My very first astrophoto.

[shenanigans000 (Greg)]

My very first attempt at astrophotography. Equipment is a Skywatcher 12" collapsible goto dobby.

Camera is a Sony A35.

Technique is prime focus using a 2" camera to telescope adapter.

19 exposures of 1 second at ISO 3200, stacked in DSS and lightly reprocessed in Adobe Lightroom.

And subject is NGC4755 - the Jewel Box cluster in Crux.

[noeyedeer (Matt)]

that's a nice pic .. I'm no photo master but you've got a lot of whats seen through the scope. the jewel box is highly underrated

[noeyedeer (Matt)]

ps . dunno what's with green stars thou

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Love the Jewel Box! Well done!!!

[shenanigans000 (Greg)]

Originally Posted by noeyedeer

ps . dunno what's with green stars thou

Yeah - next project is to learn how to get the colour balance correct!

I have a lovely picture of Antares with a very nice orange colour. But when I try stacking the images it just blows out and becomes noisy.

[Shooting_Star (Romina)]

Very nice!

[shenanigans000 (Greg)]

Here's the one of Antares. The only way I could preserve the colour and general look the I was going for (ie, I wanted the star to have the flare effect from the secondary mirror supports), was to NOT stack in DSS, but just process one image in Lightroom.

[RickS (Rick)]

Nice work! Stop now if you value your sanity

[Danny_86 (Danny)]

Yeah good work mate, it is tough getting astrophotos. The hardest part is tracking the stars and having to remove the noise, you should give the carina nebula, Orion nebula & the lagoon nebula a try the are quiet bright in the sky & come out in astrophotos quiet well. Do you have a tracker? It helps so much having one. Keep up the good work I look out for your new work in the near future

[leon]

Fine effort indeed for a first attempt, keep at it and things will only get better with experience, well done.

Leon

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Nice start, it gets a little easier with experience. Love to see more as you venture into longer exposures.

Carl

[shenanigans000 (Greg)]

And here's Omega Centauri, taken on the same night. I just starting to wrap my head around DSS and Lightroom - I think the colours are more realistic in this one.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Noiseware free, google it. helps a lot. Keep at it, it's a long learning curve. But fun !!

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Nicely done.

[shenanigans000 (Greg)]

Thank you all for your words of support and encouragement. It means a lot to us noobs.

And I agree, it is a steep learning curve - but I'm having a ball!

As someone mentioned previously, I think the bug has bitten - oh no!