Hi all,
This will be my last shot for awhile. You'll be sick of my shots by now!
Last night I wanted to go longer than ever on M20. I've actaully yet to really nail this nebula.
So I setup for 30x4min exposures!! Thats 120mins of total exposure.
Came out ok, but not a great deal of improvement over shots half as long.
Although the processing was much easier due to the extra noise reduction after stacking so many. http://www.star-mate.com/temp/M20.htm
Oh........What can I say Robby... What a totally MARVELLOUS picture!!!!!!! Please DONT stop posting pics like this?!? How could one get sick of seeing this sort of thing? Well done mate! Keep them coming! Do you do requests?? LOL
In all seriousness, It's the best shot of M20 I've ever seen with a scope such as yours....And you reckon you haven't nailed it yet!? Geez....Please nail it then, by all means! That's my request!
I meant that I hadn't nailed it until now. Well, I think I've almost nailed it.. There are still a couple of things with it that needs work, but generally it came out well. Just don't look too close to the edge of the field...! Bit of coma there from the focal reducer.
Cheers
Very impressive , diffraction spikes look great , what ISO was it did you go lower then usal with the greater number of frames to stack ......finding with the D70 going over 800 results in images difficult to tweak in processing
Keep them coming Robbie..don't stop now you have it humming along nicely. No one is bored!
Have I got it right--you stacked 30 shots each four minutes exposure? or was it the other way, 4 thirty minute exposures
If it is the first... man, you must have some grunt in your PC-I'm assuming these are all RAW files-each say 6 or 7 meg in size? What software did you use ?
Beren, I have settled on ISO800. I was using ISO1600, but the extra noise wasn't worth the increased sensitivity. What's an extra minute of exposure anyway!
Seeker, Yep, it's 30x 4min shots. I'll let you into a little secret... I actually shoot in jpeg I have found RAW too cumbersome, and gave little or no advantage. Although I have come along way since making the switch, so should try RAW again, for comparison. Software I use is Photoshop. It was quite an effort to dark subtract, align, & stack in Photoshop, but we got there... Woudn't want to do it every day. Really should think about getting some specific calibration software. One day.
Gary, Coma is there, particularly in the lower right corner. Bit annoying, but probably only to me!! Am pretty happy with it really.
O"boy thats some work ....just experimented with 8 frames before {taken through the D70 with the inbuilt noise reduction on} and did what i think is right
1.open 2 images select all, copy , paste
2.select difference,use move tool to align
3.select normal set opacity to 50%
4.save etcetc to get 4 frames and co forth until one remains
So you layered etc all your single images with a dark frame and then stacked them after like the method i tried to explain......?
Cheers
Yep that's pretty much it. I do dark frame on every image first. Then stack 10 at a time using this method. The opacity of each lay is reduced by 1/x for each layer.
Layer1 = 100%
Layer2 = 50%
Layer3 = 33%
Layer4 = 25% etc....
So with the 30 I ended up with 3 images after doing 3 seperate 10 stacks. Then stack those 3. Done I know there are easier ways, but they cost money, which I don't have much of at the moment .. Darn tax man!
Cheers
I have found RAW too cumbersome, and gave little or no advantage. Although I have come along way since making the switch, so should try RAW again, for comparison. Software I use is Photoshop. It was quite an effort to dark subtract, align, & stack in Photoshop, but we got there... Woudn't want to do it every day. Really should think about getting some specific calibration software. One day.
It's now my computers wall-paper.
