Well on Friday night I set up my scope all ready to image the Sombrero Galaxy. I decided to take my time and make sure that all was in order. Good boy Mario! However at the end of the night and then during processing I realised that there were a few things that I'd overlooked and they were:
1. I output jpegs instead of raws - aaghh!!
2. My guiding was off - aaghh!!
3. I forgot to put the white t-shirt material across the front of my scope when taking my flats - aaghh!!
4. The upstairs bathroom light does affect the images when it's switched on - aaghh!!
5. These are not easy to fix in processing - aaghh!!
Anyway, taking all that into consideration I've tried to salvage what I could from the hours I'd spent outside. The attached image is 12 x 5 min subs, ISO800. There's elongation in the stars as well as a light glow gradient in the image which I had trouble dealing with. The only software that seemed to handle the gradient well was StarTools, however as I'm still trialling it I couldn't save the image. But believe me when I say it looked grouse!!
Yes, well the stars are a bit 'eggy' looks like a tracking issue but your Sombrero looks excellent to my untrained eye and you seem to have managed to fix most of the problems you listed above.
Nice pic, I'd certainly be happy with it as a dang good start.
Pretty cool Mario - seems like you manged to fix most issues.
Regardless, as far as I'm concerned seeing an object come up out of no where as I do the initial stretching is already 50% of the thrill of astrophotography! If it'd be all about getting every little detail right I would've given up this hobby a long long time ago
You may be interested to know ST has a star rounding module ("Repair") as well which is a bit more advanced than the morphological routine commonly used. Example attached.
Thanks for trying out the star rounding/repair routines for me. Both algorithms seem to work well and coupled with Ivo's gradient removal, which it looks like he's done, the image comes up a real treat!
I can tell you I'm smiling a lot more now than I was at midnight Friday night!!!
1. I output jpegs instead of raws - aaghh!!
2. My guiding was off - aaghh!!
3. I forgot to put the white t-shirt material across the front of my scope when taking my flats - aaghh!!
4. The upstairs bathroom light does affect the images when it's switched on - aaghh!!
5. These are not easy to fix in processing - aaghh!!
I was expecting to see a shocker after reading that but the galaxy is very distinct and well done I must say. Imaging at that focal length is off my radar at the moment until I get a real grip on my mount.
I was distraught on Friday night. However after having seen what Ivo and JJJ were able to do with my image I downloaded the latest version of StarTools yesterday to have a go myself. I took the image from stacked stage through a quick processing sequence and after seeing the final product I decided to buy a licence.
A little bit of background - I work in the seismic processing industry where we process seismic data that has been acquired in the field. I've been doing this for 29 years and If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a field person, when discussing a problem with what has been recorded, say "Processing will fix it" I would be an extremely wealthy man. To be honest it is something which annoys me - do it right in the field!!
And yet, here I am thinking exactly the same thing with the data that I acquired last Friday night. After seeing what is achievable with the right tools, I wonder just how good my images would be if I did get everything right "in the field"!
Anyway, for completeness I've attached what I consider my final product. Having acquired StarTools I'm now starting to feel confident with what I can do in this hobby. And that's a bloody good thing!!
Great going Mario. We all have nights like that, but don't always own up to it
Best way to learn is to get out there and pin down one thing at a time each night then remember or write what the heck you did. Looks far better than any early Sombrero I managed. Very decent
You'll get the info next time - good work!
You'll remember the list next time -
Lights in house must be off to photo!
Raw!
Flats
All in all - it WAS successful just ot as successful as it could have been.
Hey Mario! i work as a photographer and shooting in raw does nothing but fill your storage card, raws are jpegs with crappy editing suite that does not compare with photoshop - never shoot in raw...
Hey Mario! i work as a photographer and shooting in raw does nothing but fill your storage card, raws are jpegs with crappy editing suite that does not compare with photoshop - never shoot in raw...
thats an interesting comment - can you elaborate a little on it. I can think of a few good reasons to only shoot in raw....
Well - filling a storage card is such a bind....
I told my friend I was shooting in the RAW and he wanted to come and watch.
I always thought that RAWS were UN edited or compressed images with ALL the info intact whereas Jpegs were collapsed and had much lower info levels maintained.
I'm not sure if ob1knob was being sarcastic/joking, but since this is a beginners forum, let's nip any confusion in the bud. Shooting in JPEG is *bad* for a host of reasons (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/s...4&postcount=27) If you can shoot in RAW, please do so!
