M42 My best yet.

[TidaLpHasE]

:) Got a decent polar alignment this morning, and clear skies to boot:prey2:

Had a go at a few targets, but this is the best of them all, i am over the moon at this shot:P, it has made my day.

Stacked 6 images in registax and it worked:scared: 30 and 60 second exposures, also got a 120 second exposure, but day was breaking so it's a bit washed out, can't see much star trails, so it seems like i was pretty close to the scp now thats a bonus.

ISO 800-1600, mirror lock on, noise reduction on.

[iceman]

Awesome effort Trevor!

I had a quick play of your second one in photoshop, adjusted curves and levels and then a quick run through NeatImage.

Heaps of detail, well done! I'm sure others would be able to process it better than me.

Was this through the ED80?

[davidpretorius]

hey top stuff!, did you mark the ground!!!!

yes good alignment. It is a great feeling to overcome that hurdle that you have been frustrated with for a while!

congratulations....now excuse me while i go and play with your image!!!

[RB]

Very nice Trevor,

You're getting better and better. Keep up the good work.

[Striker]

Is it ok with Trevor to play and post his images...just checking because I would like to have a go too....

Naughty Naughty

Well done Trevor.

I hope it feels good having clears skies while it's hailing in Brisbane...lol

[atalas]

Nice Trevor !

[fringe_dweller]

Thats really very nice Trevor - your getting very good at this game :)

[Striker]

Oh stuff it...Trevor I hope you dont mind.

I combined both your above images and tweaked a bit....obvioulsy it would be much better with the raw's or less compressed images but I am happy with the result.

[acropolite]

Excellent results Trevor, good to see your equipment living up to expectations.:thumbsup:

[davidpretorius]

my turn!

both images extracted out an abe gradient, subtracted from originals in iris, median stacked, ddp, and stretching.

i love the little stars just above the trap, so fine and crisp.

great capture!!!

[G00GS]

That is awesome!

[TidaLpHasE]

:)Thanks for all the comments and encouragement.

Yes Mike this was with the ED80, i have seen what others have done with this scope, but wasn't able to get even close without polar alignment.

I'm wrapped to have been lucky with my polar alignment with this shot, the ground has been marked, and it can only get better.;)

I do feel a bit guilty having clear skies when Brissie was getting hail,,,,,,,,,,,not:P

I don't mind at all if people play with my pics, it's good to see just what can be done with an image.

Here is another pic from this morning, could only manage a couple of shots before the clouds rolled in, but i am actually enjoying setting up and getting polar alignment, practice makes perfect.

This is a 90 second exposure, ISO 1600, single image, only slightly adjusted in RawShoterEssentials, converted to jpg, re-sized.

[xrekcor]

Nice one Trevor :thumbsup: look forward to seeing more!!

...since everyboby else (almost) is having a shot here my look

regards,CS

[davidpretorius]

well if it cloudy, we need something to process!!!

[Itchy]

Awsome reprocessing. Well Done

[iceman]

Nice work Rob, what tool(s) did you use?

Explain your methods/steps please?

[xrekcor]

Thanks Guy's

I used Photoshop, But I often reprocess other folks pic's (since I have nothing to shoot with) to get practice.

Mike... Ok, from memory, I adjusted the levels to darken the background,
used curves x2 to bring out the fainter neblousity, I then duplicated the
layer several times then merged them using a combination of "lighten" and
"Lumousity" algorithms, basically to try and further reduce noise artifacts
(which are still present) and still retain the fainter nebulousity and also
to hightlight the fishes mouth. I then applied a selective high pass sharpening
masks to bring out or enhance the knots and filements in the cloud structure.
The final images came out at just under 1mg so it has had a bit of
compression to upload here. However there isn't allot of difference between
the two once a jpeg always a jpeg. All up took about 30 minutes.

regards,CS

[davidpretorius]

rob, i have a lot to learn,

it make sense what you are saying, i just have to practice the method!

[Striker]

Can someone please explain whats wrong with my processing of Trevors Orion....I look at Robs and all I see is a lot of noise...Not knocking Robs processing I am just trying to find out what we are looking for in an image....if I finished with what Rob just done I would have delited it lol.....thats just my interprutation.

I know I darken the back ground too much making the target object stand out more.....which I am trying not to do as much.

I am using this as a learning process...if what I have to achieve is like what Rob has done then thats what I will strive for....but at the moment my inturpritaions of a nice image is way different.

I might just be a noise hater....I suppose I get that from not seeing and noise last time I viewed my targets.

Like I said Rob...not nocking your image...just trying to get more of an understanding of all this astrophotgraphy.

[xrekcor]

Np's Tony,

As I mentioned in my discription "noise" is still present, a trade off you make when
trying to rework a precompressed image, hence the statement "once a jpeg always
a jpeg". However I was willing to trade that to bring out the far extremities of the
fainter nebulous areas including the jaw of the fishes mouth (so to speak). On the
other hand your monitor setting maybe totally different to mine, you image to me
look too dark to me where as the noise level in my rework looks exceptable to me.
In the end we're are just presenting two interpretations. To me neither looks
incorrect.

regards,CS

[davidpretorius]

i am not in that quandry, but see it that i also like a black background and will always set that to zero. the trick is to combine the "detail" of rob's with the darker sections or yours and mine.

i like his thinking on masks and having a few different processed ones to bring together.

i believe there to be noise between running man and the nebula proper, but he has the true detail showing left that is not noise.

that is trick (art) to combine both images!!

[xrekcor]

In regards to background. This is my interpretation. Although black or
preferably near black backgound skies are nice for planetary imaging, I
find it helps make low contrast objects and the detail on them standout
a lil better. However aiming for total black background on dso's I feel
tends to look a lil unatural to me. Also Orion is getting near the plane of
the milky way. There is the ever present background stella glow.

On the other hand, I was trying to bring out detail and was only willing to
spend 30 minutes on it, given a few hours+ plus things would be different.

regards,CS

[xrekcor]

Probably a dark frame substraction would work better, but give it a go and
see what you come up with.

regards,CS

[davidpretorius]

don't worry, once i get tracking next week and can get this modified toucam to do some work, the dark frames will be out in force.

it is a real art form, as you say 30 mins is not enough. The DSO guy must put days and days into it!!! There is no magic button!

[Striker]

My next image I am going to do 2 version's....then go from there.

Processing can take some time but it's great for wet weather.

[Itchy]

Interesting. I do everything I can to avoid making the background black. Mainly because the sky is not black. If anything it is a very deep blue, and I try to set my background accordingly. The problem is that the faint detail we are trying to bring out is very close to the background. If you darken the background to zero, you are "clipping" the image and throwing out detail. The tradeoff of course is noise. The best way to overcome that is to take more and longer exposures. The more exposure you have the better the signal to noise ratio will be and the easier it is to bring out the detail without raising the noise floor too high.

cheers

[davidpretorius]

spot on itchy, of course that is why you pros take 10 x 20 mins etc, the 10 reduce the noise along with darks.

i feel rather dumb at the moment!!!

but happy, it is starting to make sense!

[TidaLpHasE]

:)Thanks all for the processing tips and techniques, i myself prefer a darker background with less noise/less detail, than more noise more detail.

I would prefer to lose a little detail for less noise in my images. I will try for longer and longer exposures to get the detail, and process as much noise out as can be.

Tony, there is nothing at all wrong with your processing, and as stated i prefer the way you have adjusted my image, and can live with a little less detail, that being said, i also like all the others attempts at bringing out detail, Robs effort shows just how much there was in the image, it was hidden.

I would love to expose M42 for 5-10 minutes onto the cmos, but think it is asking too much of just polar alignment and the EQ6 ?

Any tips on getting extra long exposures Itchy? would i need to buy a guiding camera/software/laptop

[davidpretorius]

Trevor, a request.

how easy is it to say take 10 or 15 shots at say 60sec or even 120 secs and then say a 10 really short ones at an exposure time so that the trap stars are not burnt out.

That way we can start to stack em to get rid of noise, and thus be less agressive with the darkening and also have nice definition of the trap.

This is all based on http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/COMP2.HTM and http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/LAYMASK.HTM

If you don't mind taking them, there seems to be a lots of guys appreciating the opportunity to test their processing skills on what are very good images!!

I can put zipped up images on my webserver in larger image sizes so we have better quality images to start the processing off and guys can download from there.

These images are a pleasure to work with: Thanks!!

[Striker]

Thanks Trevor for allowing us the opertunity to play around with your shots.

Hopefully I can take some wide field shots tonight.

regarding number of shots...dont even stop at 10-15 shots at 60 seconds...if you have the time trevor...do 50 shots...when I did the M20 I took about 80 shots at 30 seconds...and then took the best 30 or 40 I think...cant remember too long ago.

If time is not a factor...just keep taking them.

[xrekcor]

yeah! thanks Trevor for letting us play : )

If you guy's would like to do some serious image processing, Why not (if you
have Photoshop 6 or later) download Fits liberator. And then go download
Hubble data from the Digital Sky Survey. You can do you own interpretations
of all those amazing images the Hubble has been throwing at us for years.
The only draw back is huge file size downloads... I've had one image at near
1/2 a Gig with all three RGB layers.

regards,CS

[Itchy]

The ideal way to do it is to use a CCD and a guide scope, along with a laptop and guiding software. An auto guiding camera is another option if your mount is compatible. If dollars are an issue (and when aren't they?) you could do what Tornando33 and myself do. ie manually guide. For that you need an illuminated reticle eyepiece and either a guide scope or an off-axis guider, and considerable patience.


Cheers

[TidaLpHasE]

:)Thanks Itchy, i will look at an auto guider, depending on the $$ of course.

I got another session in this morning, and from what i could tell by the lack of twinkle in the stars, the seeing would have been easy 8-9/10.

Polar aligned, then again and again, third time lucky, i aimed at Orion again and took a few images.

1.5-3 minute exposures at between 400-800 and 1600 ISO.

Got a bit more detail in the images, both images are a stack of four.

Happy for people to play with these images, i am limited at the amount of detail i can pull out of them.

[Dennis]

Very nice images Trevor. Great efforts by the "processing gang" as well; in particular, Rob's version which shows incredible detail.

Cheers

Dennis