Reprocessed M42 in BW

sheeny (Al) · #1 22-11-2006, 07:01 PM

This is a reprocessed image of one I posted last week.

Captured with C8, f/6.3 focal reducer, ToUcam and K3ccdtools - unguided.

One stack of 40 images at 10 seconds exposure, HDR processed with another stack of 49 images at 2.5 seconds.

MAP processed and stacked in Registax 4. HDR processing, shadows and highlights and saved for the web in in PS CS2. The image is not sharpened in any way.

Wish it was in colour!

I think less gain, more frames, longer exposure and guiding would help the noise a bit.

Al.

Dennis · #2 22-11-2006, 07:07 PM

Hi Al

Gee, that's a great image, especially for a ToUcam! Almost makes my SBIG ST7E redundant! Any reason why you didn't uncheck the B&W box? That would give you colour would it not?

Cheers

Dennis

sheeny (Al) · #3 22-11-2006, 07:21 PM

Dennis, there's a very technical reason for capturing in BW... I'll try to explain it in simple terms...

I forgot to uncheck it after imaging the moon on the previous session... (I didn't even notice until my last avi of the night - I was using a red screen filter so didn't notice the lack of colour as it was captured either)

I find as I get older I'm doing more and more stupid and embarrassing things... I hope I don't wear out my sense of humour... that would be sad! I console myself by thinking about all the young sharp minded dudes that this will also happen to one day!!!

Al.

sheeny (Al) · #4 22-11-2006, 07:23 PM

BTW thanks for the praise!

Al.

davidpretorius · #5 22-11-2006, 07:33 PM

Well Done Al, I think every one of us has doen something similiar along the way!

atalas · #6 22-11-2006, 08:33 PM

Very nice inner detail Al!

Dennis · #7 22-11-2006, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheeny

Dennis, there's a very technical reason for capturing in BW... I'll try to explain it in simple terms...

I forgot to uncheck it after imaging the moon on the previous session... (I didn't even notice until my last avi of the night - I was using a red screen filter so didn't notice the lack of colour as it was captured either)

I find as I get older I'm doing more and more stupid and embarrassing things... I hope I don't wear out my sense of humour... that would be sad! I console myself by thinking about all the young sharp minded dudes that this will also happen to one day!!!

Al.

Hmm, reminds me of Qld Astrofest 2006. I had the mount perfectly polar aligned, auto guiding was spot on. I was grabbing 3 minute sub frames of NGC6744, all 20 of them. Or so I thought. At the end of the session, I noticed that I had forgotten to “tick” the “Save every image” box, so I ended up not with 20 x 3 min exposures, but only 1 x 3 minute exposure. Then, the clouds rolled in….

I would have got away with it, but Mr H0ughy happened to pass by as I was sobbing, and so my secret was out….

Cheers

Dennis

asimov (John) · #8 23-11-2006, 06:44 AM

Yeah, I've done a few stoopid things with the wecam like taken 6 AVI's of Jupiter, but forgot to save them as separate AVI's, hence writing over the top of the first one 5 times! AAARRRGGH!

Good start Al, Give it a go with 20 second exposures if your trackings up to it.

sheeny (Al) · #9 23-11-2006, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asimov

Yeah, I've done a few stoopid things with the wecam like taken 6 AVI's of Jupiter, but forgot to save them as separate AVI's, hence writing over the top of the first one 5 times! AAARRRGGH!

Good start Al, Give it a go with 20 second exposures if your trackings up to it.

The stuff ups just remind us how human we are, and make the times when we do get everything right just that bit more special!

I'll have a go with 20 sec exposures when I get my tracking good enough. I couldn't get the drift explorr window up in K3 to fine tune my alignment when I captured this. I've since fixed that problem... updated K3 and all is good.

I just need to watch the star images... you can see the stars are starting to bloom in the above image.

Thanks Asi and Dennis.

Al.

Octane (Humayun) · #10 28-11-2006, 06:32 PM

Al,

That's fantastic for a web cam. Far out! Talk about pushing the envelope.

Regards,
Humayun

sheeny (Al) · #11 11-12-2006, 09:01 PM

I'm going to be a rank novice by the time I get to use my scope again!

To fill in the time, I thought I'd have a go at learning the High Pass Filter processing technique from Doug's article.

Here's the results with the "original" HDR image for comparison. Stars are still ugly from blooming... but you get that!

Thanks Doug

for a great article! I enjoy learning new stuff!

Al.