ETA Carina. My first image with flats

[ozstockman (Mike)]

Hi guys,

I was trying to understand how to take flats for a while and I couldn't. Yesterday I read about this process here on forum again and suddenly realised that there is nothing complicated in this process :-)

Below is my first image stacked with flats.


Here are details about what has been used:

ETA Carina nebula [ 8x180sec light frames at ISO400 + 2 dark + 2 flat + 2 dark flat ]. Equipment used: Celestron C8 with 6.3 focal reducer, Canon 300D modded with Edmund glass. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Photoshop CS2

[iceman (Mike)]

Very nice image, well done.

Flats really aren't difficult and i'm glad to finally be doing them too. It makes the background so much smoother and lets you stretch the data a bit more.

[leon]

Yep, I Agree, I had no idea what a flat was , let alone a dark, however since i have learned the process with much help from the guys and gals on IIS, it was worth learning.

By the way great image of Eta.

Leon

[Ingo]

I still don't know how to make flats

Great image, smooth and noise free.

[bloodhound31]

Oh VERY nice!

I think I better start doing flats.......

[dcalleja]

I agree the background looks very smooth with no gradients. Beautiful image

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

I don't even use darks, so flats are a long way off for me.

Your Carina has come up a treat

[leon]

Don't feel flat about not knowing how to do flats

Leon

[tornado33]

Normally one could expect some vignetting round the edges with a focal recucer on a SCT but yes, that shot looks fine, little or no fall off at the edges.
Scott

[Ric]

A nice capture and very smooth.

Well done

[ozstockman (Mike)]

Thanks guys for your comments. Images really look much better with flats.

For those who still don't know how to take them I would recommend to read the easiest explanation on how to do it I've ever seen. It's written by Paul(1ponders) and this is the third message from the top in there.

Also there is one more image I took yesterday. I guess it is my best shoot of Orion nebula. Stacked with flats too :-)

[9x180sec light frames at ISO800 + 2 dark + 2 flat]. Equipment used: Celestron C8 with 6.3 focal reducer, Canon 300D modded with Edmund glass. Stacked in DeepSkyStacker and post processed in Photoshop CS2.
Autoguiding: Atik 1C, ED80, GuideDog.

[Tamtarn]

Using the flats seems to have worked well. Nice smooth background

[cwjames]

I love your picture of Eta Carina, it makes the one I took of this on Friday night a little sick. Thanks for sharing, its examples like this that set the bench mark for me to improve.

Once again this is a great shot !

Chris