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Old 23-01-2012, 09:37 AM
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Tarantula stack - improvement suggestions welcomed

This is my first pic in ages and to be honest the first pic taken without help setting up my scope/mount - thank you Alignmaster!

A stack of about 6 x 5min exposures and a rough and ready mask of a 2min exposure of the core.

Any comments really welcomed. Could I push the data a bit harder for example?

cheers

niko
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Old 23-01-2012, 09:50 AM
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Mate, looking at it in my mobile looks pretty damn good, I'll have a look at it home on a decent monitor and see if we can stretch it a bit more, but you should be very happy with this one! Next years xmas card? Darren
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Old 23-01-2012, 11:11 AM
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It's a nice pic, need stretching - there's a lot of info just lurking out of sight
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Old 23-01-2012, 11:20 AM
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thanks crew

and when we say stretching we mean levels and curves adjustment...?
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Old 23-01-2012, 11:25 AM
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Yes mate. And selective stretching, So you can stretch some of the fainter neb without blowing out the core and introducing too much noise!

Daz
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Old 23-01-2012, 12:34 PM
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Niko, on the whole the image is ok. The blue nebulosity is a fact of your camera filter, so you could change that by desaturating you blue highlights and push in more red. It would need to be done selectively to prevent the background getting a poor caste to it.


Your image is also quite clipped. The sky should not be jet black, it should be a grey tone or light blue. Green in the image usually helps contribute to this colour but you can use shadows and highlights or curves to prevent clipping and manage the colour caste.


You have some differential flexure in your image. Not much but enough to be annoying. Hunt that down first I reckon.


To me the image also looks a little out of focus, be particular about focus and check it every hour early in the night. Using a Bahtinov mask will help and produce excellent results. The focus will shift just a little over the course of the night and that makes for slightly out of focus shots.

There is no apparent star colour either. Maybe take a look at Ken crawfords or Louie's processing tutorials. You will learn a lot through those Tuts and your images will improve almost over night.

Good start, looking forward to more images in the future.
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Old 23-01-2012, 01:53 PM
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thanks Paul and everyone for the comments. Yes, I agree focus appears a bit off and perhaps polar alignment also not spot on contributing to the fuzziness.

Paul - differential flexure? You mean of the whole steup on the mount? How could you tell from the image? Useful for me to know to check images in future

thanks
again

Niko
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Old 23-01-2012, 02:03 PM
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Looking good mate
Yes it is a bit out of focus but you will get better at it in time.
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Old 23-01-2012, 05:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by niko View Post
thanks Paul and everyone for the comments. Yes, I agree focus appears a bit off and perhaps polar alignment also not spot on contributing to the fuzziness.

Paul - differential flexure? You mean of the whole steup on the mount? How could you tell from the image? Useful for me to know to check images in future

thanks
again

Niko
Niko differential flexure is where the guide camera is moving slightly from the main camera. Typically it will occur with a guide scope mounted on rings which is bolted to the main scope. The fittings and slop in parts can be ever so slight but that is enough to produce elongated stars across the field of view. It can sometimes happen with an OAG if it is not installed correctly.

An indicator of differential flexure is elongated stars across the entire field in the same direction. However, as you point out it could also be PA if that is really bad. PA that is close will show field rotation where the outer stars are elongated in a circular look when you are guiding.

To properly test for differential flexure take an image for 30 seconds, then one for 5 minutes and then one for 10 minutes. The 30 second image should have round stars. The 5 minute shot has slight elongation across the field in the same direction and the 10 minute shot will have much longer elongation across the field with star pointing in the same direction. Remembering of course that you must be guiding on a star for each image.

How far out is your PA?
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Old 23-01-2012, 07:06 PM
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Paul is giving you excellent advice which you really should follow if you want to improve your imaging. If you can improve your alignment by using first align master followed by a quick drift align using Phdguiding you will be ok for guiding but unless you get your focus and flexture out of the system then you will not be able to collect longer exposures and better images.

Each small step will improve your photos and even if you keep imaging the same object to death you can look at them chronologically and see the improvement.
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Old 23-01-2012, 07:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by niko View Post
This is my first pic in ages and to be honest the first pic taken without help setting up my scope/mount - thank you Alignmaster!

A stack of about 6 x 5min exposures and a rough and ready mask of a 2min exposure of the core.

Any comments really welcomed. Could I push the data a bit harder for example?

cheers


niko
I did a little processing on your pic - I hope you don't mind?
I managed to get a bit more out of it.
What do you think?
cheers
Alpal
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Old 24-01-2012, 12:50 PM
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Thanks again Paul. I'll begin the hunt for the flexure though as my setup is taken down and setup quite regularly and the flexure can be quite small it looks like it could be a super sleuth efoort - but many thanks for taking the time to explain. The PA? Well, I expect it wasn't as good as it could be. PHD suggested it wasn't bad but there's always room for improvement eh?!

It's okay Alan. I'm delighted with any feedback and particularly the specific type Paul's given me. I'll always take and act upon feedback. It's a long and rocky road and any help is greatly appreciated.

cheers

niko
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Old 24-01-2012, 12:57 PM
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thanks Alpal - always happy for a repro by anyone. There's ceratnly more detail but I really like the green I get with the camera so to me your version looks a little washed out

cheers

niko
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Old 24-01-2012, 03:19 PM
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Hi Niko,

Good work getting started on this stuff. I can't even take images of that part of the sky - my mount refuses to track that close to the pole with all the weight I have on it.

It may be worth just trying to get the stars a colour that looks natural to you, worry about the nebula later - it'll always look less red without the IR filter removed from your camera.

Just from your thumbnail I pulled up the middle levels a bit and selectively did the same with the red channel and down with the green channel (just slightly with both).

You may find it's a little washed-out too, but there's a wealth of data there. I especially like the little globular off to the right. Nonetheless you can see star colours coming through so it can't be too far out. To me the star colours are very important because if they aren't right then it makes it feel like it's been pushed too far and is no longer a "real" representation - though of course it's completely a psychological thing because you never see colours like in a long exposure photo anyway, but you can imagine you could if only your eyes would wait long enough

Perhaps you can tell us how you processed it? I use Deep Sky Stacker to get my images to together and then all the real work is done in PhotoShop. If you use this tool set then I may be able to help you more too.

Best wishes,

Cam
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Last edited by LightningNZ; 24-01-2012 at 03:22 PM. Reason: Additional ramble...
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Old 30-01-2012, 03:30 PM
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Cam,

thanks for the comments and work there - star colours look so much better.

I stacked about 6 exposures in DSS and then tweaked around in Photoshop. I'll take your comments on board and have another go.

cheers

niko
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