Here my first ever attempts at astrophotography after a lot of you-tubing and some crucial help from Raymo.
Last night I thought I wouldn't be able to try out the Canon 70D on my refractor, but the clouds cleared to a windy but high-transparency sky, so I took a shot of the moon at ISO 400 and shutter speed of 1/250 sec. The biggest trouble was working out how to use the live view screen to focus, but I got there eventually.
Then I had a go at 47 Tucanae for posterity - it was the first deep sky object I saw clearly through the telescope and it blew me away. So this was taken as 16 x 1'10" subs at ISO 1600, 8 darks and 10 bias frames. My alignment was not as good as I would have liked so the stars aren't a great shape, and the core looks like the centre of the sun - I fumbled through Deep Sky Stacker to get to this image which I'm sure could be vastly improved by someone who knows what they're doing, but I'm absolutely stoked that I could even take an image that is recognisably an astrograph and stack it in DSS.
Can't wait for any feedback. Thanks in advance and a big thanks to Raymo again for the advice.
I saw 47 Tucanae for the first time a few weeks back through my telescope and that was the first deep sky object I have seen through my scope. Like you I was blown away, looked great!
You will get the bug of Astrophotography like I have and absolutely love it.
Good start Luke, well done. Good exposure levels in both of them.
The moon is usually taken by video and stacked to give a sharper image. The slight fuzziness you see in yours compared to other pix is caused mainly by air turbulence. Stacking a couple of hundred avi images averages out the errors and gets you more detail.
Your 47 Tuc is better than you think in the core. The centre of confusion is quite small compared to my early attempts. I assume you had no guiding and in that case for 1' 10" subs your alignment is pretty damn good, stars are only very slightly 'eggy'. Well done for your first pix
But you know what's going to happen now don't you ?
Heheheh ...
Some tips (I'm no expert btw, but I hope this helps):
* You might like to crop your images to remove a lot of "dead" space (e.g. moon image), or the processing? artifacts on Tuc 47 (the image edges).
* For posting on IIS, you're better off resizing the images smaller and keeping the quality as high as you can with the 200K restriction.
* For the Tuc 47, for DSS, did you use intersection mode for the final image or mosaic (it looks like the latter)? For this image, you probably want intersection mode.
* Your focus is a bit soft - this can be challenging to sort out using the liveview only on the camera. Do you plan on using a computer to assist with getting your images in the future? If so, this can help a lot with focusing issues (larger screen for example, software to analyse the star profiles, etc).
Thanks for your comments. I realise I've taken a step onto a very slippery slope called astrophotography, that is going to burn a hole in my back pocket and sleep cycle.
The images were unguided, and I did 3 iterations of 2 star alignments followed by Polar alignment on one of those stars. I noticed that when I did two stars near the celestial equator, the alignment was good, but then the last two stars I aligned with were canopus and alpha centauri which were both about 15 degrees above the horizon, and the correction required suddenly increased dramatically. Anyway, I was surprised that the scope seemed to track 47 Tuc very well.
I used pretty much most of the defaults in DSS, so it was mosaic. I spent the whole day loading and reloading the RAW files, working out how to stack the images. I don't have the DSS help because I'm using a Mac and DSS through the wineskin site, so I had to muddle through, doing lots of google searches.
Thanks again for your feedback and advice - its much appreciated.
I saw 47 Tucanae for the first time a few weeks back through my telescope and that was the first deep sky object I have seen through my scope. Like you I was blown away, looked great!
You will get the bug of Astrophotography like I have and absolutely love it.
Keep the shots coming.
Thanks Stefan. It is the most stunning globular cluster. For some reason, I think it's more impressive than omega centauri - again, maybe because of that first impression.
Hi Luke. Great first images there! I totally agree with that 47 Tuc is the best looking globular. I think the visual intensity of the core and the more "traditional" shape makes it more beautiful somehow.
I hope you don't mind but I had a go at pulling a bit more out of your lunar image. It could possibly be even better but I'm working off your JPEG, which luckily is quite high res.
I opened it in Photoshop, changed the mode to Lab, Gaussian blurred the colour channels to reduce colour noise and exported the luminance channel to another greyscale image. I duplicated the luminance layer and did a High Pass filter on it and then Soft Light combined it with the original. I then adjusted the level to bright the white-end up to maximum and dropped it back into the luminance channel of the Lab image. Turned it all back into RGB and boosted the colour saturation 25% and cropped it a bit then saved it to disk.
I opened it in Photoshop, changed the mode to Lab, Gaussian blurred the colour channels to reduce colour noise and exported the luminance channel to another greyscale image. I duplicated the luminance layer and did a High Pass filter on it and then Soft Light combined it with the original. I then adjusted the level to bright the white-end up to maximum and dropped it back into the luminance channel of the Lab image. Turned it all back into RGB and boosted the colour saturation 25% and cropped it a bit then saved it to disk.
Hi Cam,
Thanks for the advice - you've improved the image out of sight to mine. I did no processing of the moon shot at all.
I should add that I've got no idea what all that processing lingo means - but I suppose you just use trial and error (at least when starting out) until the image looks better, and with time and experience, you recognise in advance what processing is required?
Also, do most astrophotos need processing in another programme besides DSS?
I've only got the software that came with the camera, and GIMP (which sounds very user-unfriendly from what's said here).
Hope to be able to speak your language some time in the future.
I didn't mean to swamp you with jargon, sorry about that! I thought if you had Adobe Photoshop you might like to try to replicate my steps. GIMP will almost certainly let you do the same things but as you've heard elsewhere it can be tricky to use (I've tried it a few times and hated it). No doubt there are youtube vids to help with such things.
Yes, it is certainly trial and error when you get started. I have learnt a bunch of general techniques that help with different aspects of images and used some like the 'Lab' processing technique on your photo. It's a really useful one for smoothing colour blotches and letting you separately control the 'luminace' - the greyscale brightness - for maximum sharpness.
DSS does a very good job for the mathematical "nuts and bolts" stage of processing an image stack, but it doesn't have many tools to let you post-process an image. That's the stage where you have a "final" image that you tweak to get it looking "just so". Adobe Photoshop is very nice for that. It's pricey but powerful and (I think) quite intuitive. Anyway, it's all a learning curve and I'm no where near the front or top , but I try to offer tips, tricks and support where I can.
All the best,
Cam
Quote:
Originally Posted by chiaroscuro
Hi Cam,
Thanks for the advice - you've improved the image out of sight to mine. I did no processing of the moon shot at all.
I should add that I've got no idea what all that processing lingo means - but I suppose you just use trial and error (at least when starting out) until the image looks better, and with time and experience, you recognise in advance what processing is required?
Also, do most astrophotos need processing in another programme besides DSS?
I've only got the software that came with the camera, and GIMP (which sounds very user-unfriendly from what's said here).
Hope to be able to speak your language some time in the future.
Nice first shots. I don't have a great deal of advice to give as I'm also new to astrophotography but hopefully I can save you a bit of time as I've also been grappling with processing software and searching for something that doesn't cost an arm, leg and several other body parts, but still does a decent job.
Registax is what I've started using for stacking images of the moon and planets - there are plenty of quickstart guides on it to get you underway plus it's free. I also use DSS for stacking deep space images.
I have been using Photoshop CS2 for processing images which can be downloaded for free from Adobe's website, it's a pretty old version but a good starting point. As I said, I'm very new to this as well so I do find it a bit daunting and have been looking for something more beginner friendly.
I'm currently checking out Startools for processing deep space images which has a fully functional demo you can download (you just can't save your images) and so far I think it's great, really easy to use and get your head around, so much so I decided to buy the full version which isn't that expensive really.
Just to give you an idea I've attached a shot of the moon from a couple of nights ago with 2 close up versions cropped from the original. The image was stacked and partly processed in Registax with final adjustments in Photoshop CS2. The more experienced guys and gals on these forums could no doubt do even more with it.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Bret
Last edited by britgc; 04-11-2014 at 09:41 PM.
Reason: terrible spelling. again...
Man they are very good , so sharp !! , did you use your FTL98 ?
Keep up the good work and don't be shy to post more , ok .
Brian.
Thanks Brian. Yes, taken with the FLT98. Shots weren't bad to start with but I was very impressed with how much it could be sharpened and cleaned up in Registax after tinkering with the settings for a while.
Nice first shots. I don't have a great deal of advice to give as I'm also new to astrophotography but hopefully I can save you a bit of time as I've also been grappling with processing software and searching for something that doesn't cost an arm, leg and several other body parts, but still does a decent job.
Registax is what I've started using for stacking images of the moon and planets - there are plenty of quickstart guides on it to get you underway plus it's free. I also use DSS for stacking deep space images.
I have been using Photoshop CS2 for processing images which can be downloaded for free from Adobe's website, it's a pretty old version but a good starting point. As I said, I'm very new to this as well so I do find it a bit daunting and have been looking for something more beginner friendly.
I'm currently checking out Startools for processing deep space images which has a fully functional demo you can download (you just can't save your images) and so far I think it's great, really easy to use and get your head around, so much so I decided to buy the full version which isn't that expensive really.
Just to give you an idea I've attached a shot of the moon from a couple of nights ago with 2 close up versions cropped from the original. The image was stacked and partly processed in Registax with final adjustments in Photoshop CS2. The more experienced guys and gals on these forums could no doubt do even more with it.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Bret
They are really nice Bret. Have you got a book or website that you use to help learn the processing, or have you just used trial and error.
I'll give registax a go and get the older version of Photoshop as you suggest - if I can produce an image like yours, I'd be very happy.
What ISO, exposure length, subs and darks etc.? Very impressive!
They are really nice Bret. Have you got a book or website that you use to help learn the processing, or have you just used trial and error.
I'll give registax a go and get the older version of Photoshop as you suggest - if I can produce an image like yours, I'd be very happy.
What ISO, exposure length, subs and darks etc.? Very impressive!
Cheers
Luke
Thanks Luke.
Images were taken for 1/200s @ ISO100 via backyardEOS.
Took something like 80-100 exposures and let registax choose the best ones to stack. Took 10 darks but didn't use them.
I already had the images so I just skipped to the pre-processing section.
I used Digital Photo Professional to do a batch conversion from RAW to TIFF files.
I used 40 alignment points during alignment in Registax6. I just tweaked the suggested sharpening settings to better suit the image I had (I only needed to do very fine adjustments).
Just fiddle a bit, you may be able to push them even more, or have to reduce them slightly, but I found them to be a good starting point.
The same goes for the photoshop bit, adjust as needed. I didn't have such a harsh white edge on my image so I didn't expand by quite as many pixels. I stopped the Photoshop processing after the curves section as I prefer the neutral look more, but that's just me.
I haven't got any books that I can suggest as I mainly rely on trial and error and researching via google and forums if I just can't get something to work. Thankfully there are lot of nice folk that have shared their knowledge via youtube tutorials and other websites/forums like IceInSpace.
I hope that all makes sense and I haven't missed anything important.
Feel free to PM if you have any questions and hopefully I'll be able to help
First ever astrophotos
, but I try to offer tips, tricks and support where I can.
Man they are very good , so sharp !! , did you use your FTL98 ? 
