[Russ59]

Originally Posted by silv

I like it, too! You caught Carina nebula's pink glow! How beautiful is that!
Hope you are pleased with the first light of your mount.

If you can mark the position of the tripod legs on the ground once you are satisfied with your alignment - that makes it heaps easier the next time you set up. People sink bricks in the grass and mark the leg positions on the bricks, for example. You can get it quite accurate like this, soon, and quickly repeatable, too.

Enjoy!

Thanks silv, yeah, actually I am quite stoked about it. It does look pretty good for 'first light' with the mount. I will have to work out some markers in the ground as a temporary measure until I build a more permanent arrangement.

Originally Posted by loki78

Yeah Russ I like it too especially for a first time. Can you tell us more about what equipment you used and camera settings etc.

I find it most helpful when seeing pictures to get all the details about what was used to take them also

I understand where you're coming from on that. It was a Canon EOS 450D with standard issue 18-35mm lens set at 18mm. 9 x 20sec subs at 1600 ISO f3.5, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker.


I need to learn more about 'darks' and 'flats' as well as processing and correct use of the histogram.

Originally Posted by multiweb

Yeah that's cool but you need to keep your eyes on the histogram left and right prior to save to scaled TIFF or you'll clip your data.

Thanks Marc, so my initial steps are: I download the images using the standard Canon EOS Utility application and I view them with the 'Digital Photo Professional' application. At this point the are now on my PC in CR2 format. Is this where I need to do some processing prior to 'converting and saving' to a TIFF file?

Edit: Marc, I feel like a fool as I have just 'discovered' the Tool Palette in the 'Digital Photo Professional' I'm assuming this is where I should be refining the histogram?