snakes, eagles and swans in the D800.

[alocky]

Playing about at my dark sky site last night, I managed to get 4 decent 10 minute subs @ iso1600 before the dew took over. The dew was so severe both the mirrors on my 25" Dob also dewed up! I've spent all day drying everything off.
Apologies for the poor polar alignment - it was a 5 minute job with the polar finder and I completely forgot to drift align, I was so keen to get going.
Processing is limited to stacking in DSS and a bit of a fiddle in ViewNX to stretch the image.
High res version here.


http://astrobin.com/14711/

I think this camera can be pushed a lot harder - there's still no sign of excessive noise at asa 1600.
Constructive comment/critique welcomed.
Andrew.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Damn fine image Andrew!

Anohter wide field to add to the list.

Cheers,

Justin.

[Rex]

Nice image Andrew. Plenty of stars in that field

[alocky]

Thanks guys! the FOV is 3.9 by 2.6 degrees, which is a new way of looking at the sky for me - almost finderscope territory.
I've bought a new computer which arrives this week, with enough grunt to process these images. Right now my 3 year old laptop is struggling a bit.

[strongmanmike]

Hi Andrew, this is a good image, you have a great field of view to work with there, so many options await huh? :thumbsup:

Mike

[alocky]

Thanks Mike - I've got to work out how to get more sky time now and unleash the creative side of my brain. I was thinking this setup might lend itself to constellation-size mosaics, but I'll have to sharpen up my processing skills for that.
The other problem is focus drift - on these cold nights, I've found I need to re-focus the FSQ every 30 minutes.
Anyway - appreciate the positive comments!

[gregbradley]

Great shot Andrew and certainly proof that Nikon is now good for astrowork. There may have been some lingering doubts.

Very very fine resolution. What is the dark band along the bottom though?

I have used ISO6400 and 25600 on the D800E and it worked fine. A bit of noise at ISO25600 starting to intrude.

I would think ISO6400 could easily be standard for a D800. It will require a small amount of noise control but if you stack in particular and use darks and flats then it should be fine.

ISO1600 is a breeze for this camera and also Canon 5D3. They are similar in performance in high ISO noise levels except in jpeg where Canon is better and in RAW Nikon is slightly better. The main difference of course is the 2 stops extra dynamic range of the Nikon and the 36mp higher resolution.

Greg.

[alocky]

Thanks Greg - the dark band isn't in any of the subs, so I think it's an artefact from DSS. I've got a 6 core computer with 32Gb RAM and 2 256Gb SSD drives being delivered this week, and I'm moving to Pixinsight, so I'll finally get a chance to see what I can squeeze out of these data.
I've resisted going too far into digital processing because it's too similar to what I do for a living, but in for a penny, in for a pound...

[Ross G]

An excellent photo Andrew.

The Nikon is showing some amazing potential.

Ross.

[strongmanmike]

That sounds impressive...Hmmm? my 2008 core II duo is sounding like a vintage now....Houghyyyyy!!! :D

Mike

[multiweb]

Great widefield. Love it. :thumbsup:

[alocky]

Finally managed to process this using pixinsight on my new PC. Larger image at:
http://www.astrobin.com/14711/B/
As a guide, each of the 32 bit fits files I'm playing with in Pixinsight is 440Mb.
Now I need to go and get some more data...!
cheers,
Andrew.