M42

[Bodon]

GDay


Thought I would get a dedicated camera for my ED72 and have a go at this astro stuff. I used the ED72 as a finder on my Newt. Set it up in Sep this year. What a pain to take take a pic. Had to rely on my young bloke as I did not know how to use photoshop. Taken two pics previously and they were 47 Tuc and M8. This is my 3rd pic due to rain and now wind. Camera is a ZWO 183.

[AstroViking]

Hey Steve,

Looks good for an image early in your AP work.

What camera settings (gain/offset/temp/exposure) did you use? I ask because there are a few of us with the same one, and need some good starting point(s) for settings.

Finally, is this one frame or a stack of them?

Cheers,
V
(Also a Steve with an ED72 and an ASI183!)

[Bodon]

Hi Steve
As requested; Gain=0 Cooling -10 lights 240s ea and added 40 darks. My flats are terrible so none added. Gain 111 looked a tad better but Im still gathering more. Wind is fierce at the moment. Mount is an AZEQ6. I will let you know how Orion looks @gain111 when I grab a few more shots. My guiding is all over the place. Can never get low numbers. Using the ASIAIR Plus. Stack of 20. I got the exposure times from a utube vid 'astro with RoRo. Regards



Steve, mate get a pic up! I have some large trees so I cant see Orion until 2330 h. Its there, so grab a few frames on the weekend. Have fun

[strongmanmike]

I think I have seen that photo (https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Colours-of-the-Stars-by-David-Malin-Paul-Murdin/9780521257145) before Steve..? Very nice work! :thumbsup:

I have a copy of that book, personally signed and hand delivered to myself by DM, when I was about 17 years old :)...in fact he took some of my (and a friends) deep sky negatives, that we had exposed using a dry ice cold camera we built and he applied his then, World leading, photographic image amplification and unsharp mask techniques on them for us...needless to say as young astrophotographers, we were star struck :)

Your image instantly triggered the memory, thanks :)

Mike

[Bodon]

Michael, glad the pic jogged your memory. Cant remember what I was up to at age 17....

[strongmanmike]

..?..learning...:drink:..? :question: :lol:..or perhaps a bit of :driving:...hopefully not at the same time :help:

[AstroViking]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for providing your camera settings. Aside from the exposure length, they're not too far off mine.

I did manage to get a very quick image of M42 the other evening. The photo and write-up can be found here:

https://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=201807

Where you have trees blocking your view, I have the row of double-storey townhouses next door. :(

Cheers,
V

[Crater101]

Seconded! Apart from the fine work, sincere thanks for sharing the settings. It's of immense help to those of us who bang our heads on the desk trying to get it all to come together!

[Mikhael]

Looks good Steve

[alpal]

Well done Steve - I sent you a PM.


cheers
Allan

[alpal]

Hi Steve,
as discussed -
I used your TIFF stacked results to process your M42 image
using Photoshop, NASA Fits Liberator and Fitswork4.
Well done.

A link to the result is here:
https://i.ibb.co/sgw26v6/Steves-M42-image-11small.jpg

I also post a very low res result here on Ice In Space:

[Bodon]

Hi all
Thanks for looking.

Allan appreciate the heads up on how to use PS. Long way to go. My basic curves are vastly different in my pic, that's for sure. Ta for the PS guides.

[alpal]

Thanks Steve,
your data was quite good.
Let's give the help to everyone - see here
for 10 videos by Louie Atalas on how to use Photoshop:
https://www.youtube.com/@astroprocessing665
That will put anyone in the starting line on curves and
using layers and blurred layer masks etc.

You have a colour camera.
Curves/stretching?
With your data that was a 135 MByte, 32 bit TIFF colour file I
had to put it in Deep Sky Stacker and stack one frame
to extract a 32 bit integer FITS file that I could use in
NASA Fits Liberator to get a Black and White, monochrome file
that was stretched using the high compression function I chose of x^(1/5).
That gave me a file to use for the Luminance layer of your colour data.
Many people here have PixInsight which could probably do all that
much more easily in a few clicks?
I don't have PixInsight.
The free program Fitswork4 has a great function called
automatic flatten for nebulas which I used for a blended layer in PS.

Looking again at the results there are some things I would now change
after my quick attempt at processing but that is enough for now.
It's up to you to have a go - the best of luck on your adventure.

cheers
Allan

[alpal]

I couldn't resist having another go with processing Steve's data.
I did a lot of work to bring out the background using
more stretching in layers with blurred layer masks in Photoshop.
I also had to re-stretch the Running Man nebula separately
as it required different stretching to the main nebula to look correct.
I also rotated the image 180 degrees to make it look more familiar.

a 1652 x 1080 version is here:
https://i.ibb.co/dQTtSn9/Steves-M42-image-20.jpg


I attach a low res version here:

[Bodon]

Allan


I pmd you. Appreciate your efforts and glad you like playing with the image. Photo looks great! Crikey, I cant even use photoshop....
Regards Steve

[alpal]

QUOTE=Bodon;1578049]Allan


I pmd you.

Appreciate your efforts and glad you like playing with the image.
Photo looks great! Crikey, I cant even use photoshop....
Regards Steve[/QUOTE]




No worries Steve.
It's actually an example of extreme stretching and processing
which is frowned upon by some members here.
In any case there is a more moderately stretched version as well
that I did and posted on this thread.
If you follow those 10 videos from Louie and learn
them all off by heart you can do most of what I've done.
The principles can also be applied in other ways that you'll think of.
Blurred layer masks are the key.

I also know Ken Crawford's digging out the details videos
https://vimeo.com/53221600
which can be useful to highlight certain areas -
selective area processing - sharpening, blurring or changing the curves -
to give more artistic merit -
also frowned upon by some members here - :)

cheers
Allan