this is one of my first astro images (through scope), i chose tarantula cause its among my favorites
i finally got around to actually stacking some photos up allthough i used photoshop and only photoshop to process this image, i dont really have any cash for more programs, and i havent worked out iris yet as it has a deep learning curve.
mostly ive been entertained by standing outside with the shutter cable in my hand more then anything, and pulling that scope out to drift align everynight, it is fun and i enjoy it alot.
i am quite happy with the ED80's performance it sure dose do the job, i would love to get a focal reducer/feild flattener sometime in the future for it, when i have the cash, as i would love a even larger fov.
theres still plenty more room for improvements, i will get around to longer exposures and redoing tarantula.
constructive critique and comments are welcome
11x 30sec, iso1600 with ED80 and 350d, processed in photoshop
Congratulations on your first effort through a telescope, your now on that long road of learning.
You have captured a lot of detail there, might I suggest that you try ISO 800 on the 350D next time you shoot, it will cut down a lot of the noise in the shot.
In my opinion, you seem to have brought out the red channel, all the shots I have done, the Spider is a green colour of O111, you will learn how to use the Levels and Curves command in PS I am sure.
You might want to Google up Noiseware, there is a free edition that allows you to remove some of that noise saturation.
i took your advice and went and got myself noiseware, and wow im was really amazed in the difference in detail it makes. thanks so much.
i managed to preserve the details in the core in this picture, and brang out more nebula, detail and closer.
i dont really know much about how the curves tool works for photoshop, i pretty much fiddled lots to teach myself the most of the tools that i use on photoshop, i do know levels though.
i re-processed the image completely. i have troubles geting greens out of this picture, without losing quality, i shot the picture in jpegs cause i thought that would be easyer to start with, i guess i could allways change the hue, hmm o_0
what do you think?
thanks lee, neather the less, i think you will get a blast out of it, i sure am enjoying it alot
the orginal unprocessed photo's look pretty crummy, most of the enhancements to the picture is all done with image processing.
Hi Adrian, Nice shot to start with!! Actually prefer your first pic. More natural looking to me...but I`m just a beginner myself. You can try a program called neatimage as well, gives you lots of options for noise reduction but the free version will only let you save as jpg..Cheers and CS Gary
That second shot would look great in Greyscale, you have brought out a lot more detail.
I may have mislead you in my first post, leave the green channel in the shot, try and reduce the reds, they seem to have overpowered the first shot, you will find the end result more natural.
With the unmodded 350D, you will find that it is sensitive to O111, that is what the green in your shots are. After a bit more practice and getting used to the camera, try shooting in RAW's and converting.
Google up, say, "Astrophotography with a DSLR" or similar and you will get a lot of information on using a DSLR, also try something like "Astrophotography and Photoshop" and you will also get a lot of hits and there are a number of sites that have short video's on using PS.
Registax can be used minimally or in expert hands accomplish all sorts of wonderful things.
I use it minimally....click select, go to your folder of stored images, select all the ones you want to stack (using control click) when done click open
this will load the pics in registacks
if it asks these seem to be in color process in color? go yes.
the make sure you click the checkbox for processsing automatic,
click a reasonably big size for the alignment box, say 128 and the zoom checkbox.
now just pick a nice star, line it up perfectly with the zoom window and left click on it
then go to top left of the screen and left click on "Align" button,
sit back have a nice warm drink,
eventually after it has processed everything you can manipulate the image (i skip that bit myself mainly due to inexperience)
click on the tab "final"
then lower left corner click on "save"
select Tiff or whatever you like
and work that saved image with photoshop or whatever you use for image processing
hope that wasnt too confusing
hope it didnt offend any of the real artists here who can really play with registax.
I just use it basically to line up and stack images.
you can adjust the "lowest quality" setting at the top in quality estimate box to something like 85% to "cull" the less similar images, the higher the number the closer matching to one another the pics will have to be to be stacked.
