Pics from G-Star

[bkm2304 (Richard Brown)]

Hi all,

below is an image of NGC 6835 taken with a 22" EQ Newtonian. Nothing has been done to these images save having 100 stacked from an AVI of 2.56 second exposures in Registax. As you can see, much is dirty about this image - blobbed (out of focus or collimation?) stars, grainy look, no dark or flat applied. I have been trying to apply a Dark in registax but it gives unusable results - picture is either totally black or white and washed out - despite trying to strecth the image. As a result you can see the dead/hot pixels dribbling all overthe image.


What I am happy with is the ability of a single 2.56 second frame from the G-Star to throw up very faint detail on my monitor. What I am not happy with is my skill level when it comes to imaging. Imaging is what I want to do now, having been a visual observer for many decades. So, where do I start,lads and lassies?

[garin (Garin)]

bkm,
I suggest that you post to the GSTAR forum http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/gstar-users/ I've found the group to be very helpful. Also you can check out images (and load you're own) to give you some idea of what you can expect.

I'm fairly new to imaging myself so I'd hate to give you wrong info. That said I've been using the GSTAR for a while and been generally failry impressed with it's ease of use. Typically I spend more time fiddliing with the images post aquistion that actually imaging.

Have you got the V3.1 user guide? if not you can get it here it has some general info on aquistion and enhancement
http://www.myastroshop.com.au/guides...-guidev3.1.pdf

My only other suggestion is start with the moon then brighter objects like NGC253. I have have great results (IMO) with plantery nebula.

[proudy]

bkm,

I have been using the gstar since March 2008 and am very happy with it.

You can see a very nice NGC5128 at http://www.lewisandnatasha.com/html/...otography.html

I use a 10" reflector on an EQ6 pro mount.

I am just a beginner too but to get round stars you must polar align (I drift align) and get the best focus by using the zoom function then it should work.

Steve Quirk at http://my.hwy.com.au/~sjquirk/images/images.html has amazing images using the GSTAR. The only thing that he has that we don't is precise alignment, dark skies , superior image processing skills and experience.

Regards

Proudy

[proudy]

bkm,

A few other points.

The GSTAR is 795x596 pixels. Steve Quirk ( and Steve Massey) use a capture card which is 768x576. My card only does 640x480. Its a numbers game - minimise all errors (noise)

Plus set the card to Pal(I) and S Video not RCA Video - S video is better signal.

I use a portable DVD player ($100) connected to the RCA Video outlet at the scope to centre the object (plus the image on the DVD player is way brighter than on my laptop which helps for locating the object). I then have 15m of cable running to my laptop in my office and image from the comfort of the indoors.

I use a motorised focuser to get focus - can't do it manually - it wobbles the image.

From the scope I have 15 meters of S-video, G-Com, power and focuser cables to my laptop (S-video from the shop, I made up the G-Com, power and focuser extension cables myself) plus I use a 15m ethernet cable from the hand control so with all this I can control the scope (recenter image ) and focuser and control the GSTAR from my office!

Plus 500 images stacked in registax to get rid of the noise and dark frame subtracted.

Hope this helps.

[Karls48 (Karl)]

I have 3 Mintron cameras - 2 b/w (GStar) and one colour one and have been using them for few years time now. If you are using your camera with maximum integration 128x it is important to use capture software that lets you to specify time lapse between the frames – 2.56 seconds. If you are using video capturing at 25 fs you are capturing 64 frames of same unchanged image every 2.56 seconds.
I use Astrovideo software that lets me to specify the delay between captures and it subtracts darks and stack images on fly. First I take 200 dark frames using “fixed align” and scale it. Then I take 3 to 10 subs of 20 images each using align feature of Astrovideo. Finally I stack subs in Maxim DL and remove bad pixels.
First image –Sub of 20 exposures
Second image – 4 subs stacked and bad pixels removed.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

My 2 cents worth.
I capture the .avi straight to my hard drive, not forgetting to take the same number of dark frames, edit then extract the individual frames using VirtualDub, then stack using Deep Sky Stacker.
Both are free programs and Deep Sky Stacker is infinitely superior to Registax when it comes to deep sky images. It will subtract the darks and flats too if you use them.

[allan gould]

I use virtualdub and DSS for images (avis) from my Watec 120n. Ive attached a few shots of 100 integrations of 10 secs. Darks removed.
All shot with 80mm WO scope on HEQ5 with no guiding.
I find it a very useful camera especially as a live finder for DSOs