This forum is rather intimidating for beginners like me but it's a great learning tool. Here's my first picture post - Eta Carinae. Some tracking errors due to the unguided mount. Pretty polluted sky in Somerton, Adelaide. Processing is all over the place.
20 x 45 secs unguided on a Meade LX55
Tak 90II @ 4.5 with reducer. Astronomik CLS filter
Unmodded Canon 400D @ 1600 ISO JPEG with noise reduction in camera
Processed with Nebulousity & Photoshop
See what you think.
Craig
Last edited by Craig_L; 15-02-2008 at 11:51 PM.
Reason: Spelling
I've a long way to go. Hope to get autoguiding going next so I have more flexibility. I'm finding astrophotography so addictive, and time consuming! So much to learn, sleepless nights.
fantastic image! tracking and colour seem spot on. for a polluted sky, theres quite alot of details for an unmodded 400d esp around the keyhole. keep it coming.
I like it – a very nice image of this amazing region. I’m not sure if my eyes are bleary this early in the morning, but I think the focus looks slightly soft?
Well done Craig, impressive for a first picture post,
Image looks fine, a little bit of trailing but that'll disappear with guiding and probably tighter polar alignment. In fact, I'm guessing that on 45 sec shots it's probably just a matter of polar alignment
see this excellent article by Geoff Smith http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.p...63,405,0,0,1,0
don't let this forum feel intimidating, Its full of really helpful people with awesome experience and they all know we all have to start somewhere
it's the best place to be to learn!
keep up the great work and brace yourself for more and more sleepless nights (as soon as the clouds disappear!)
cheers
frank
Hi Craig, for a first shot that's a ripper! Congrats, and thanks for taking that first leap and posting your first image.. it'll get much easier from here on in.
If I can offer some advice, don't shoot in jpeg. Use RAW. You'll have much more control in post-processing and avoid compression artifacts.
It adds a bit to your workflow (and diskspace requirements), cause you may need to convert them to 16-TIF before stacking. I don't know if nebulosity can handle RAW files.
Have you looked at deepskystacker? It's a free image calibration and stacking tool. Very good and easy to use.
Yep I have to agree, for a first time and not guided, it is a ripper, well done, and like others have said, get em coming, I reckon Eta is a great practice object, I sought of learned on that one.
I have tried shooting RAW but haven't got it working in Nebulousity yet. Must be doing something wrong. Might have a go at Deepskystacker. Have some RAW shots of M42 so will play around with these.
Focus I would have liked to be a tad sharper. Sure it's not the Tak! Might have drifted a little during the shots, although the star images were slightly elongated due to tracking error. I used the Drizzle to stack in Nebulousity.
And I'm sure my polar alignment isn't that great, so will try and nail this soon.
Thanks once again for the advice and encouraging feedback.
Just means I didn't use another scope and camera to help guide the mount and main scope using software like PHD Guiding, Guidemaster etc, in order to smoothe out small variations in the mount's tracking. Do a google on Autoguiding.
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I reckon Eta is a great practice object, I sought of learned on that one.
