My first real image,.. Quite a learning and experimenting curve. Perhaps I am starting to get the idea even though the moon will now kill my chances somewhat.
First image is a full screen shot 7 X 2 min. No darks flats or anything else. Stacked in DSS and tweaked in CS2. The second is a large crop of the first.
Eta Carinae Nebula.... A single 5 min image.
Disregard the dark dust blotches.
can you post an UNprocessed version of eta... id like to see that, plus scope length and f ratio so i can get an idea of where the camera is at in sensitivity etc
Looks black and white to me. There could be various reasons for this, but I seriously doubt the phase of the moon.
Lack of a UV/IR block filter perhaps? Also to preserve star colours, it is important not to saturate the chip...easily done with CMOS, but easily fixed by stacking shorter exposures. Lastly, darks and flats help...particularly with the moon in the sky.
Thanks for the comments Peter. I have only had the Camera a couple of weeks and am only starting to come to terms with what and how it does things. Software has also been a new learn for me as it is way different from the DSLR.
I actually had a UV/IR filter on with this shot but think the wash out is my fault as the single images have colour.
Attached is a converted and shrunk original image.
can you post an UNprocessed version of eta... id like to see that, plus scope length and f ratio so i can get an idea of where the camera is at in sensitivity etc
Images taken with QHY8 through Tak FS102 at F8. Don't know how to post original FITS file as it is too big so here is a shrunken JPG of one.
Terry, The FITS files are 35MB each and compress down to about 16MB AT MAX COMPRESSION.
Blast!
Only suggestion I have is to open it in something like Iris, divide it by 9 and then bin it 3x3. This makes it much smaller but retains the dynamic range that is in the original fit image. Save as fit again and try compressing that. See what size it come out as.
the processing needs a little attention as is more contrasty than needs be and the highlight areas are too bright (eta), but its all a learning curve and we all could improve our shots
i would be perhaps more interested in a fainter object than eta to really see its potential myself, but its a start.
As seen from the unprocessed version, the details there, but given i have seen much longer exposures with these cameras and hagars tracking is good it would pay to double that exposure time as theres still plenty of range left in the raw frame. then the usual stacking etc.
