1st stacked and processed image

[Startrek (Martin)]

After taking pretty good single frames for the past 8 months, this is my 1st stacked and processed image ( started off with an easy one )

M7 Ptolemy Cluster NGC 6475 mag 3.3
Waxing gibbous Moon shining right down my OTA

150mm f6 newt
HEQ5 Pro Mount
Canon 600D stock
unguided
Goto via Stellarium scope, Stellarium and EQMOD
Captured by BYEOS
20 x subs @ 30sec
10 x darks @ 30sec
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools
File sized reduced in paint

Don’t Laugh !!

Martin

[AstroBogan (Jacob)]

Very respectable first stack and process, looks clean!

Not sure if it is my eyes, but just looking at the image on my phone and it looks a tad green, which if it is, should be an easy fix

[RyanJones]

Hey Martin,

Welcome to the addiction. It's a really nice first process with nice clean defraction lines. Well done.

If I was going to make any comment it would be that 50% darks to lights is a bit overkill and you might be making your post processing harder than it needs to be. I generally run on about 10% which should be plenty unless you have an excessively noisy sensor.

What iso were you using ? Your whites are clean so I'm guessing it was not overly high.

Good work. Well done

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thanks guys

I used ISO 400
I follow astrobackyard Trevor Jones a bit , his recommendation was to use up to 15 darks and 15 flats

The moon was washing out everything when I increased ISO and exposure time beyond 30 sec
I’m pretty happy with the outcome considering I knew nothing about Startools
I thought it looked a bit blue , but in Colour,the settings were Red 2.0 , Green 1.0 min and Blue 1.0 min

Still getting my head around all these new names, terms and processes

I was bitten by the Astronomy bug when I looked at the moon through my 10” dob 18 months ago !!

[RyanJones]

From my experience Martin, which is very limited, I found that it's not necessarily how many darks and flats that you use, it's the ratio between them & your light subs. At ISO400, it's unlikely you're going to have enough signal noise to require so many darks. I do agree that in light polluted skies whether it be the moon or artificial, slightly more darks are helpful.You do however pay the price on the other end in dragging colour out in post processing. I'm sure you'll find many people to disagree but that's just my experience. Having said that, It's a fantastic shot for the start of your journey

[xelasnave]

Well done Martin good to see you taking advantage of stacking.
Alex

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thanks Alex
It’s amazing how much unseen data ( detail ) can be exposed and extracted by these amazing software programs

Although I did learn a lot in the past 8 months capturing good single frames both in light polluted Sydney and down the South coast at my semi dark holiday pad

Cheers

[sil (Steve)]

darks, flats, raws even are not actually essential to get an image you can process with jpegs if you want. So use what you're comfortable with in darks and flats and you can often reuse those with different nights lights not ultra important to do every single session. But if you do you can get a better end result as your processing becomes more advanced. Starting out, focus on getting a bunch of lights stacked to get "a result". using raws, darks, flats, bias frames all just add improvements in different ways that you might not immediately notice but when you start to push your knowledge limits and the software limits and try catching ultra feint or small targets it becomes more essential to not cut corners in any part of your processing workflow and the less you use "throw all the files in and hit a button" options. I sometimes only grab a dozen or so darks but usually around 50 (i'm grabbing around 500 lights) and i'm still learning and tweaking how i process and preprocess. So dont put too much stock in numbers people give you. Make note of what you do so you have a repeatable process to capture and process subs to get a "final image". get that going first then start to break down the steps to more detailed and precise methods to improve things in the end. Its always fluid. As long as you're enjoying it andlike what you're catching. Youve got good detail there in that shot and you've now learnt dslr gives a green cast so you can now learn how to remove that, some software has a specific tool just for that.

[Cimitar (Evan)]

Great star field Martin! I particularly like the depth of field you've achieved. All those stars and yet my gaze is slowly drawn to each one.
I really enjoyed that

[Startrek (Martin)]

Thanks for the encouragement

This 1st processed image has got me excited as it was taken in light polluted Sydney, the neighbour had their back flood lights on and the moon was staring down my OTA

I can’t wait to get down to my holiday pad soon, no light pollution, no neighbours lights and the Milky Way is painted across the night sky

My next challenge is PHD2 guiding to extend my exposure time beyond 1 minute. At the moment I’m limited to mag 6 to 7 objects due to my 150mm scope

Exciting times ahead !!

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Startrek

Thanks Alex
It’s amazing how much unseen data ( detail ) can be exposed and extracted by these amazing software programs

Although I did learn a lot in the past 8 months capturing good single frames both in light polluted Sydney and down the South coast at my semi dark holiday pad

Cheers

You are doing well.
As Sil says keeps notes. I keep saying that and yet do not have a really good system.
I find being out in the cold trying this and that I forget and after a couple of nights in a row with poor sleep I really lose it and forget stuff what I have done how I did it and things that need attention. I am putting together a list for set up now...its all simple stuff but you get distracted and its so easy to miss something...top of the list is check everything is tight...I could not work out why guiding was crap the other night and for whatever reason had not tightened the guide scope properly..it caught somehow felt tight but...little things can cause big problems.

The thirty second approach really works and I think even if you have poor polar alignment you can get away with it ...in fact it saves dithering.

I do think its probably a good idea to get into the habit of taking darks and flats ...you can take darks as you are packing up and flats once inside …

I do like your little star spikes..some folk don't but they look really neat in your photo.

You can take another batch of the same object you know without it being exactly lined up.
Deep Sky Stacker is wonderful.
I rotated my camera 180 degrees and stacked shots "right way up" and "upside down" it spat them out all lined up in one final frame...so if you have another go at the same object just get it in the frame and capture away....the more captures the better as you can get a better group over time...I have a large bank of some objects now such I can throw out half of them and still have a good batch to stack..DSS scores them so you just keep improving your average.



Alex