Eta Carina and Lagoon from Qld Astrofest

[batema]

Hi,
My mate Adam and I attended our first major astronomy event last night and how great are they. Stacks of knowledgable people and amazing equipment and DARK skies. Shots through Skywatcher ED 80.:)
Eta 9 X 4 Min Lights with 3 X 4 Min darks, DSS and processed Gimp. ISO 800 Guided PHD.
Lagoon 4 X 4 Min Lights with 2 X 4 Min darks, DSS and processed Gimp. ISO 800 Guided PHD.
Can't wait to get back there. Any feedback welcome.

Mark B

[Tilt]

Hi Mark, what camera was used for these images?

Great shots btw.

[batema]

Hi, The camera used was an unmodified Canon 400d. After these shots were taken we learnt that our camera settings were only giving us two hundred and something shades of gray so we reset allowing over 4000 shades so we can't wait to try this. Thanks for the comments. Mark

[AlexN]

Great shots! and first images to come out of QLD astrofest! :) well done...

The background in the M8 image seems a bit washed out... try adjusting the curves or creating a layer mask to blacken..

[AlexN]

I hope you dont mind my doing so... but I've had a (VERY) quick play to get some more natural color out of your M8. Obviously with more time spent and a higher res image to work with you could get alot more. but this gives you an idea..

I used the magic wand to select only the nebula, played with shadows/highlights, adjusted color balance towards magenta, red and a touch towards blue. I then copied that whole selected area. after that I used curves, and the black point eye dropper to blacken the background a bit, then created a new layer 40% opaque and placed the copied nebula section over the top.

Its not the "right" way to do things, but it works for a 2 minute show and tell kind of thing...


EDIT: oops... uploaded the wrong image... Now corrected

[Bassnut]

Yes, the M8 background is a bit brown, and, Alex, link?.

[AlexN]

Fred. the image is attached to my post... I removed it as I, like a fool... posted the un-changed file instead of the edited one..

Fixed now.

[Bassnut]

OK Alex, better, bit red, and the res aint great zoomed in, sigh, but looks OK.

[AlexN]

I would give it another go, however I dont want to take over Batema's thread...

[Matty P]

Nice result Mark, the Eta Carinae shot has come out great.

I suggest that you capture more sub frames to improve the overall image.

Well done. :thumbsup:

[batema]

AlexN, Feel free. All advice is welcome and can only help me. Thanks for the advice. I'll try your ideas. Thanks Mark B

[gregbradley]

Nice images. Make sure you image with the camera files set to RAW not jpeg.

RAW means just that - lossless data, no changes to the original - raw.

Jpeg is compressed and can introduce artifacts and you lose some data.

Eta is a bit too magenta. So colour processing where you reduce the blue a bit would correct that.

Images Plus is the software that is most sophisticated for DSLRs. If you don't have that you should plan on getting it. Its a wonderful piece of software that will enable you to handle all aspects of your images from acquisition to darks/flats, aligning/combining and processing the final stacked image.

Your images are light years ahead of mine at that stage.

Tracking is good but not perfect. Your polar alignment was probably a bit off. Did you do a drift alignment? Its worth learning how to do it well as it saves a lot of other troubles with guiding.

Cheers,

Greg.

[AlexN]

ok heres one more go at it taking Freds 'too red' comment into account. And very right he was... (Fred = the authority on M8 images in my eyes :D)

[MrB]

My own crude attampt at 'processing'.... I say that loosely as I've never done this before and I used the only editing prog. I have, Adobe ImageReady, which is intended for web design.

[Bassnut]

Easy Alex, im no expert (has been drip under pressure?) :D.

Id say half way between yours and MrBs. What I meant was, its over saturated, and as Greg says, mess with colour balance generally. Pull up something like this http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M8mosaicM.html and copy the colour balance, thats what I do ;).

[Buddman]

Hi, I'm the mate Adam that was up at the Astrofest, I've just thawed out and have had a chance to post my effort at processing.

The camera was saving Raws but the colours were set to SRGB instead of AdobeRGB. Just one of the many things we learnt from the trip.

I tried to keep the colours a bit more balanced in the centre but still bringing up the red around the edges.

Adam