How not to tame Dragons

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Folks,

This is no masterpiece like the truly outstanding renditions of this region we've seen recently, but it's my first effort at this

Hope you can forgive the lack of star control, I tinkered with this for a few hours and couldn't get a star mask right that didn't give me panda eyes

This is a stack and stretch of 5 hours of 10 minute subs taken at AstroFest this year, with my modded Canon 1100D hanging off the end of my Esprit 100. I've attached both the full frame view and a crop around the centre of field.

Ignoring the unsatisfactory star bloat (suggestions welcomed!) and horrid jpeg compression, is this about all I should expect out of my setup or is there anything more in there fighting to get out, given the skills and/or better conditions?

Cheers,
Dunk

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Nothing like a mayden voyage eh Dunk! Excellent signal and colour.

Did you use PI for this? I've learnt some tricks for DSLR bloaty stars masks. In short, Clone image to help create starmask- Histogram stretch - HDR multiscale compression, layers 4 interations 3 - Morphalogical transform (set to Median) - Star mask at defualt. If some larger stars have not been included, use range seletion to cover the larger stars, generate that image and add it to the star mask image using pixel math. If your not using PI , forget everything I've just said.

Given the IIS 200kp compression I think you've got a great image there. Have you tried uploading larger versions to Astrobin etc?

[RickS (Rick)]

Looks good, Dunk! Nice colours. Star control takes some work...

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Originally Posted by Rod771

Nothing like a mayden voyage eh Dunk! Excellent signal and colour.

Did you use PI for this? I've learnt some tricks for DSLR bloaty stars masks. In short, Clone image to help create starmask- Histogram stretch - HDR multiscale compression, layers 4 interations 3 - Morphalogical transform (set to Median) - Star mask at defualt. If some larger stars have not been included, use range seletion to cover the larger stars, generate that image and add it to the star mask image using pixel math. If your not using PI , forget everything I've just said.

Given the IIS 200kp compression I think you've got a great image there. Have you tried uploading larger versions to Astrobin etc?

Thanks Rod! I'll give it a try, thanks for the tips.

Originally Posted by RickS

Looks good, Dunk! Nice colours. Star control takes some work...

Thanks Rick! Ive found star masks for less crowded parts of the sky are pretty straightforward but scenes like this are a challenge for sure