Well after 3 nights of working out how my new toys work, I have had some success I think. All imaged with a Sky-watcher 100ED and Canon 40D on HEQ5Pro mount, guided with a Sky-watcher 80ED and phd
Eta Carinae - 6x360s with ICNR darks, ISO 400
Lagoon - 1x480s 6x420s with ICNR darks, ISO 400
Images were taken last night under the full moon , stacked with DSS and processed with Photoshop CS3
All I can say is I am hooked, after 3 long nights of learning (wth frequent outburst of obscenities aimed at my scope, mount or laptop), I am making some progress. I am new to absolutely everything here so any advice/suggestions would be helpful.
hope you dont mind but ive had a tweak of your lagoon shot, i think you will be able to get a lot more out of the original than i got just from the jpg you posted.
Amazing and I mean AMAZING 1st images!
It's almost as if you've got so much data there that your imaging skills have got to play catch-up!!
Only kidding mate - superb,you've done a great job imaging.
You've really got the best of both worlds there - try imaging these DSOs with the ED80 first is my advice - looks like you've used the ED100 as the imaging scope (not that there's anything wrong with that!!!!).
Very very good - the standard of first attempts continues to amaze!!!!
As always - i look forward to what you've got in store.
Thanks for the comments guys. The scopes are piggy backed and no focal reducer as yet (should arrive in the next day or so). And yes my processing skills need a lot of work (today was the first time I have used Photoshop), so I have just been playing around not really knowing what I am doing, but I am very happy with the results so far
Very nice first images.
I see you used the ICNR which seems to have worked well. My only problem with using it is the time it takes.You took 13 exposures which meant the camera had to take 13 darks of the same length. I'm too impatient for this and have limited time to do light exposures. I've found using darks taken after you have finished imaging and are packing up a more efficient way to spend my time in the cold.
Slowly learning more about processing in Photoshop. Here is Lagoon reprocessed, not sure but the more subtle colours in the 2nd image is probably my favorite so far.
these 450d's are blowin my mind, seen them for around 1400 with 2 lenses omg! to me its getting back to the simplicity days of film from what i read and see, (but even better, wildly better even!) specially with liveview, and 12MP ect.. they were my big bugbear with dslrs and modern lenses for long period.
I was reading the Gary Honis page/site on the 450D, and his comments, he says the 450d RAWs didnt work with DSS, did you have to convert to TIF before stacking? what a fascinating camera
cheers
, stacked with DSS and processed with Photoshop CS3
