Hi all
I am posting this image of the California Nebula (well part of it anyway) because it shows you can get a respectable image even when things don't go right, let me explain --- I had a problem with my Starlight Xpress H36 camera in that it wouldn't work properly in binned mode so it was shipped back to SX and they fixed it and sent it back within a week. As they had to take it apart the alignment of the chip to the optical plane appeared a bit off resulting in slightly distorted star shapes so I am still in the process of making adjustments to counteract this. It was suggested to me to try longer for subframes when using Ha filters so for this subject which I knew to be relatively faint I chose 15 minute subframes unguided (I haven't got into auto guiding yet) and I set the software to do autodark subtraction and to do 12 frames which would have given me 3 hours of imaging time. Anyway during the 5th frame an inconsiderate neighbour's rooftop got in the way and that was the end of the imaging run. I did try moving on to another subject but while I was sorting out the imaging sequence the clouds came in so that was it for another night, one hour of imaging time, hardly seemed worth it. When I got back in the house I decided to have a look and I stacked the 4 useable subframes and found there was quite a bit of detail, there is still a bit of star distortion but I am working on that with adjusting the chip alignment. The stacked image required no curves or levels and the only processing was one iteration of enhance local contrast and lighten Dso in Noel's tools followed by removal of a satellite trail using the clone stamp tool and final cropping.
Any comments would be most welcome
Kind reagrds
Gordon
http://www.imagingtheheavens.co.uk/U...liforniaHa.jpg
