My first real go at astrophotography

apaulo (Paul) · #1 10-07-2010, 11:17 AM

Hi everyone.

After some time figuring out the pro's and con's and purchasing the right equipment. I have to mention here, the guys from my astroclub and some people who use this forum have helped me immensely. I managed to get a clear night on a new moon (last night) and snapped away to my hearts content. Anyway here are the results, any advice will be welcomed

Best Regards Paul.

barx1963 (Malcolm) · #2 10-07-2010, 11:52 AM

Very impressive Paul. Tell us a bit more about the gear you used. One other thing, ISO 3200? Did you have any noise problems?

multiweb (Marc) · #3 10-07-2010, 12:02 PM

Looks great - well done.

DavidU (Dave) · #4 10-07-2010, 12:12 PM

Impressive ! Was it a Newtonian you used?

rcheshire (Rowland) · #5 10-07-2010, 12:17 PM

Very nice Paul. They've turned out very well. Very interested in how you obtained your results.

apaulo (Paul) · #6 10-07-2010, 01:06 PM

Ok the equipment used was a GSO fast newt at F4. The noise was a small issue, I use photoshop4 so I can almost remove the noise. The pentax has noise reduction option, which i use. Deepsky stacker which is freeware helps!
Thank you for the positive comments

Best Regards Paul.

DavidU (Dave) · #7 10-07-2010, 01:22 PM

A Pentax, interesting. Any coma control?

apaulo (Paul) · #8 10-07-2010, 07:58 PM

Hi Dave

I used a blaader coma corrector mpcc.

Hagar (Doug) · #9 10-07-2010, 10:16 PM

Great start Paul. I wish my starting images were half this good.
You seem to have focus and guiding and framing pretty well controlled but you need to spend a little more time watching your histogram when processing the images. Try to balance up your background colour so it removes the red/purple cast over the image. Your can usually do this by aligning the peaks of the 3 colours using levels then reduce the background to a neutral colour using ccolour balance. You will find this little alteration improves the overall colour of your images.
Good luck and great start.

apaulo (Paul) · #10 14-07-2010, 04:29 PM

Well Hager your advice was fantastic, but I found some other nice options within my photo editor.
A world of difference!
Regards Paul.

rcheshire (Rowland) · #11 16-07-2010, 06:18 AM

Looks great - very nice indeed.

cybereye (Mario) · #12 16-07-2010, 06:50 AM

Paul,

Great job and a big thumbs up for the Pentax. I've been very happy with the results from my Km and it seems the Kx is just as good. I believe it also has live-view which is something the Km doesn't.

Good, focus, tracking and framing!

Cheers,
Mario

apaulo (Paul) · #13 16-07-2010, 10:27 AM

Hi Mario

Yes I agree! The Pentax is under estimated as a DSLR for astrophotography. For the money you spend compared to Canon and Nikon I am surprised that more people aren't using this brand?

What I have learnt is the time taken for photography is only half the time you need to process the photos. At least it is warm in the computer room and I am not freezing my butt off outside!

Noise doesn't seem to be a major issue either, not sure if your Km is the same? The K-x does have live view, so focusing is a breeze. I have brought a Bahtinov Mask from Mike (he is selling them via this website)
and I will try that using "LV" and see if it helps.

Next is filtering, like many interests it is an ongoing expense. My wife is doing her degree at SAO (Masters Astronomy) so she supports the purchasing of equipment. The only problem being she will want to use it and I have to ask for scope time.

Thanks for the comments

Best Regards Paul.

renormalised (Carl) · #14 16-07-2010, 07:24 PM

Nice shots for first timers. Paul

Are these taken guided or unguided??. If you want to make them even better, you'll have to up the length of the subs. That'll help reduce the noise as well by upping the S/N ratio. It'll give you more to play with when you're processing as well. If you've got good alignment with the EQ6, you should be able to push the subs up to a minute or so without having to worry about too much trailing of the stars, unguided. But to get the real deal, a guidescope and guider will take you that next step up

Oh...since your better half is going to want scope time, you'll have to become like a director of an observatory and allocate time!!!

...or make sure the dog house has lots of room

apaulo (Paul) · #15 17-07-2010, 09:12 AM

The photos were not guided, the polar alignment was quite good too.
I am planning to increase the subs but the pentax can only do programed 30 seconds. I have purchased a remote control and under bulb mode I can increase the times.
I will try again tonight (Saturday) and see how we go. As for the dog house nothing like cleaning the house and mowing the lawns to get you into good favour.

Regards Paul.

renormalised (Carl) · #16 17-07-2010, 10:33 PM

When you take you shots, what file type are you saving them as ...raw, tiff or jpeg??. If you can try and save them as raw files and import them to your photo editor if it can handle those files. Even tiff....avoid using jpeg as you'll loose info immediately you save them as jpegs. Saving them as jpegs will immediately introduce artificial noise to the pics as it is what they call "lossy" compression. The noise appears as blocky pixels caused by the loss of some of the original information when the files were compressed. Once you've done all your processing, then you may save them as jpegs, but not before.