Thanks for the feedback guys, appreciate it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by luigi
Call me names but I'm not particularly in love with these images.
The focus seems to be off and the shape of the stars is not right. The black seems to be a little clipped.
The color seems to be the least problematic area to my eyes.
With the 18-200 I think you are very limited in optical quality: aberrations, coma and CAs will be a problem.
Not sure at what focal length you shot but maybe exposure was too long for round stars without tracking.
With light pollution, no tracking and the 18-200 you did a great job, but the result is not very effective.
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No, I won't be calling you names
. I did ask for some criticism, which I got and I thank you for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjjnettie
I think you've done great given the conditions.
Hope you don't mind, I had a little play with the image in PhotoShop.
I raised the Curves and adjust the Levels. Upped the Saturation and applied a filter to reduce the stars. Also I cropped out the worst of the gradient caused by the light pollution.
Not much more I can do with a jpeg, it compresses our images so much when we save them for the web that the artifacts become atrocious.
One suggestion though, you might want to resize your image to about 45% before posting. Not only does it make it easier to view on the forum, but it hides a multitude of sins. LOL
Compare the difference to the two, the second I resized 50%. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by irwjager
Hi Austin,
I'd say it's definitely that pesky neighbor's spotlight and funky tree that's hampering your imaging efforts.  It's probably a good thing to try & find out what it was exactly that caused the stray light, so you can take it into account (or better: block it!) next time you go out.
There's also a fair bit of vignetting happening (dark corners) - you might want to take some flats, so you can correct for it during processing.
jjjnettie gave some good tips (curves!) on how to get some more detail from your images. You might already know this, but keep your eye on the histogram as you play around with the curves and other tools. Make sure the levels in the histogram "hug" the left and the right (e.g. drop off just before they hit the far right and left), but never "crash into" the far left (=clipping in dark areas) or right (= clipping in light areas/overexposure).
Another great tip from jjnettie, which not just applies to forums, is scaling down your image. If your optics, tracking or seeing conditions are introducing errors/distortions in your image, scaling down will make them less noticeable. It sounds like cheating, but it isn't!
It's hard making anything meaningful from a heavily compressed JPEG, but I attached my two cents (I used nothing but StarWipe and StarBright + The GIMP only for cropping the usable part).
Keep up the good work! 
Ivo |
I love what you have done to my image. Amazed at how so much detail is still hidden in the image. (Obivously I still have a lot of things to learn). Thanks also for the advice.
In relation to subs and exposure time, how would an image with 10x1min compare to an image with 20x30sec subs.
Also, is there a way to work out how much I can leave the shutter open for before stars start to trail? (I've been using my best guess at getting an image with roundish stars and the longest exposure)
Thanks