Quick and dirty Eta Carinae

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

It's been over a week since I last imaged (due to moon and work conference). I thought I would try out imaging Eta Carinae for the first time. First thing I noticed was confirmation about how much temperature has an effect on noise. My recent project was the horsehead in about 25 degrees ambient temperature. Last night was a "chilly" 14. Makes a BIG difference with an uncooled dslr!

Anyways, here's 50mins worth of data.

Scope: 8" Newt
Mount: EQ6
Camera: unmodded Canon 400D
ISO800
Exposure: 10x5mins
Guidescope: 60mm f/11 tasco refractor
Guidecamera: unmodded toucam
Filter: Hutech LPS
Ambient temperature: 14 degrees
Windy at times
Stacked in DSS (lights, darks and flats) and processed using PS using some of the Astronomy Tools Actions.

[alpal]

That's a nice shot.
How did you get the brightness so uniform across the whole field?
The center part of Eta Carinae is much brighter than the surrounding nebula.

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Nice result. Especially since I guess you must have imaged this with the moon in the sky.

[Moonman (Michael)]

Nice results there. I enjoyed looking at your pics.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Originally Posted by alpal

That's a nice shot.
How did you get the brightness so uniform across the whole field?
The center part of Eta Carinae is much brighter than the surrounding nebula.

Not sure but I would speculate it's due to the fact that my dslr is unmodded?

Originally Posted by Rigel003

Nice result. Especially since I guess you must have imaged this with the moon in the sky.

Yep, pesky moon was up and about. I didn't start imaging till moon rise. It was well up once I finished. It was the coolest night I have imaged in quite some time. There always tends to be something annoying such as moon, wind, high temperature, clouds, bad seeing, kid waking up, work the next day etc etc

Originally Posted by Moonman

Nice results there. I enjoyed looking at your pics. http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/....s/thumbsup.gif

Thanks. My guiding/imaging skills are coming along nicely, particularly given the limited equipment I have i.e. no coma corrector and unmodded and uncooled dslr. The next major step is learning how to better process my data. The horsehead, while captured in trying conditions (high ambient temp and the use of an unmodded dslr), does have quite a bit of data I can extract. I just have to work a bit more to bring it out.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very nicely resolved shot. Beautiful field. The star cores are just a tiny bit white clipped but overall the details you've captured are really great.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Thanks Marc. I collected another 1hr worth of data last night before moon rise. I did a stack this morning and quick play with curves and levels and was surprised at how much red data I have without a modded camera. I will work on the stars when I next get a chance.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Another 1hr of data added. Slightly cropped due to alignment issues. I have increased saturation a touch and added a bit of colour back into the brighter stars. What do you think of the colour? Is it too red?

Picture here

[Ross G]

A very good photo Dan.

I really like the colour and composition.

Ross.

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Thanks Ross.

I have been getting asked how did I get so much red data given the camera I used is unmodded. I believe it relates to my novice image processing skills and lack of colour balancing. While my results are pleasing, this picture is probably a true representation of what I captured. It certainly looks more like what others have captured with an unmodded camera. Nevertheless, I like the coloured versions