ED120 Firstlight with Starshoot pro

[bloodhound31]

Well, tonight I have had my first successful test of all the new equipment.

I picked the Carina Nebula and spent some time getting everything set. The easy part is capturing the lights. The hard part is learning all the focus tricks, calibrating stuff and processing.

In the end, I just took ten x one minute subs and processed them with DSS and PSE 6.0 No darks or flats.

More learning to go but well on the way.

[bloodhound31]

I spent today learning the new MaxIm DL stacking and processing software and came up with this. Much more natural I think.

[renormalised]

Good shot:D

Needs a bit more stretching to bring out the dimmer bits, but be careful with adjusting curves and levels when you do so, otherwise you'll blowout the brighter areas, especially around the Keyhole and eta Carina. Unless, of course, you've caught eta going hypernova, in which case you'll burn your CCD chip out!!!:eyepop::D

Actually, your first piccie has good detail, you just need to adjust the colour balance to darken the background and get rid of the pinkish/orange flush in the pic. It may mean you have to do a bit of stretching to bring back some of detail, but it's achievable:D

[renormalised]

Just had a bit of a play around with your first image....not the best rendition as I just played around with it rather roughly and it's the finished product (not the master image channels), but this may give you an idea of what you can do:D

[AlexN]

Great first light Baz... You'd have to be pleased with that!

Alex.

[Matty P]

Nice work Baz, looks very promising. :)

Lots of detail showing and nice framing. Looking forward to more.

:thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

I suggest you go and do some darks and flats, darks need to be captured at the same ISO etc as the lights but flats you can do inside agaisnt a white board.

Good image for your first attempt

what did you guide with

[bloodhound31]

Great stuff. Thanks for that. Sometimes it's a trade-off to keep it looking natural or to stretch the heck out of it to bring out fainter areas.


Thanks Alex.

Cheers Matt. Promising indeed.

The second process was done with 5 Darks subtracted. I didn't have time to do flats during this first attempt, but my old Celestron Lightbox will serve when I modify the fit.

The lights were captured without guiding. The EQ6 was doing it's standard tracking. One minute showed no visible drift, but 200 seconds sure did. I have the Orion Starshoot guide camera coming this week to take care of that for future longer exposures.:thumbsup:

[Ric]

A great start Baz, It looks like your going to have a lot of fun with your new equipment.

[strongmanmike]

Ahhh huh!..that would be God creating more heavy elements to use to form new generations of stars and planets aaand eventually other life forms perhaps..? :P

Nice first light indeed Baz

Eta always looks good and is a great target for testing new equipment on.

Mike

[renormalised]

Whilst the GMB fried everyone and everything in its path:P:D

[Hagar]

Nice one for a first image Baz. Good to see you have stepped up to a refractor. The other bits will all come with time and a few well answered questions. Processing is the big learning curve but I'm sure you will get a grip on it all quick enough.

Have fun Mate.

[bloodhound31]

Thanks guys, your support and encouragement is always warming.

Baz.:D