My Work So Far.

[CapturingTheNight]

Hello,
So it has been about 3 months since I got my hands on my astrophotography setup. I thought I would share my body of work so far. Please feel free to critique and tell me what you think.
My setup:
10" F/4 Newtonian
NEQ6 Pro Goto Mount
80mm Orion Shorttube Guidescope
Synguider Autoguider
Baader Coma Corrector
Canon EOS 1000D

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[Poita]

Is the Canon modified at all?

[FlashDrive]

Nice work Greg ... :thumbsup:

[CapturingTheNight]

No it's not Peter. Straight out of the box. I'm lucky to have really dark skies at my place :)



Cheers Colin :D Thank you very much for the nice feedback.

[keni]

Great shots Greg.
I am in the same situation..just starting and gathering bits to play with.
I just bought an EQ6 Pro and of course here it's been crappy weather since then.
Your shots have given me hope so thanks..now I just need to kidnap my mate's 600D.
Cheers,
Ken.

[scagman]

There great shots Greg.

Its good to see your getting it al together.

[ZeroID]

You're an inspiration man !! Excellent shots IMHO.
I'm also heading down this slippery slope with very similar equipment lineup but my skies won't be quite so dark and clear I suspect.
Can you give a litle more info on exposures, frames, processing etc.

Thanks.

[CapturingTheNight]

Thank you very much Ken :) I hope you get good weather soon to try out your new gear.



Thank you so much John :) It's been a big learning curve and it has often been very frustrating but I think I'm getting better at it everytime I get a chance to setup.



Thank you very much Brent :) Welcome to my world. All frames are processed with Deep Sky Stacker and then final processed in Photoshop Elements 8.0 (stretching the levels, contrast adjustment, saturation, cropping, etc.) Exposure info as follows: Lagoon Nebula- 20 X 60 seconds exposures (20 minutes total exposure time) ISO 800. Eta Carina Nebula- 30 x 60 seconds plus 21 X 120 seconds exposures (72 minutes total exposure time) ISO 400. Eagle Nebula- 20 x 3 minutes ISO 800 (10 x 3min Darks subtracted). Helix Nebula- 30 x 3 minutes ISO 800 (10 x 3min Darks subtracted). Trifid Nebula- 16X 4 minute exposures plus 31X 2 minutes exposures. ISO 400. Southern Pinwheel Galaxy- 40 x 3 minute exposures (2 Hours total exposure time). Dark Frames (10 x 3min) subtracted. ISO 400
Feel free to let me know if you need any other info.

[keni]

Hi Greg,
I knew I'd forgotten to ask something else.
Thanks to Brent for asking for details of exposure settings etc.'....and thanks to you for the info.
I expect the weather to clear when I'm back on shift...aarrgghh.

Cheers,
Ken.

[renormalised]

Excellent pics:)

[CapturingTheNight]

My pleasure Ken. I have been really lucky with weather lately. I have added the Dumbbell Nebula, Cats Paw Nebula and Comet Garrad to the list over the last couple of nights :) Clear skies to you soon (and at a convenient time).



Thank you very much for the nice feedback Carl. :D

[Alchemy]

Quite an array of images, for a beginner you have really leaped ahead, the unmodded camera will make the red hydrogen emissions a challenge, but you've shown you're up for it.

As for advice, probably one of the most common errors made is how stars are handled, they need to look natural after you have lifted the rest of the image be it a nebula a galaxy or whatever.
Careful with sharpening as it makes the edges of the stars hard (crunchy) masking can help here, even by duplicating prior to sharpening then using the selector tool to restore stars from a non sharpened image into the now sharpened one.... The minimum filter can also help bloated stars but needs. To be used selectively on the bigger stars not just across the whole image.

Practice, practice and practice will see you corner all the techniques.

You're certainly on the right track I look forward to more.:thumbsup:

[CapturingTheNight]

Thank you so much for the nice feedback on my work so far and the advice Clive :D I really appreciate it and I'll certainly take it on board. As you say it's all about practice, practise, practise.