Chasing the Chicken - IC 2944

[Icearcher]

Hi All

Out at my favorite southern dark site in Kuitpo forest to hunt chickens.

Last night was a ripper, clear cold conditions but not to cold to get dew issues, polar alignment took about 5 mins to get pretty spot on, guiding worked first time and I was able to get subs up to 3 minutes without any losses.

My target for the night? IC 2944, the running chicken nebula.

I didn't expect it to be a great target for an unmodded DSLR and it didn't look great during the capture but I think it came out alright. Lets call this one a work in progress.

Also, a couple of bonus shots I took with the Sony RX100 while the main rig was doing its thing.

Image details:
59 x 180sec subs
Stacked with Sequator (first try)
Processed with PS

Regards
Chris

[casstony]

All of the pics are very nice Chris. The widefields give a sense of being there.

[xelasnave]

Beautiful photos in all aspects Chris
Widefields very creative and most pleasing to gaze upon.
Alex

[ChrisV]

The widefield is especially nice

[Sunfish]

I agree . Very nice wide fields and a lot of greatly gathered chicken data. A lot of good work.

Did you use a mean smart stack in PS. ? I would like to see an image straight out of a PS stack from a PS file without winding up the exposure or the saturation too much which ruins the colour space on all that work.

If you have an unmodded camera and know PS then with all that data you should have a beautiful image. Open dng files as layers in PS file from LR. Auto align. Check difference alignment a layer at a time. Convert to smart stack. Median stack.

Should be brilliant with all that data unless you crash PS. Then back to DSS.

[Icearcher]

Thanks All, the wide field shots were just me mucking around while the main rig clicked away.

I have to say that the little Sony RX100 is quite capable of some quick astro, its quite sensitive.

Thanks Ray, I stacked them in Sequator, first time Iv really used it. I haven't tried smart stacks in PS but I like the idea, have you seen any guide to help me out?

[multiweb]

Very nice pics. Very dark skies where you are. :thumbsup:

[Sunfish]

I will see if I can find a good link for mean stacking smart objects in PS. The first thing for me , as a complete amateur, is to look at one of the DSLR images developed non destructively in Lightroom with a minimum of stretching to see how it looks and as a reference for original colour for further stacking.

After that it depends a lot on your aims. I have just downloaded a trial version of Pixelinsight . I stacked five 5 minute shots with darks and flats all calibrated just to see how the colour looks. Although I have not worked on the noise and just getting rid of hot pixels is so much more of a fuss, the colour looks good. So if you we’re keen on top level deep space images from great data I would try that.

Sequater is only good for nightscapes and great panoramas I think and PS can also be good for that.

For a quick DSLR image however, sometimes a single sub with minimal developing in light room or alignment mean stacking in PS is almost as good and can be better than DSS if you do not want to stretch data beyond what is visible at the eyepiece

Depends on the quality of data and the amount of time you are prepared to put into software. PI looks like it solves a lot of the colour problems of DSS. You need the step by step tutorial from light vortex and a few days to even get started, as you can see. So if that is your direction you might buy that and ask the PI gurus.

PS stack vs PI stack attached.

[Sunfish]

I have looked at a lot of links and each is involved in very different techiniques or different branches and types and versions of PS and other software for different purposes.

There is a lot of free software in Europe on the verge of complete DNG in out stacking so perhaps it will all change again soon.

I will PM a list of simple steps so that if you already have the current version of PS and DSLR dng data and do not want to pay for PI you can see what is possible without loosing colour space data in the stack.

[Saturnine]

Hi Chris
I like the images especially the widefields, gives a sense of what it is like to to step away from the screen or eyepiece and just take in the whole scene and enjoy the experience.

[Icearcher]

Hi Marc, that spot is bortel class 3 and Im looking south so the city is behind me, if I need to shoot north, then my other spot is class 2, each is only about an hour from home and Im inner Adelaide.

Thanks Ray, anything to improve my editing is a huge bonus, I feel thats where I am weakest and need to invest the most time.

Thanks Jeff, that was my thinking as well, I find (as Im sure we all do) that while the rig is clicking away, we have hours to just relax and watch the sky, I was trying to pass a bit of that on.