The Trapesium with the DMK

[sheeny (Al)]

Since last night was the first clear night since I got the DMK, it was first light of bust! The moon set early, and Jup and saturn weren't in good positions, so I had to blood it on M42! The DMK was fitted with a UV/IR filter, and imaged through the C8 with f/6.3 focal reducer.

The first image is the first ever frame taken with my DMK - nearly resolved the trapesium! Star 6 is just a little bump in the side of its bright neighbour.

The second image was stacked in Registax 4 from a video when I finally worked out where the video capture controls were. The trap is clearly resolved in that.

The following images are different length exposures: 0.5s, 1s, 2s, 4s and 0.5s. All are stacks of multiple frames captured as single frames. I had plans to do a HDR image but I've been unsuccessful with that part of the project so far. Future attempts could benefit from more images in the stacks I think to reduce noise.

Al.

[Matty P (Matt)]

Great images Al. Looks like you had a good first light with the DMK.

Do you remember what settings you used (Gamma, Gain etc.)?

Did you get to image Saturn or Jupiter?

[sheeny (Al)]

Originally Posted by Matty P

Great images Al. Looks like you had a good first light with the DMK.

Do you remember what settings you used (Gamma, Gain etc.)?

Did you get to image Saturn or Jupiter?

It was good to get out there and to play with the DMK!

Sorry I don't remember my settings. It was all pretty hit and miss just trying to find my way around new software, etc. I didn't deviate much from the default settings though... I do remember the gain was flat out! That's where the auto settings had before I started fiddling, and I didn't mess with it.

I didn't get a chance at Jup or Saturn due to trees obscuring my view to the north and east. You get that when your dark sky site is suddenly locked up because they have started using the quarry again and you have to go elsewhere at the last minute.

I'm keen to play with the DMK on the moon especially (since colour is not so important!)

Al.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Hi Al,

I had a go at giving your images the HDR treatment. Hope you don't mind! There's some nice nebulosity in there.

Peter

[Dennis]

Excellent work Al - you've done well and I like the extra image processing from Peter too.

Cheers

Dennis

[sheeny (Al)]

Originally Posted by peter_4059

Hi Al,

I had a go at giving your images the HDR treatment. Hope you don't mind! There's some nice nebulosity in there.

Peter

Not at all! Nice work. What did you use?

I was just about to sit down to have a go at manually doing it in CS3 (since the HDR script fell over when I tried it).

Al.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

I used easyHDR. Free download and quite easy to use once you read the instructions.

[matt]

Nice work, folks.

That processing work Peter did provides a little food for thought in terms of what the DMK is capable of, beyond planets and lunar.

[sheeny (Al)]

Here's my first go at using EasyHDR.

Seems good so far!

Al.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

It's not called easyHDR for nothing. Well done.

Peter