My first shot too :-)

[ozstockman]

That's my first shot too.
Taken with Canon EOS 400D(unmod) attached(prime focus) to ED80 and autoguied on EQ6 mount. It was cropped and resized.

I believe it's a single shot at ISO800 120 sec, but I have done so much processing on it, trying different methods, including stacking so I lost info where I started from :-)

I think there is still a lot of noise there but I am a newbie in image processing and still trying to figure out how I can remove it.

I would also appreciate if someone tells me what DSO it might be. The whole idea that day was to get my autoguiding setup with unmodified ToUCam working and I stopped traking where my scope pointed and tried to find any DSO with a star that unmodified webcam can see :-)


cheers,

Michael

[little col]

looks like th trifid neb to me , great image ,you seem to have caught alot of detail in that and well done on that first image , focus is spot :thumbsup:

[dcalleja]

Michael
I think its the Lagoon nebula. I took the liberty of copying your image to try and subtract the noise.

I used Photoshop and did the following (basic process from Scott Irelands book)

1. Made a duplicate layer
2. Made a mask within the duplicate
3. Desaturated the duplicate and copied it into the mask
4. Inverted the mask and adjusted the level to be darker
5. Removed the link from the duplicate to the mask
6. Did a gaussian blur on the duplicate (about 150)
7. Flattened the image and saved as a JPEG

Its a good book - its helping me out a lot and i,m up to about page 101 :) theres lots of trial and error involved (more error than trial usually on my part)

[dcalleja]

Michael
Sorry - the books called 'Photoshop Astronomy' and I have to read each page 6 times to get it right!

[Tamtarn]

Great first try Michael. :thumbsup:

You've captured M8 Lagoon Nebula

David

[leon]

Pretty good i reckon for a first attempt Michael, keep em coming.

Leon

[matt]

Nice one, Michael.

I actually prefer your original to the reprocess.

Sorry dcalleja. You've burnt out a lot of the subtle detail and colour of the original, and the stars look 'blobby' or burnt out, IMHO:)

Doesn't hurt to try, though:thumbsup:

[Astroman]

Great shot Michael, DSO imaging is very rewarding isn't it, you have some great data captured. One thing you could do is take more shots, the more you do the smoother the final image will be, but yes that does mean you need to stack the images. Using software such as Deepsky Stacker which is free takes alot of the processing steps out of your hands and while you sleep it could be stacking the images you took. Pretty hard smoothing out a single framed image without losing some detail. I also use a 400D and have gone down the same road not long ago, and yes I am still traveling :) I dont think the bus stops.

If you can use the cameras in camera noise reduction too, it takes longer but its one less step you have to worry about now. Later you can start making your own flats and dark frames to clean the image up further. Anyway I had a small fiddle with your image, this had some nice data and focus is spot on..

[dcalleja]

Matt
Your humble opinion is spot on - the core is totally burnt out! I had another play (Michael - always fun to play with someone elses images esp when theres so much data there). I didn't get the same result (or detail) as Andrew but its not so burnt out this time. :)

[matt]

Good work, Dan. Definitely better:thumbsup:

[dcalleja]

Its good work from Michael - I really want one of those Canon 400's - Xmas is coming!

[matt]

I meant good work on the reprocess:)

But yes, Michael's original data was good.

[iceman]

Great image for a single shot, Well done!

[Ric]

A very nice first image Michael. Looking forward to seeing more of your images.

Top stuff

[Garyh]

I agree with the comments, very nice single exposure, good focus and guiding..now you need a bunch to stack.
keep up the work!!
cheers

[Dr Nick]

Very nice, i love Andrews version, shows how much an image can improove by processing well. ;)

[ozstockman]

Thanks guys.

I took hundreds of astro pictures before starting with Nextstar 4" SCT and then moving to ED80 mounted on EQ6 but I did not use autoguiding. Those pictures were so bad so I almost decided to quit astrophotography. However I gave it last change and could manage autoguiding to work.

Of course I still have a lot of things to learn i.e. image processing but at least now I know that I can take these great DSO pictures by myself :-)