Lagoon

[Zuts]

My first DSO.

3 by 210 secs, Canon 400D
1 by 330 secs

Meade ED80, EQ6 unguided, shot at Oberon

Stacked in Maxim DL, Levels, Stretch
Auto Colour in Photoshop

I have posted one of the originals and the final image. I really have no idea what i am doing in Maxim DL...

Paul

[jase]

Hi Paul,
Pleased to see you posting some images. Good effort too. You may wish to sort out your guiding (auto-guiding) so you can go a little deeper in your exposures and keep the stars as pin point sources.

Look forward to seeing more.

[Dr Nick]

Nice detail, I would like to see an image somewhere between these two, ones too dark and i think the other is a little over-processed. ;)

[Geoff45]

Star images are great for an unguided shot. What is the mount?
Geoff
Note added:
Doh! Should have read your post more carefully

[Zuts]

Thanks Jase. I have been mucking around in the sydney lights for a bit and managed to get away to oberon and dark skies, except i had to stay in the motel parking lot coz my little girl wanted to stay in the motel and there is a big factory that lights up the sky....but compared to sydney it was great.

I gave up on the C11 plus wedge and am learning with a Meade ed80 and an eq6. Maybe i will sell the c11 and replace it with a new c11 ota.

I have heaps of questions about maxim. Firstly when i combine the images they come out strangely. I have to adjust the levels as after combining the sliders are all set to the middle of the range. Is this normal or am i doing something wrong. I convert from Cr2 canon raw to 16 bit tiff. When i combine i select 16 bit in maxim.

I want to try guiding and got a meade dsi at the cheap price. First though i will practice with my eq6, ed80, maxim, photoshop and focus assist. Its fun :)

Paul

[Zuts]

Thanks Geoff,

i am happy with the eq6 mount. I can go up to about 5 minutes without guiding. But that is at 480 mm focal length which i guess is more forgiving.

Next i plan to use PEC and then try some autoguiding. This mount should do me for a year or two and then if i still have the bug and am better at taking photos i will get a g11, if i have the money :)

Also i havnt yet stripped down the mount, so that may improve things as well.

Paul

[Zuts]

Thanks Nick,

I am not to sure about maxim dl yet. The first image is unprocessed except for converting from raw to tif and then to jpeg to fit the site limits. I agree about the second, it is a stack of 4 images. I have a total of 8 images and will try and stack them. At the moment i am experimenting and i guess i need to find someone who knows what they are doing and can show me how to use maxim and photoshop without being to harsh on the data.

If i come up with something better i will post it.

paul

[Ric]

Hi Paul, a fine first effort. The Trifid has come up very nicely as well.

Good stuff

[jase]

Hi Paul, yes Maxim DL can be tricky to get use to. It does provide some very powerful tools. Another great of Maxim is all the plug-ins that are available that allow you to do even more advanced processing techniques or simplify you processing work flow. You can get some of the plug-ins here (most if not all are free).
http://winfij.homeip.net/software.html
http://www.cyanogen.com/products/maxim_extras.htm

In relation to your query. You'll find MaximDL will change the screen histogram. The screen histogram is only used to display the images on the screen, it does not modify any pixel values in the image. You can save your raw images as 16-bit tiffs if you like, but you may find they're extremely dark when opening them in photoshop etc. Nothing major to deal with. When you say after a combine the image looks strange... can you post an example. Are you registering/aligning the individual images before the combine function?

[Geoff45]

If you can go for 5 min without guiding, I suggest you don't risk fiddling with it.
Geoff