Yet another one - with a DSLR

[Mickoid]

On Monday night under very windy conditions I got 105mins on Ngc 6188 using a modded Canon 550d on an Esprit 100. This is the result of 70 x 90secs UVIR cut and CLS CCD clip in filtered unguided subs on an HEQ5pro mount. I managed to find a sheltered spot in the backyard but the majority of the subs were wind affected. I left them in the stack as I knew this object would need all the data I had collected to help reduce noise but the trade off is slightly ovoid stars.

The first image is the UVIR cut filtered subs and the CLS CCD subs converted to greyscale then added as a luminance layer. The second is a cropped version from the full stack of UVIR cut and CLS CCD filtered subs processed in STs with some hue and colour tinkering in PS. :)

Nowhere near the quality of some examples posted here but happy to be able to recognise the 'Dragons' from Bortle 6 skies.

[JA]

Well done Mick on braving the cold and windy conditions and coaxing out some nice Melbourne Metropolitan Dragons:thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Mickoid]

Thanks JA , it wasn't too cold on Monday night but boy it sure was windy! 💨

[Saturnine]

An interesting result Michael, very similar framing and colour caste that I have of the object taken with my ED80, 0.85 R/F and modded 450d and an Baader UHC-S filter from my Bortle 4 skies. It is heartening that it is possible to take reasonable DS images from suburbia with fairly basic equipment.
Keep up the good work. Not trying to hijack your thread but will add my image just for comparison, approx 6hrs total imaging time over several nights 2 weeks ago.

[Mickoid]

No worries Jeff, nice to see your effort on this one too. I think we're a dying breed, still using 20th century technology! 😄 It's good to show those contemplating getting into the hobby on a tight budget that you don't have to buy a $1000+ astro camera to make a start . Sure, the results are better but you'll still get results with the DSLR. Interesting, your shot is from more than 3X the data that I had, so I often wonder if there is a limit to the benefits of long integration times on some objects.

[PKay]

Interesting thought Mick, have spent many hours finding out the answer.

And the answer is...there isn't one, well not a definitive one anyway.

One way of looking at it is considering SNR.

A bright target (Orion) has a good SNR so you can get away with say, 20 or 30 subs.
A feint galaxy with low SNR you could take 100 subs and still be pulling in information.

For me it's a case of 'suck it and see'...

[Saturnine]

As Peter said, there is no definitive answer but SN ratio does play a factor as well as processing skills. Maybe if I learnt to use Pixinsight or similar I could pull more out of the data, as it is I do very little processing on the TIFF file out of DSS, just brightness, contrast and some colour saturation. I did have an image I took a few years ago of only 2 hours total exposure, can't find it atm to compare but will be illuminating (sic) when I do to see if there is a noticeable difference.
What us basic level imagers capture now would have been top shelf 25 years ago, plenty of long term imagers on here that can attest to that .

[gb44]

Another idea - try GIMP. Another free programme with great possibilities for image processing and with some good youtube tutorials. Very easy to learn.

Here is my effort with GIMP and IP finished off in PS with some colour balancing, using the same data. I havent learnt to use layers and star masks but I hope to do so. GIMP on the LHS..

GlennB