NGC3372 eta Carinae Nebula

[zipdrive]

Shot it last night, 10x 3mins ISO 200 Canon 350D with Astronomik CLS filter.
200mm f/5 newton, autoguided with EQ6.
No darks, no flats, curves and levels in photoshop, noise reduction with Neatimage. i'm still learning... i may have killed off some nebulosity during processing or i haven't got long enough exposure, looks a bit different to others... :confuse3:

[asimov]

Looks pretty darn nice to me!? Well done Zip!!

[iceman]

Nice job for a beginner, looks fantastic.. especially since Eta Carinae is so low atm!

[Itchy]

Dave,

You have captured the central nebula quite well, but I think you are right about killing off some nebulosity. Having said that, ISO 200 seems very low. I would suggest trying at least 800 (I use 1600 exclusively). Also, I am unsure of what your filter is doing to exposure times.

Looking at the histogram, you have clipped a lot of faint data during processing. Your Histogram should start at zero on the left and then climb sharply.

My guess is that you were fighting noise in the image. When you use uncalibrated frames you are restricting what you can achieve when you stretch your image. One other question: are you using RAW?

Please don't take my comments as being critical. Your image (and the others on your site, which I enjoyed btw) shows a lot of potential. Get the processing right and they will be brilliant.

Cheers

[Striker]

Excellant work Dave.

[acropolite]

Nice image Dave, I'd agree with Tony about the ISO, you should be able to go to 800 at least. It may also be worth a try with the inbuilt noise reduction on the 350D as it does an automatic dark frame and subtraction. You can also select a capture which saves both a raw and Jpg images so that for now you could process the jpg and later when your processing skills are better go back and have a crack at the raw image..:D

[TidaLpHasE]

;)That's a great shot, and being a newby myself, i think it's awsome and gives me hope that i too maybe able to one day get this kind of detail, when i get my mount up and running that is.

Well done.:)



Phil, where is the dark frame that the 350D takes with noise reduction on???? And how do you use it???? Silly question i know:P

[Mick]

Lovely photo Dave, love the colour.

[Itchy]

My guess is that it is entirely internal to the camera and is applied to the image before it gets saved.

Cheers

[atalas]

Nice work Dave looks great !

[zipdrive]

Thanks everyone!! I sure will be trying all the suggestion made here..just wish there were more cloudless nights around here...

I have been using raw mode with the canon. Also briefly tried the onboard noise reduction a long time ago but didn't seem to make much diff...but I didn't really know what I was doing back then, so I will give it a try it again..

[avandonk]

Stick with collecting RAW frames.Your computer can process much better than any camera's internal 'processor'.The other advantage is you can use many and varied software at your leasure.Down the track even software that has not been invented yet!Always convert RAW to Tiff and process in tiff.Only convert to jpg for final image.Jpg pics introduce more noise than some of the signals you are trying to extract.

If you want a noise reduction program try this,it's free for the first fifteen days for the pro version (does tiff).

http://www.imagenomic.com/detailsstandalone.asp

Works very well at high ISO.Just try it on a terrestial picture.

I am still learning myself, just ask, if I know will pass it on.
By the way nice pic for F5 and 200 ISO.Try 400 and 800 and use above.


Bert

[tornado33]

Howdy
I take all my shots in RAW and back them up. I use Photoshop to extract and process them as it can read 300D RAWs. Unfortunately Adobe have done the dirty and wont include the 350D RAW plugin in Photoshop CS, you have to get CS2 for that :)
Scott
PS good to see you shooting with nebula filters too :)