lagoon dob attempt

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

g'day,

thought i'd give a bit of deep space a crack on the 12" sw goto. taken last night, was a bit of a challenge, sunset 5.30pmish and near full moon rise 6.58pm.

canon 600d eos, 8 @ 4secs shots stacked in DSS, no darks etc iso 6400.
my first attempt at anything deep space. not a bad effort and getting used to DSS was interesting. can definitely see the benefit in stacking now, so will take more than 1o next time for sure ... plenty of noise.
edited in photoshop.

i tried the triffid also, but it didn't really result in too much with cloud rolling in.

cheers,

rusty

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80336656@N07/

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Great first effort!!
As soon as the weather clears in melbourne and I find some time gonna finally get my act together and attempt the same.

[RB (Andrew)]

Well done Russell, what a great start and on a goto Dob too!

Make sure next time you take darks, at least 10 (or an equal number as your lights), they're easy to apply using DSS.

Make sure they're the same ISO and at the same temperature as your lights, as you know.

Later you'll also move onto taking and applying flats, they'll help tremendously.

[atalas]

Great effort Rusty!keep at It.

[Sarge (Rod)]

Real wall hangers Russell. Good work.

Stretching the time a little more will improve colour, but careful not to form star trails.

Clear skies

Rod

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

thanks for the encouraging words!

will definitely try and stretch out the exposure times as far as possible and maybe lower the iso. i didn't know if the dob was going to be able to produce anything worthwhile on deep sky objects, definitely worth sticking at it and seeing what it's capable of. besides its nice to image more than just the planets. quite a few extra targets around!

cheers

[Ross G]

Great shot Russell, especially for a first attempt.

Good luck.

Ross.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

ok, i was super keen to do better ...
in melbourne between tonights clouds, i came up with this version of the lagoon. 2nd attempt, sw goto dob 12", DSS 16 shots stacked 10 darks, iso 6400 @ 10 seconds.

i also got an omega centauri shot, zooming in on that it looks like stars are starting to trail at 10 secs - but i haven't processed yet.

nice to get some more detail in the nebula although i think i've over cooked the red a bit.

cheers for the pointers.

Rusty

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8033665...n/photostream/

[Osirisra (Ken)]

Brilliant stuff, you gotta be happy with that!

You can do some wicked stuff with a Dob, some guys on here have managed some mind blowing images that you wouldn't think possible.

[RickC (Richard)]

good effort Russell, once you start taking darks, flats etc. you will see a big difference. DSS is a very good stacking program

cheers
Richard

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

yep, thanks Ken and Richard, looking forward to getting into it and the dob will satisfy me with pics like that for a while yet .. an equatorial mount is still a way off for me ..
i put up a pinker version on flickr which looks a lot nicer than the red version.

cheers

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

hi again,

here is probably my best deep sky effort now.

posted on this thread so you can see the evolution of a couple of weeks practice.

18 x 20 seconds, iso 6400 f/5, DSS photoshop etc.

I think i've now maxed out exposure time on the mount. happy to get more of the lagoon's photons!

cheers

Rusty

http://www.flickr.com/photos/80336656@N07/

[Sarge (Rod)]

Well done Russell,

For a 12" goto dob that's a great shot.

Clear skies

Rod