Eta Carinae 22nd March First effort

[Moonman]

This is my first offering so I guess at this or any other stage any comment constructuve critical etc would be useful for me.

Made from three ten minute exposures with DSI Pro 2 (no colour frames or darks as I just ran out of time) through my ED80 refractor. Guiding done with PHD(push here dummy) and my other ED80 and a DSI Colour 1.

Imaging capture and post processing done in Nebulosity. Some handy little tools like power stretching, noise reduction and digital post processing among others. Its a little like a poor man's mini photoshop for astrophotography and the image capture side is a breeze to use too.

The experience at Snake Valley really helped me get my mind together and get this equipment working as one. Hopefully I'll get my focal reducer on line too to increase the FOV.

Cheers

Michael

[Lester]

Nice image Michael, and the tracking is excellent.

All the best.

[JohnH]

If that is your first image you should be very pleased. How long were your exposures and how many did you take?

You seem to have the guiding nailed and that is a very big win - my only comment on the image is I think you may have have overdone the noise reduction and that has lost you some details, perhaps you could go for longer subs if the guiding is good then you will not need to push the levels so hard and then you can use less agressive NR. If you use non-linear levels you can push the brighter parts more than the backgound - that helps too.

[Moonman]

Thanks Lester and John,

I ran out of time to get dark frames hence the aggressivness on the noise reduction. Upon reflection it was about 3.30am when I packed up after setting up at 12 midnight and if i was thinking straight at the time I probably would have gone the extra half hour to get the darks frames.:confused2: Next time hopefully I'll put it together with colour and dark frames.

The picture is just three ten minute exposures stacked and alligned and post processed in nebulosity.

Cheers

Michael

[telecasterguru]

Michael,

Great start, keep at it. Lots of detail from your ten minute subs.

Frank

[spearo]

Good effort there and very acceptable results for a first image putting all the bits and pieces together and using all the various software.
you've done well !
10 min exposure is quite good. Your tracking seems ok
Obviously the better the focus and the more frames you stack the better the outcome will be

I'd say consider a Hartmann or Bahtinov mask (preferably) to get super sharp focus
consider deep sky stacker (free) to stack because if you use the cosmetic function it can really help especially if you havent done darks.
frank

[madwayne]

A great first up image Michael, you should be proud as punch with this and just 30 minutes of total exposure time - well done.

Good luck with your new obsession, I mean hobby :lol:, you are well and truly on the right track if your first one is anything to go by.

Wayne

[Moonman]

Thanks Frank(s) and Wayne,

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Thanks Frank for the heads up with DSS. It's a steep learning curve and a whole world of different options to consider.:)

Cheers

Michael