Adventures in Imaging

[beren]

Metaphorically speaking I feel a little like Columbus sighting the New World.....overwhelmed , excited , pleased ..... this week with some forays in image capture and processing using Image plus and the equipment I have.Mon and Tues night I experimented with capturing Images in a automated fashion in Jpeg format of Flame&HH/M45, conditions were pretty haphazard with wind preventing good guiding/polar aligning and high level thin cloud but persevered.Wednesday night looked promising after a clear day but by evening both cloud and wind had moved in {check the radar image for Perth that night }but I had everything ready to go which was fortunate because i had a hour and half window of opportunity where I took for the first time 20 RAW images of the HH region and M42 . I was able to get the scope to guide {through the LX with the Orion 80mm as imager}with the conditons using Guidedog and the LPI , even though all 20 images where 170sec everything worked well and was stoked how smoothly everything went. Having all the exposures and camera functions controlled from the laptop is pretty cool , a vast improvment over a stop watch and camera remote control.Anyway capture is the tip of the iceberg , the processing bit other then a little tweaking in PS is a little overwhelming but using the Images plus vid tutorials is pretty nifty.With my untrained eye at the moment I dont really see any great improvement over using RAW files over fine JPEG from the D70 camera nor did I see a greater degree of processing latitude . With some more experiance I might :P , anyway heres M45 from a JPEG colection and M42 from RAW.

Ps: noticed a lot of decent shooting star action this week , all have been very bright, minimal trains and probarly 100degrees of arc with no particular radiant source :) :confuse3:

[Astroman]

Great images and great story told too.

[davidpretorius]

these are very very good!

wow!!

[mick pinner]

very nice Stuart, l've just started with the Mintron video camera and l must say l really like the concept of video capture.
it's nice to have frustration turn to satisfaction as things get better, my images even to me are fairly poor but as l learn and they get better it keeps me interested in what l can achieve later on.
l think your images are great regardless of how much you still have to learn.

[avandonk]

Nice well told short epic.

That is what it is all about, to do it yourself for yourself and to share with others. We are not competing with the Hubble, we can't, but we as sure can take pictures of what we want and when we want weather permitting. The aim of the exercise is not to win but get better with the available equipment at our disposal, and then buy more!

Bert

[[1ponders]]

Great going Stuart, I really like the M42 . A steep learning curve that you seem to be getting a good handle on. Top stuff.

I'll get your filter back asap. I have only had one opportunity to use it, and seeing as your getting going you should be making the most of it.

[Robert_T]

Hi Beren, those are some beautiful images. I'm hoping at some point to use my LPI for auto-guidng the LXD75 so will be keen to learn from your experience.


happy new year matee,

[ving]

top stuff stuart!!!! :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

wow, wonderful stuff, I like orion. Must admidt it is my favourite

[Striker]

I like the weathermap image you did the best...very nice Stuart.....lol...joking.

I like your Orion and there is even more detail you can get from that Shot....well done Stuart.

[Itchy]

Hi Beren,

A couple of great images there. You have come a long way in a short time.



I noticed the largest improvment in RAW over JPEG when I started to process my RAWs using Linear conversion. The greatest advantage was that image calibration (Darks and Flats) is much more accurate when everything is done in linear. This method gives much more control over the stretching of the image and allows for improved final results. Probably the best example was my image of M45. When done in non linear I was not able to bring out any nebulosity, but once I processed everyhting in RAW linear I was able to show quite a bit.

Anyhow keep them coming!

Cheers

[beren]

:) Cheers guys.... :thumbsup:

Tony I recall in the Imageplus tutorials that being mentioned , quite a bit to take in but spent much of yesterday just going through the videos and trying to take it all in while trying it out with one of my images . One thing i did concentrate on was Mask processing tools, much easier procedure in this program then PS and pretty cool to watch a image being processed with a duplicate copy being fined tuned and blending both to a output image :)
Robert I tried first K3CCDtools as the guiding program but it continues to be problematic, ill have everything set with the guidestar centred and all the settings correct as far as i can tell but once the guide button is pressed the star makes for a beeline out of the crosshairs.Guidedog I had no problem although the exposures where short but it hummed along nicley for the duration of the exposures.Used the LPI instead of the ToUcam to keep the cord count down :P .

[ballaratdragons]

Great work Stuart. Now come over here and show me how to do it :)

[Mick]

Wonderful photos Stuart, are you going to have a go at the HH and Flame? You have come a long way with your imaging. :)

[atalas]

Very nice work Stuart !

[beren]

Cheers :) ....look forward to your work to Louie with that beastly setup you have ;) Ken Ill need to gradutate from my L plates first {if ever :P }. Mick I tried the HH and Flame but its a tricky target , the exposure times ive done on it havent revealed enough to work with but ill keep on trying but heres the attempts along with NGC2070{this was hard as well being directly above Perth city LP}

[Itchy]

LOL :D I know exactly what you mean. One day I'll talk to you about CFA processing, which is what I do now rather than linear conversion, he he. :P :scared2: .

Cheers

[beren]

Tired last night for the first time guiding with my Orion 80mmED and imaging through the 10"SCT using a 6.3 focal reducer with Guidedog and meade LPI as the Autoguiding setup . Revisited the same ground again with the HH and M42 with 12x250sec , results weren't to flash but i was happy with how the autoguiding went . Conditions started off perfectly with a beautiful dusk/early evening period but wind in gusty spells picked up considerably and got to the stage I had to call it quits . Given this I only deleted two frames out of the 24 i took I was happy how the guiding went . Next point to try is taking flats and experiment with ISO settings , seem to get a lot of noise even with 800. The HH continues to be hard to capture and the results were pretty dim and M42 isn't to good either but something to work on ... :)

PS: :) Pic of my dog shows how i feel after some long nights this week