ASIGN Observatory II - Astrophotography progressive improvements
I've been out of the astrophotography game for so long now while building this observatory that I've become quite rusty with the equipment and it's software. I've done a little bit here or there, but not enough to really develop my astrophotography skills.
So, I thought I would start a thread that I can post photos in along the way, to show improvements as I learn, become more experienced, take the advice of people that are better at it than me and also as I upgrade the equipment.
I've been building my skills in the daytime photography with weddings, portraits, wildlife, macro and lots of other general photography so hopefully there's a lot I have learned that I can apply to astro work - especially when it comes to understanding the processing software.
Currently I am running an Orion Starshoot one-shot colour CCD camera on the end of a Skywatcher Black Diamond ED120mm refracting telescope. After using it last night already I can see a few things I have let myself down with. Focus was fine, but I forgot to clean the sensor and I can see dust-bunnies all over the resulting photos. I know I can take flats and such, but this at least reminds me to take care of the little things first.
Anyway, for the last two nights I have been shooting five and ten minute sub-exposures (subs) on two galaxies in Sculptor for a total of a few hours on each, stacked in Deep Sky Stacker and final processing in Photoshop.
Here are the results.. not terribly happy, but at least I've got a start.
