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midnight
11-09-2010, 07:18 PM
Greetings All again,

Well after some really encouraging feedback on my single widefield shot, I have decided to take another plunge this time into stacking deep sky stuff which I haven't done before :question:

Anyway, I probably spent 2 days trying to work out why my raws were so grey in DSS (quite awful in fact) and then also, parts of the final stack looked like stars were missing - aaaahhh :mad2:.

Soo, I did some research here on IIS and found that 1 setting made the huge difference in colour - it was when I saved the final TIFF and it was to "embed adjustments ... but do not apply". This was from one of Bojan's threads http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=59762 :thanx:

Next was the stars problem so I set DSS to pick the best 80% for registering and stacking and this fixed this problem. :)

Finally, then my Photoshop skills are at level 1 (ie beginner). But I found recent thread on levels and curves by atalas (Louie) and when I got the stack into PS, it looked really dark but applying these changes then bugger me!!

So here are 2 pics - 1st is stacked with no darks and then 2nd is with the darks.

I put a third one on as I am hoping someone can give me any help on whether this histogram looks right or wrong or just dodgey :help:

I'm probably trying too many things too quickly but everytime I get these new steps it's like opening up a new treasure chest of what lies beneath in the elusive hunt for a good picture :D

Would love any feedback esp any critiques etc.

PS - thanx to all those who have given me tips in the last month which has got me trying anything I can get my hands on :jump2:

Thanks for looking,
Cheers,
Darrin...

midnight
11-09-2010, 07:26 PM
Oh I should add some tech details!!

40D with 50mm F1.4 lense at F3.5
Each photo is 4 minutes at ISO400
I took 9 photos and then I took 8 dark photos b4 the cloud moved in (and then realised after I packed up I could have kept taking darks :doh:)
Then DSS was used to stack em all.
Then had a crack with PS with changes the levels and curves as per atalas' post. I haven't tried this before so the final result is pretty ordinary compared to others I have seen.

The camera was piggybacked onto my LXD55. No auto guiding yet - I don't have an autoguider yet and trying to experiment with Guidedog.

Cheers,
Darrin...

En1gma
11-09-2010, 08:29 PM
Awesome shots man.

Your not a beginner... right... :)

p1taylor
12-09-2010, 04:23 AM
very good for a beginner.

peter