Large Magellanic Cloud 2013-04-10

lazjen (Chris) · #1 13-04-2013, 05:24 PM

Wife and I went camping at Girraween National Park during the week.

While dodging a lot of cloud cover and avoiding some blustery winds, I tried to collect some data to process.

This LMC shot was 16 shots taken from a fixed tripod Canon EOS 30D at ISO1600 for 30 sec each. Focal length according to the image data was 58mm. So exposed for a bit too long as the stars trail a bit.

Anyway, it gave me something to try out and I'm putting it out here as a reminder to myself in the future of my "starting point".

(For some strange reason I couldn't get the "Manage Attachment" function to work on this post).

http://i.imgur.com/9Empy21.jpg

tilbrook@rbe.ne (Justin Tilbrook) · #2 13-04-2013, 05:35 PM

Very good image Chris!

Nice contrast.

Cheers,

Justin.

Vasya Pupkin (Pupkin) · #3 13-04-2013, 05:44 PM

Why long? They are almost unvisible.
Special thanks for posting ISO and other data, I like to take such "zoom" wide-fields too.
But one question, what about light pollution in that region. Looking on the final image, I can't definitely evaluate it. Could you, please, post a single frame, not processed. By the way, you processing, what programms do you prefer?
And about LMC, it's a really great thing on your (unfortunately, not my) sky. All the best for you with astrophoto.

lazjen (Chris) · #4 13-04-2013, 05:49 PM

Thanks Justin. Girraween NP is a nice dark site and I plan to use it in the future when I have some "real" gear. It was easy to see the LMC with the naked eye.

lazjen (Chris) · #5 13-04-2013, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vasya Pupkin

Why long? They are almost unvisible.
Special thanks for posting ISO and other data, I like to take such "zoom" wide-fields too.
But one question, what about light pollution in that region. Looking on the final image, I can't definitely evaluate it. Could you, please, post a single frame, not processed. By the way, you processing, what programms do you prefer?
And about LMC, it's a really great thing on your (unfortunately, not my) sky. All the best for you with astrophoto.

Thanks.

I don't understand your comment: "Why long? They are almost unvisible." Do you mean why did I take 30sec shots and not something less? If so, then the answer is the camera does not seem to pick up much data if I do less than that (I tried in the past with very disappointing results) - and ISO1600 is the max for that model.

As for processing, I used DeepSkyStacker and basically followed a tutorial I found here (as a starting point): DeepSkyStacker tutorial. I think I had 5 Dark images to use in the processing. I exported a TIFF and did some final clean up in PS - cropping, levels, curves, etc.

The light pollution is fairly low. The worst would be to the east and perhaps to the north. I was facing mostly south/south-east.

Unprocessed LMC shot

Larryp (Laurie) · #6 13-04-2013, 07:04 PM

Nice image, Chris

Vasya Pupkin (Pupkin) · #7 13-04-2013, 07:44 PM

Thanks, so you use DSS too.
I have said about startrails, they are rather short.
And the light pollution is really low, my congratulations!

lazjen (Chris) · #8 13-04-2013, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vasya Pupkin

Thanks, so you use DSS too.
I have said about startrails, they are rather short.
And the light pollution is really low, my congratulations!

Ah, ok, now I understand. Yes, they're short, but noticeable if you look hard enough.

Unfortunately, Girraween NP is about 3 hr drive from home, so it's the occasional visit, not my everyday light polluted site.

TheAstroChannel (Sean) · #9 13-04-2013, 08:01 PM

Wow, that's awesome