A few quick pics - m42 with ED80 and unguided canon 300d mod

[h0ughy]

I used the UV/IR cut filter on these unguided for around 30 odd seconds with the ed80 and the eq6. I am not happy but hey, at least I set up tonight, why i have no idea, very misty, warm and heaps of mozzies, tired and cranky wife.

I am sure Mr Alder has taken all the available photons tonight in the wallsend area!

the moon is up, and I took my first lunar shot with the canon. note the IR UV filter was removed for that shot.


Scott I envy you with a mount base set up and polar aligned:( I want one:help3:

[RB]

David I'm wondering why you'd need the UV/IR filter?
The 80ED is an APO.
Do you need it because the 300D is modded?

I just think you'd do better without it on the 80ED.
Just a thought.......

[acropolite]

Nice work huffy, you should be very pleased with those shots; the orion shots have good detail and the stars look nicely rounded; of course it's obvious, to the trained eye, that any inadequacies in the final images are the fault of the tired and cranky wife.:face:

[davidpretorius]

alignment looks great, stars are spot on. I think houghy has a great new toy and we will be getting heaps more piccies from him - ya ya yayy

[h0ughy]

It is modded RB

[RB]

Yep I realise it's modded, so is that why you need the UV/IR filter is it?
I have no experience with the modded DSLRs.

:shrug:

[h0ughy]

Only following what I have been told and read. I set up rather hurriedly last night, so i didn't get the polar aligning spot on and by the time i did the drift method it would have been time to pack up anyway. I really want to push the camera and mount to 5min shots, but i am lucky to get away with the 30 seconds now. My drift alignment teacher (yes you ponders) will need to brush up this student again with another (or several) lessons but once i nail it i will get some excellent results. the running man was just starting to come out, but then so was the moon.

the seeing was shocking, heaps of water vapour in the air and it was hot, 24 degrees still at 11pm. So the noise in the camera was bad too. i had every intention to get up early this morning to try and catch a glimpse of the comet but after a very hectic week, i let is pass for some sleep. Now it was clear this morning, but I bet tomorrow it wont be when i an refreshed and ready to catch it.

[Striker]

Nice start with your Canon David,

I had a little play with the image...it has compression artifacts from Jpeg over jpeg but there is more detail to be had from the original image...well done mate.

[h0ughy]

excellet Tony, how about I send you some of the originals, PM your email to me

[RB]

Very nice guys.
David I'd like to look at the originals too if you don't mind.

I don't know if you'll like my attemp, I tried to highlight the details a bit with the colours available.

It's a great camera too BTW.

Can't wait to see more images from you.

:)

[Striker]

Just ran your original exposures through Images plus and PSCS

I hope you like it Dave.

I sent you a PM why I had to crop the image so much.

Plenty of detail in these short exposures Dave...nice job.

[h0ughy]

:prey2: :prey2: :prey2: Tony is a GOD!:) :whistle: amazing what you have done, i could never have done that. so you were using images Plus to do what and PSCS did what job in that process?

[h0ughy]

PM me you emai and I will send the same images RB. I am blown away with what tony has done:drink:

[RB]

Just PMed you Dave.

Tony that's fantastic mate.
:cool:

[davidpretorius]

tony, that is awesome!

houghy is on the next plane up there!!!

well done houghy on a fine capture and tony, well done on the processing!

[h0ughy]

the small files are on their way andrew

[h0ughy]

July for Astrofest!! ME hats goes off to tony for putting it all together;)

[Striker]

it's your image Dave....all I did was Translate stack and rotate in Images plus...save as tiff...then opened PSCS and adjusted levels and little curves then ran it through the noiseware plugin...that's it.

[EzyStyles]

i got to bookmark this thread. That is excellent work Tony and nice pic Houghy. did you use tracking on the EQ6?

[h0ughy]

it was on but not properly polar aligned, and there was no time sync or date entered, just enabled siderial rate and went off! I should have done everything but the moon came up and I wanted to test the canon on the ED80 for the first time.

[EzyStyles]

what siderial rate did u set it on to get that excellent pic?

[Lester]

Fantasatic shot of Orion. How many shots were stacked to get the final one Tony.

[Striker]

16 shots that David(Houghy) provided to me....

Ezystyles...it's just called Siderail rate...it will automaticly choose this default rate anyway...if you were imaging/viewing the moon or sun you would then have to manualy change the siderail rate to Lunar or solar....but otherwise dont change anything it's the default setting anyway.

[Lester]

Thanks for your reply Tony. 16x 30 second shots plus processing= fantastic shot, congrats also to Houghy.

Tony, I haven't attempted stacking of any kind yet; the programs on our computer for photos are; Registax, Digital photo professional, Adobe photo shop elements 2.0, and Jasc Paint shop pro 8. Are you familiar with any of these, that would be good for processing and stacking astro photos?

Thanks.:confuse3: :help:

[Striker]

Lester,

We dont want to hijack Hough's thread so best make another thread on the topics your requesting.....I dont use any of those programs.

[h0ughy]

Thats fine Tony, I don't mind in the least - it furthers discussion and more questions mate - I just added the raw material thats all:cool:

[atalas]

Houghy well done mate,your images are getting better all the time and I must say that you are picking up an awesome amount of detail in a 30second exposure .

[h0ughy]

Thanks Louie for the complement, but I must say Tony deserves most for his processing


I think some shots were 40 seconds and some 1 minute but the majority were 30 seconds, I used the timer. the mirror up function makes a huge huge difference. But my thanks goes to Striker for his processing:prey2: .

[h0ughy]

post note - there was also some crud on the glass coveringthe cmos, th filter when screwed in released some paint onto it. I think a seal is the way to go in future for any camera like this, to help prevent this

[tornado33]

Well done Houghy and Striker. Gee doesnt the modded camera make all the difference.
How did you send Striker the RAW images, gee they would have taken up a lot of space, about 4 mb each arent they?
Scott

[Itchy]

nice work Houghy, and Tony.

Maybe someone was listening to me at Lostock :lol:

Cheers

[tornado33]

I forgot to ask, was dark subtraction done? I dont see any sign of amp glow so I assume it was?
Great shot, even the diffuse outer loop is visible
Scott

[Orion]

Ordinary Houghy, very ordinary...:P

[h0ughy]

Tony kindly let me try to fill up his email account. I transferred nearly 60 meg i think:drink: :cool:

[h0ughy]

I didn't take a dark frame, but I don't know what Tony did on the processing end in that respect

[h0ughy]

Comments from you and your wizzbin are most welcome Ed! yes it was a very ordinary effort from tony wasn't it!:whistle: :whistle: :lol:

[RB]

Here's what I came up with from the three frames you emailed me Dave.
Best I could come up with.
Working in jpg's harder as you know cos you loose quality everytime you re-save an image.

Anyway not sure if you'll like it, but let me know either way.

Cheers

[h0ughy]

I like that given the limited number you received, i got bounce back messages from your mail server rejecting the emails I was sending. I may have filled it up , but with what you got that is simply amazing. Please tell what steps you went through to get this excellent result

[Striker]

In total houghy sent me 14 jpeg + 2 raws....so in theory it could have been even better with all the raws...so I ended up doing the 2 raws seperately then combined all 16 Jpegs together at the end.

So make sure you capture in Raws Dave...we may have been able to get more of that faint detail next time.

Tony(Itchy)....I was listening....your tutorial was benificial for me and you know why.

[h0ughy]

what version of the images plus are you using tony? How easy is it to stack in it and do all the other stuff? Is it worth the purchase price?

[[1ponders]]

Once you get the hang of it h0ughy you can do a basic RAW to TIFF/FITS conversion , calibration, alignment, combine and digital development in about 10 - 15 min with about 10 images (depending on the RAM and speed of your machine of course :P ). That's the basic processing that can be done. There is heaps more but I usually exit to PS at that stage.

If you can afford it I'd say get it. Or wait til the soon to be released next version comes out.

[h0ughy]

How far off is the soon to be released version?

[[1ponders]]

You'll have to talk to Tony (Itchy) about that one. Alternatively get the current one and then contact the developer and get put on the beta testing list for the latest version.

[h0ughy]

Thanks very much for that!

I will call him and find out.

Itchy, ITCHY........ ITCHY!
well I might PM him instead:lol:

[JohnG]

Hey hOughy

I got IP 1.75 on the way out from the US at the moment, as far as I know that is the latest version.

Nice shots

JohnG

[h0ughy]

Alright you have me at a loss there John, what is IP (and I know thats not a network address;) )

[JohnG]

Sorry, ImagesPlus

JohnG

[h0ughy]

isn't it 2.75? or have they discounted it by a few versions

[JohnG]

Doh....finger trouble, been concentrating on Strikers G-11.

JohnG

[RB]

Thanks Dave, glad you liked it.

Yes my email server spat the dummy, so I only got the three images.

As to the steps that I took to process, basically I've worked on the histogram using the levels option in PShop.
I've outlined my routine in another thread,
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=6435 at post #35
although now I'm more careful not to clip the histogram, so I only basically use the Levels command and the Curves Command.

Images Plus is a great program and it's worth thinking about Dave.
IP 2.75 (not an IP address :poke: ) has some cool features like star size reduction.

I missed Itch's (Tony's) talk at Lostock :sad: but I've PMed him and he's given me a quick rundown.
Also I recommend to anyone using DSLRs to try and shoot in RAW mode.
Well worth it.

:)

[Striker]

2.5 is the latest version of imagesplus but as mentioned 2.75 is coming out or if you have 2.5 you can just get the update but it will cost some money...

The main reason I purchased imagesplus was the ease to add flats,Darks and bias frame all at once with virtualy 1 click of the mouse....very simple

Well worth the money.

[h0ughy]

Its in the pipeline!;)

[Itchy]

Hey Striker,

2.75 was released last week. It'll cost you about $AUD40.00 to upgrade from 2.5.

Cheers

[Itchy]

OK OK I can hear you houghy!!:lol: :lol:

[h0ughy]

thanks, maybe you should put up a print version of your talk so that the rest of the IISers can have a chance to hear and see a expert at work. Please!!!:help:

[h0ughy]

Well your just so far away!;)

[[1ponders]]

Great idea h0ughy.

[Itchy]

Houghy

Iceman has a copy of the article I wrote for the talk (well at least a part of it!). He said he was going to post it, but I don't think he has got a "round tuit"

Cheers

[[1ponders]]

We shudda gotcha on vid Itchy :)

[RB]

:doh:
Oh I wish you had.
It was something I was looking forward to but couldn't make it to Lostock that day. :sad: