First widefield....

[Rob_K]

First light tonight with new 400D. OMG, what are all those buttons?:eyepop:

Anyway, posted a conjunction pic in "Solar System", so thought I might as well inflict some pain in "Deep Space" too! :P

Shooting off a tripod, so I had to keep exposures relatively short. However my sequences had considerable field rotation, exascerbated by using in-camera noise reduction. Ended up with some really weird effects with stacking multi-point in Registax!!!! (multiple concentric swirls!). Adopted the Homer Simpson philosophy - if it's too hard, it's not worth doing.

So here's just a single exposure of the Sagittarius starfield, ISO 1600, F/5.6, 20 sec, using just the kit 18-55mm lens at 18mm. Cropped, resized & absolutely murdered in PS & Noiseware. Hope it's not too dark on your monitors..... Jupiter is the bright 'star'.

It's obviously going to be a massive learning curve....

Cheers

[rogerg]

Ge that's faint for 20 seconds @ 1600 & F/5.6! ... I'm surprised. Perhaps just nights brightenning up in software? For example, here's a 20 sec, 1600ASA, F/4 shot (http://www.rogergroom.com/rogergroom/esh_rog_item.jsp?Item=344&ParentNodeId=11) I took a while back (stacked, but individual exposures only 20 sec - stacking was using average). So you should be able to push some more brightness out of your image somehow..

But hey, at least you got something! :thumbsup: There's definitely a milky way in there.

[Rob_K]

Thanks Roger! I wanted to open up the aperture a bit, but it wouldn't go below 5.6 - should go to 4.0, but obviously I haven't learned the trick yet (my first DSLR/first night!). I noticed you used Registar to overcome field rotation in your stacking. Registax did not work over the widefield, so my image wasn't a stack. Do you recommend Registar for this kind of work? (I've never used it). Thanks. :thumbsup:

Cheers -

Rob

[rogerg]

And a fine effort it is for your first too, no doubt about that :)

RegiStar is great - works flawlessly on images that can be aligned using stars. But it isn't cheap :( So there might be some cheaper alternatives out there, I believe there's one called "Deep Sky Stacker" which I haven't used, I think it's free..

[iceman]

hmm my first thought was the same as Rogers.. seems quite faint for a 20s exposure at ISO1600. Did you do any processing or clip the histogram at all?

You could also try moving the white point using levels or curves to brighten things up as well.

I know you're limited without tracking, but you can still get some decent shots and it's great practise.

[Rob_K]

Thanks Mike! Thinking back, there were some problems (apart from not knowing what I'm doing!). There was light fog and the town lights to the south created a pale dome in the sky. Just above this dome, Om Cent was not visible, and my first shots in that direction (centered on Crux) produced almost nothing of the Milky Way. To the south, the sky was black (unlit), but the MW was faint & the dark lanes were barely visible. So trans was obviously not up to scratch. There's actually thick fog in Bright right now!

I did play with levels & curves in PS to bring out what I did. Any more and horizontal lines on the single exposure started to show up.

Anyway, shots just posted by ShaneAust have given me great heart, and I'll keep plugging along!;)

Cheers -

[ving]

if you have a look at where rob is from it might help ;)

it was probably at f5.6 because you had it zoomed a bit. no zoom and it'll go the f4 for ya :)

if ya look for mine (recent) it was only 10 secs longer.

[Rob_K]

Ah, thanks Ving! The F/stop info appreciated - didn't know that! Thought I was working with no zoom, but obviously must have had a little. :thumbsup:

Fog has cleared now, and a lovely sunny day in the valley!

Cheers -

[Ingo]

If I do a 20s exposure at ISO1600...I don't get anything. Pfsh. Maybe i'll try stacking when things clear up here.

[ving]

what sorta camera you got ingo? these iamges need a fair amount of tweaking to get anything outta them

[Omaroo]

Hey Vingster..... ya gotta reed da poast!



:D

[Dr Nick]

Nice shot, it looks a little dark but i guess you can try to fix that in your next image! ;)

Well done.

[Rob_K]

Speaking of which, I hope I have! :whistle: Thanks for the advice everyone! This is same as before, but with sky slightly better & F/3.5 on 400D. Stack 3, some levels in PS. There's still an awful lot to play with on the camera though!

[iceman]

Now you're talking! Well done Rob. That's heaps better.

[RB]

Much better Rob, well done !

:thumbsup: