I figured it was time to dabble in some DSO's, so last week I bought a Saxon ED80, along with the appropriate adapters to attach my Canon 350D to it.
I gave it first light on Saturday morning, 15th September, from my backyard at about 4am. The seeing wasn't good enough to image Mars with my 12", so I went widefield and put the ED80 on the EQ6 and captured my first DSO!
EQ6, Saxon ED80, Canon 350D.
16x 30s exposures @ ISO800, ICNR on, mirror lockup on, unguided.
I kept the exposures to 30s because I wasn't sure how accurate my alignment was (I didn't dift align) and I wasn't guiding. By the end of the session the sky was brightening and the last few frames had a much bluer background and had to be reduced in processing.
I used ImagesPlus for stacking, and I added the images rather than averaging them to reduce noise. After averaging, the result was too dim due to the short exposures, and stretching the levels reduced the dynamic range too much, bringing out too much grain and made the image look shallow.
After adding, the image was bright enough and I used Noiseware to reduce the noise. Further saturation, levels and curves were adjusted in Photoshop, as well as masking of the core to reveal the fine detail in the trapezium.
I'm really happy with my real image of a Deep Space object! I'm looking forward to dabbling a bit more, eventually with guiding and longer exposures.
Good stuff Mike. Glad to see you stepping outside your planetary comfort zone M42 turned out well for you!
I plan to do some DSO work with the D40 at Magellan Observatory this coming long weekend - on some of Zane's perfectly aligned optical gear. I can't wait to see what the D40 can do - good or bad. I suspect that it's sensitive enough to be better than it seems to be given credit.
How much is there involved in stacking using ImagePlus? Are you stacking RAW or JPEG images? Is there a shareware equivalent that you know of?
Good stuff Mike. Glad to see you stepping outside your planetary comfort zone
Thanks Chris, it was definitely something I wasn't used to but I'm of course already very familiar with my DSLR so this wasn't a huge leap thank goodness.
Quote:
How much is there involved in stacking using ImagePlus? Are you stacking RAW or JPEG images? Is there a shareware equivalent that you know of?
Like Paul said, DeepSkyStacker is free, and I did use that on my images first. It seemed to do a very good job too, and was maybe a bit quicker than IP. The image turned white in some cases and could only be seen/processed in photoshop after saving as TIF from DSS.
I captured in RAW, and converted to 16bit TIF using RawShooterPremium (after adjusting whitebalance to make them the same).
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Originally Posted by sheeny
Turned to the dark side, eh?
It's quite a nice composition of the whole sword, not just M42.
Thanks Al, I was pleased that the FOV of the 350D with the ED80 could fit the whole sword including the running man.
I don't know about turning to the dark side.. My main love is still planetary, but this is a nice distraction when I can't capture Jupiter anymore and Mars is so low in the North.
I can also tell already that to do DSO's properly i'm going to need guiding, more time, more exposure, etc. It's a lot of work to capture 1 image
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Originally Posted by Ric
Very nice indeed Mike, looking at that image one would think you have been imaging DSO's for years.
Thanks Ric, I'm pleased for my very first prime focus DSO - but a lot of the skills and techniques required can be transferred from any type of imaging.
Thanks everyone for your nice comments. It means a lot.
That's a knock-out first DSO image, Mike. If you bring the same level of skill to this as your planetary photography we're going to be in for a treat. Fitting to make your very first object M42 too. Beautifully composed.
nice first go mike
@ 30sec exposures i guess you wouldnt get much in the way of running on of stars (technical name escapes me lol) so they are lovely and round.
M42- My first Prime Focus DSO!
M42 turned out well for you!
Fantastic Mike, congrats
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