Triffid and Lagoon 80mm

[xelasnave]

I have been imaging solid for over a week trying this and that and way behind in stackingand processing.
Here is an attempt at the Triffid Nebula and Lagoon Nebula thru the 80 mm espirt on heq 5.

I have auto guide working and pole master but I went with 30 second captures at 1600with the Nikon D5500 and about 150 no darks or flats.
Both the camera and me were cooled:D

After the stack there seemed to be no colour so I cheated with a brush up:)

Alex

[leon]

Quite a handsome image Alex, admittedly the colour is a little off but your tracking seems pretty well right on, nice work mate. :thumbsup:
You certainly are pushing it and getting results to match, well done.:)

Leon :thumbsup:

[Lognic04]

Nice Alex!!! Just a little nitpick, :D You seem to have clipped your blacks, so you are losing a lot of faint nebulosity there.
I might do the trifid some time also!

[cometcatcher]

Nice one Alex! Although the stars are grey. It's true that deep sky stacker sucks all the colour out compared to a single RAW shot. You have to compensate by turning up the saturation slider in whatever processing program you use.

[xelasnave]

Thank you Leon.
Thank you Logan.
Thank you Kevin.

Logan I dont know what you mean by black clipping could you explain this for me please.
Alex

[Mickoid]

Nice one Alex, your colour balance is pretty well nearly there on this one. Did your daughter help you or is this one you tried yourself? Black clipping is basically having your shadow areas ( for astro work, the dark sky areas ) carrying too much density. You can slide the arrow on the left hand side of the histogram to the right a little to reduce the shadow density which will reveal more of the fainter stars.

[xelasnave]

Thank you Michael.
Yes my daughter helped with the colour..she selected a colour and painted it in for me as this image seemed to stay black and white.

Alex

[Mickoid]

Now that's innovation! She's done a good job. Tell her now if she's not too busy, can she colour all the stars for you as well?! :lol:

[raymo]

You'll be on the main forum in no time Alex. Well done.
raymo

[xelasnave]

She downloaded a nice little plug in for photo shop to "correct" stars.

We gave up on the processing for today as we had other things she wanted to do on her computet.
She did a stack for me an all I can say is I need a desk top with all she has in hers as it stacked so fast compared to the lap top.
I will pass on everyones comments.
Thanks again to all.
Alex

[xelasnave]

I think I can do more here Raymo in so far as I do want to encourage new folk and frankly I doubt if my ability will take me very far.


But thanks for your compliment I really appreciate it.
Alex

[Lognic04]

So basically what black clipping is, is when you pull the black slider in levels too far so it begins to destroy the data there in the shadows, or, darkening the darker areas so much that they dissapear and are lost.
Hope this helps!

[xelasnave]

Thanks Logan I will consider that in my next process attempt ...still stacking stuff☺
Alex

[Anth10]

Good going Alex, nice capture of the two popular nebs. I find dropping down the ISO as a test to get more star colour works and will also reduce noise to boot. But I do understand in the burbs its a compromise to get some signal at this expense by increasing ISO!
Robbing Peter to pay Paul scenario....

Anth

[kosborn]

Nice Image Alex. I've only been doing this since February and you've certainly inspired me. I would definitely like to be able to star hop like you do, instead I rely on electronic aids. :shrug:


Kevin

[xelasnave]

Thanks Anthony.
This Nikon seems to work best at 1600, I have tried it at 100 400 800 1600 3200 and 6400 I dont know but it seems less noisey at 1600 and colour really seems to come and go but certainly from my view there seems no better colour at low iso.
When I used canon cameras the drop in iso showed a huge colour improvement and rarely went past 800 and mostly at 400.
The air has been very moist the past two weeks of shooting and I winder if that has anything to do with colour ...the light gets refracted a little and colour is lost maybe.
Anyways I have not really started to process because my lappy is stacking non stop if not with the mount.
Each stack takes about four hours and a few disappear so have to be done again...I have lost about five stacks for whatever reason so that is near twenty hours lost stacking time.
And I have had runs that I was not happy with the star shapes that I deleted...other runs where just adjusting stuff...but I have a few now to work with.
Where I am now you can see everything so you dont need goto...I can see Lagoon Eagle and Swan clearly and the Prawn region.
Add a little skill from my pool playing days and I find things faster than the mount can swing to:):)
Alex

[xelasnave]

Thank you Kevin.
As I said above you dont need more than good pool playing skills to line up targets when at a dark site.
I am lost in the city because you see so little.
The sky although wet has been wonderful I spend a lot of time with binos whilst the camera bangs away seeking interesting things..I look for dark places and investigate with the camera...I find that great fun.
I am happy if I have contributed to your journey and you are doing so well.
Alex