from Astrobin

raymo · #1 03-07-2014, 03:15 PM

I have been learning how to use Astrobin with the help of an IIS
member. I have reprocessed the M20 image that I posted recently,
and want to see if I can provide a link to the higher res version I
have in Astrobin http://astrob.in/105011/0/. Now to see if it
works. I wonder why it's not blue like the others I've seen.
I just left clicked, and it went blue. The wonders of technology.
raymo

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #2 03-07-2014, 04:18 PM

Yep, works okay this end.

LightningNZ (Cam) · #3 03-07-2014, 06:37 PM

Looks sweet

raymo · #4 03-07-2014, 06:56 PM

Thanks Kevin and Cam.
raymo

Bassnut (Fred) · #5 03-07-2014, 07:10 PM

Apart from noise, this is very good. Why the hell is it in "beginners astrophotography"?.

DJT (David) · #6 03-07-2014, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Apart from noise, this is very good. Why the hell is it in "beginners astrophotography"?.

+1

Very nice indeed

raymo · #7 03-07-2014, 07:33 PM

Hello Fred; I sincerely hope that I'm not annoying you again. I have
managed to produce one image that I am pretty happy with; but like
many other beginners I imagine, I am hesitant about taking that step,
especially as almost all of my other results certainly wouldn't qualify.
I guess it's sort of borderline I suppose; I have seen better in the beginners' forum, and the occasional less good one in the open forum.
raymo

Thankyou David.

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #8 03-07-2014, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bassnut

Apart from noise, this is very good. Why the hell is it in "beginners astrophotography"?.

Fred, even though some of us are not beginners, the quality of images in the main deep sky forum makes it very intimidating to post anything there.

I've started posting some of my best there but my images have a long way to go yet.

codemonkey (Lee) · #9 03-07-2014, 08:46 PM

That's a cracker, raymo!

raymo · #10 03-07-2014, 10:04 PM

Thanks Lee.
raymo

jsmoraes (Jorge) · #11 03-07-2014, 10:11 PM

Your photo is very nice. But it is with some saturation and noise. You use the same camera that I use.

Quote:

This was 7 x 40 secs, mix of ISO 1600 and 3200, in camera noise reduction, no separate darks, flats, etc

With Canon, darks are very very important. And my experience says that the best with bright objects is with less ISO and more numbers of frames.

If I use ISO 400 or 200 I got more smoth stars and better colors. I normally use ISO 400 and if the object is faint, ISO 800.

Quote:

Fred, even though some of us are not beginners, the quality of images in the main deep sky forum makes it very intimidating to post anything there.

I feel the same. Actually there are a very powerfull team there. With impressive and amazing quality of photos. But I thing that this forum is about astronomy, not photography. And there are two differents goals in astrophotography:

a) images with visual impact
b) images with contents

Some photos from NASA and ESO are not perfect and beautiful, but they have informations very interesting.
My photos aren't perfect or very beautitul, but they have some informations very interesting, too. Mainly because of the resolution of my set. And they are done with a stock Canon.

I think they can be published there without that virtual intimidation. Some times they bring some new information about the object.

blink138 (Pat) · #12 03-07-2014, 10:53 PM

that looks much more professional raymo, i have seen all of your pics but i am not sure if it is the astrobin that makes it better?
i have a bit to catch up on ha ha!.......... we just need the bloody weather to cooperate a little more
good cool nights for dslr sensors too!
pat

raymo · #13 03-07-2014, 11:58 PM

thankyou Jorge and Pat. I was going out tonight to get more subs of
M20 at lower ISO. Once again got set up and aligned, and then got clouded out yet again. It's now six weeks since I got an image.
It would look better in Astrobin, Pat, because it is a much higher resolution image.
raymo

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #14 04-07-2014, 01:10 AM

You an I need an observatory Ray. Save on setup time. I kind of have one, called the window lol. But it's very restricted.

Do you check the latest satellite image before you setup? Seeing cloud coming on radar or satellite would save a lot of work setting up for nothing.

raymo · #15 04-07-2014, 02:39 AM

Funny you should mention an observatory; just this evening my
daughter and son in law got SWMBO to agree to me having one, and they will help fund and erect it.

.
I do refer to all the weather data, but the weather here for most of
the year is like Melbourne, "if you don't like the weather, just wait 10 minutes. At this moment it is 4 degrees, 99% humidity, and I've just
brought my gear in absolutely soaking wet.
raymo

cometcatcher (Kevin) · #16 04-07-2014, 06:04 AM

That's great news on the observatory!

raymo · #17 04-07-2014, 11:04 AM

Yes it is, but they are in the process of moving into town, so will have to get settled first. Oops, hijacking my own thread, it's easily done isn't it.
raymo

nebulosity. (Jo) · #18 11-07-2014, 05:21 AM

Very nice Ray!

Great news about the observatory build!

Cheers
Jo

raymo · #19 11-07-2014, 12:25 PM

Thanks Jo, my best effort so far, I think.
raymo

andyc (Andy) · #20 11-07-2014, 07:41 PM

Hi Raymo, really lovely image! I'm very impressed. I have a couple of constructive comments, which, given my limited astrophotography experience you're free to totally disregard and don't come with a guarantee of correctness, but here goes:

1: I've been trying to read quite a lot about ISO settings, and so far as I can work out: you don't gain any more at all in sensitivity beyond about ISO800-1600, possibly even less; but you lose 50% in dynamic range per ISO doubling; and background noise covers a bigger fraction of that dynamic range. I'm still not perfectly sure about the details, but you may be better off shooting at ISO 800/1600 rather than 1600/3200 and then stretching with 'curves' in Photoshop? Perhaps that would make it a little less noisy? If you're using Photoshop CS2 or above, you can try experimenting with the "despeckle" and the "Reduce Noise" functions too.

2: Are you shooting in RAW format? It looks like each of your stars has a small dark halo around it, which in my images is caused by the Canon image processing software adding an unsharp mask to the image, which is most obvious in the stars. You can't get rid of it in the pre-processed JPEGs, but if you open the RAW image in the Canon Digital Photo Professional software (if that was supplied with your camera), you can set the unsharp mask strength to zero and instantly remove the halos (and also play around with the noise reduction settings there). Obviously that's only if those halos are from the unsharp mask!

Please don't take these as negative criticisms, it's a smashing looking picture with lots of good data, but I think you could get it smoother still! And I'm also trying to learn more about all this for my DSLR astro shots.