 100 last night, threw 15 away from clouds spoiling the show. I added them to the previous nights and weaned them down to 103 of good quality, I'll stack them later and see how it goes.




I don't mind at all, help yourself.
Certainly better definition in yours

[traveller]

Very nice,
I agree it's a bit purple-ish. Is your 1100D modded or stock? I had a crack at Lagoon a couple of months ago http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=126010 as you can see, it was Ha all the way!
Bo

[raymo]

I'm confused. The highest score I have ever seen for one of my subs in
DSS is under 1000; where did scores like 160,000 come from? Are we
talking about the same scores here? Also the highest DSS scores are
awarded to the subs that are most suitable for stacking, by virtue of having smaller, rounder stars, so why would you ditch them? Or once
again, are we talking about the same scores here?
raymo

[Solitarian]

Here's a screenshot, we may not be the talking about the same score.
The highest scores I kept, the lower ones I dumped

[Solitarian]

It's stock, all the subs have that purple tinge, It may be I used Irfanview for converting and resizing, it often picks its own flavour for certain images

[Camelopardalis]

If you're converting or resizing, you're throwing away valuable data :P just give DSS the raw files.

The last images I took of the Lagoon with my unmodded 1100D were certainly pink...

[Solitarian]

The resize and converting was for posting on here after stacking, Irfanview I have as my default viewer, all pics and vids I view through it, its an easy to use viewer.

This is the new restacked version, ran it through Gimp just quickly adjusting levels, I'll add some more frames to it tonight.
I think it's a better quality of image, still nearly the same amount of frames, just better quality subs to start with.

[raymo]

Well, Solitarian, we are talking about the same scores, but I still wonder how the numbers vary so hugely. It was Cam that said that he ditches
high scoring subs; maybe he is talking about different scores.
raymo

[LightningNZ]

I ditch the large FWHM value subs. That's the column on the far right. The scores you guys are talking about are nearly the left. I've never seen scores this large either. I don't understand why they are so large. :question:

[Solitarian]

Now I see the confusion.
He was talking about FWHM scores
http://www.mirametrics.com/brief_fwhm.htm
It gives you an idea of the difference in sharpness in comparing subs

[Solitarian]

I've no idea, it's all new to me, I probably broke something.

[cometcatcher]

Good image Solitarian!

On the quality mystery, I see your images have 22,166 stars. That's a lot of stars. Maybe a bit too many. Do you have the "detect hot pixel" box ticked in DSS? If not that may explain the stars and higher than normal quality.

[raymo]

Thanks for clearing that up, although I still don't understand how your sub has such an enormous score.
raymo

[Solitarian]

Thanks, I think the gear deserves the credit, nice simple forgiving setup.



It is ticked, all settings are still default, I just feed the frames in and it spits the final image out, takes a while but so far so good.

[LightningNZ]

I've actually had problems with too many stars:
1. It takes so damned long to align the subs
2. Sometimes it doesn't align correctly

You should play with the threshold slider so that you generally get between 30 and 200 stars. Any number in that range is good and will align quickly and correctly.

[Solitarian]

It certainly takes forever



I'll give it a whirl, thanks Cam, I appreciate the tips

Cheers

[Rex]

Hi Sol, nice shot for youfirst serious sessions. Well done!

[Solitarian]

Thanks Rex, I've found it's a good target to practice on, it's bright , a good size and well positioned. That helps a lot, I'll stay on it for a bit longer I think.
Cheers

[Solitarian]

I did just that, so much quicker and the super high scores have gone.
Now it's a simple task to restack if need be.