First real image with QHY8

[Hagar]

My first real image,.. Quite a learning and experimenting curve. Perhaps I am starting to get the idea even though the moon will now kill my chances somewhat.
First image is a full screen shot 7 X 2 min. No darks flats or anything else. Stacked in DSS and tweaked in CS2. The second is a large crop of the first.

Comments please.

[iceman]

Looks like a pretty good start to me, Doug. But where's the colour gone?

[dugnsuz]

Point it at something red Doug!!!:lol:
Looks good for 2 min subs though.
Look forward to more.
Doug:thumbsup:

[Terry B]

Great Start
I would love one of these cameras.
What caused the faint pink halo around the unprocessed image of the GC?

[Hagar]

Thanks for the comments.

I think the pink area is a reflection of the IR filter on the clear glass as I have both fitted to give a longer nose piece.

Colour washed out as it is probably a little overexposed in CS2 and a bit of a bright moon.

[Hagar]

Eta Carinae Nebula.... A single 5 min image.
Disregard the dark dust blotches.

[Garyh]

Nice Doug! looks very nice!
What scope did you use for these shots?
cheers

[Alchemy]

can you post an UNprocessed version of eta... id like to see that, plus scope length and f ratio so i can get an idea of where the camera is at in sensitivity etc

[Peter Ward]

Nicely guided.

Looks black and white to me. There could be various reasons for this, but I seriously doubt the phase of the moon.

Lack of a UV/IR block filter perhaps? Also to preserve star colours, it is important not to saturate the chip...easily done with CMOS, but easily fixed by stacking shorter exposures. Lastly, darks and flats help...particularly with the moon in the sky.

[Hagar]

Thanks for the comments Peter. I have only had the Camera a couple of weeks and am only starting to come to terms with what and how it does things. Software has also been a new learn for me as it is way different from the DSLR.
I actually had a UV/IR filter on with this shot but think the wash out is my fault as the single images have colour.

Attached is a converted and shrunk original image.

[Hagar]

Images taken with QHY8 through Tak FS102 at F8. Don't know how to post original FITS file as it is too big so here is a shrunken JPG of one.

[Alchemy]

thanks for the image hagar

[Terry B]

If you could zip the fits file and attach it. It has to be less than 500k to attach. I could have a play with it tonight.

[Hagar]

Terry, The FITS files are 35MB each and compress down to about 16MB AT MAX COMPRESSION.

[Terry B]

Blast!
Only suggestion I have is to open it in something like Iris, divide it by 9 and then bin it 3x3. This makes it much smaller but retains the dynamic range that is in the original fit image. Save as fit again and try compressing that. See what size it come out as.

[Hagar]

Terry, I have it down to 925KB the only thing I can think of is if you give me an Email AD and I can send it as an attachment.

[Terry B]

PM sent

[Gama]

Looks more like he went crazy on processing more like it..
Also its a CCD and not a CMOS sensor for those asking me.

Nice start Doug. Much better than your first you sent me..

Theo.

[Alchemy]

the processing needs a little attention as is more contrasty than needs be and the highlight areas are too bright (eta), but its all a learning curve and we all could improve our shots

i would be perhaps more interested in a fainter object than eta to really see its potential myself, but its a start.

As seen from the unprocessed version, the details there, but given i have seen much longer exposures with these cameras and hagars tracking is good it would pay to double that exposure time as theres still plenty of range left in the raw frame. then the usual stacking etc.

[winensky]

Nice images. esp eta. Agreed, mayby a little less strech at the high end of the curve. Your tracking is rock solid. Wish I could do that.

[Terry B]

Dear All
Hagar kindly sent me the fit file to play with from his eta image above as an example from his QHY6 camera. There is very little dark noise with very few slightly hot pixels. The offset is about 700.
I am not anything like an expert in processing images and I have had lots of trouble getting a colour balance that is vaguely correct.
I have attached some attempts that I have had. I have found that to get close to white stars (using another image of eta that I have to pick which stars are reasonably white) I end up with a very green nebula. I tried playing with curves in Gimp and achieved the second image. It is better but still not anywhere near correct. Any suggestions?
If Hagar likes I can post the individual r, g, b, channels as binned and compressed files here. 4x binned (480k each) they end up the size of the second image but still useable for colour balance etc.

[Gama]

Getting color balance really depends on which software you use. I have always hated Maxim for its Debayer tools, where as Astro Art does a better job. I remember having loads of issues with Maxim Debayer and my Canon 20D. In the end i downloaded a plugin to debayer color better.
Also i thnk you meant QHY-8 camera and QHY-6 in your comments.'

Theo

[Terry B]

Sorry, Typo. Yes the QHY8. I used Iris to debayer and played with the colour balance in Iris, Gimp and PS elements. (I don't own PS)

[Hagar]

I am realy glad someone else is seeing green. It seems to be the only really good colour I get. Using Maxim, Images plus and nebulosity. My monitor is colour corrected using spyder Pro calibration. I have been puting it down to reflection of moonglo on the local smoke in the sky but really question this assumption. I have had some advise re settings from other QHY owners but at this stage I am considering a paint brush and canvas. My DSLR is far easier and delivers better results.
It is a shame the camera doesn't come with some instructions and good software with instructions then perhaps some standards could be maintained or at least set.:shrug::shrug::shrug:

[Astrod00d]

Had a quick play with hue in Photoshop. I'm no expert but I figured that hue re-assigns color channels and may re-arrange any de-bayering errors. It's still not the right colour, but the green is gone.
Just a thought. Is there a mismatch between the QHY8 driver encoding and the post-processing software decoding, eg is there an bayer encoding option which isn't set the same in both applications?
...We need some advice from an experienced QHY8 user... Anyone?

[Gama]

Problem is the debayer method used by Maxim, regardless. As i said, i dont use Maxim to debayer, it used to make my 20D images look all green too. I had to do a color balance to fix it. So i used a plugin for debayer on the 20D and also any other camera that has the same encoding.

Processing takes many hours of work. This does not get supplied by the camera manufacturers. Instructions to create images as they look from others took me a long time as others would agree. Just to show how much work can go into it, here http://www.southern-astro.com.au/php/guides/processing-ngc2070.php is a link that i recommend users look at that want to know how much work it takes to create an image. Its not just point and shoot, happy viewing.

Theo

[Terry B]

I think this was the problem. I debayered in Iris using the 40D settings. It is suppose to have the same arrangement of colour. This is obviously not correct. I have debayered it in Deep Sky stacker which has a channel for the QHY8. This gave much better colours- red nebula without red stars. Then a "asinh" stretch in Iris and some noise reduction resulted with the attached image. Much better and amazing for a single 5 min exposure with no dark or flat.

[Astrod00d]

Stunning, smooth result, particularly for a single 5-minute sub. Deep Sky Stacker did the trick, and it's free!
We're looking forward to some great results from you now, Hagar...

I think I need a QHY8... (I think I need to find some $$$) :P

Cheers,

Rob

[Gama]

Terry is right, you cant just use the same settings from one camera to another. Even between same cameras (20D, 30D, 350 etc.). You need to play with the settings to suit. But as Terry found out, there is simpler ways that do it better.
Remember that you dont have to just work on one image.. If you split the image into RGB you can then play with each color and get some really good results.
The image that Doug made is pretty good, and in light of it taked during a full moon is even better.

Theo.

[Craig_L]

Hey Theo,

Nebulousity has drivers for the QHY8. But can you advise if the program works to debayer the QHY8 raw images correctly?

It has a setting for Canon DSLR's but I haven't had any luck with my 400D - colours seem off. So I'm worried if I get a QHY8, what program should I use to convert from RAW?

Best,

Craig

[Hagar]

Thanks for all the comments and help everyone. I think I may be starting to make some sense of it all but I better not crow to soon.

Thanks again.:screwy:

[Gama]

Hi Graig,
I have another user that uses Nebulosity, and claims it does very good with the QHY-8. Iris also does it, but from memory some one said that you needed to flip the image horizontally because of the way Iris reads the file.

Theo.