[g__day (Matthew)]

Greg,

Thanks for the advice - I have the Zone System - just have to read it past page 43! I'm envious of how all Wodaski's shots start real dark, whereas mine have too much ambient light thanks to living near Sydney.

Also a very helpful explanation of the various types of shots. I reprocessed some of these shots adding dark flats and they look better to me.

Initially I was just thrilled that my one hour shots have round stars - I did it again last night (one hiccup where the guide star was lost (clouds) from four shots - so three good hours and one wasted).

Now that I know I can grab longer exposures I can start to concentrate on doing the optimal duration subs, combining shots over several nights - framing the shots well and the all important signal processing.

I stitched eleven shots together last night - totalling 8 hours of M20 data - and it looked absolutely excellent to me after one round of levels and curves - no filters applied whatsoever. So once I know how to remove gradients, subdue light pollution and mask, layer and filter data correctly I think I will be a happy camper.

It's a fun journey when you finally start to see things going well!

Matthew.

PS

Now that I know how to burn data to DVD - let Humayun confirm this - if anyone else wants the RAW data (about 300 files or 2.6 GB) on a DVD to experiment with - I'm happy to burn a disk and flick it to you. I'm keen to see how an experienced hand can process my data - as I am the first to admit I'm an absolute novice on the image processing side of the fence!