M8 First real go

[Seymore]

Ok this is my first real go at it, I think it has turned out pretty good now. Still need to learn how to process properly.

Canon 700D, 20 x 50sec exposures 20 darks 20 bais and stacked in DSS.

Any advice on it ?



Cheers

Seymore

[Somnium (Aidan)]

very impressive for a first go !!! well done. the only thing i will say is that it is a bit noisy, the more data you add to it the better the signal to noise ratio will be. but that is just for future reference, you should be proud of this effort

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Well that turned out well! Grab some flats too and you're really in business. They'll sort out the darkening (vignetting) in the corners. If you select the stars separately you can probably get a bit more colour into them too. For an early attempt this is a superb result. What was the scope/lens?

[Seymore]

Thanks, Scope is an older Vixen VC200L with a borrowed Canon 700D. I am thinking I might look at getting an autoguider, at the moment I am relying on my polar alignment and the motors.

There is no point taking flats now and adding them is there ?

[raymo]

Good job there Seymore. I was wondering whether you deliberately
toned down the red in M8, there is a lot of it.
raymo

[Seymore]

I just kept toning it down utill there wasn't a red tinge to the blacks.
This was literally my second go at processing the images the first had very litle detail in it.

Cheers

Seymore

[NorthernLight (Max)]

the red tinge in the blacks is more nebula, you've just suppressed it

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

excellent work Seymore!
the lagoon was my first ever deep space pic also and you have done quite well here.
i wish i got onto flats earlier on, they just make such a difference to the end result and make processing easier. have a look at this article http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-211-0-0-1-0.html in particular the flats section. i use twilight flats, with a canon they are pretty easy, you just need to make sure you get it at dusk or dawn, set the camera to "Av" and aim at an even patch of sky. try and get as many as possible.

some people might not agree but i will say yes you can capture flats now and add (subtract) to this image. the camera alignment needs to be exactly the same to when you took them - if more dust has been introduced since you took the pic it could affect the image somewhat, but worth giving it a go.

Russ