M31

[jaygpoo]

Hi out there,  After months of equipment and software problems + clouds I finally got my gear set up and working the other night. The PHD2 was sorted out and using a 70mm travel scope with a QHY5 ll camera I started guiding for the first time. My 80mm ED APO scope an QHY8L  locked on to M31 and I took a 180sec exposure. Good result with M31 bang in the centre and no star trails. I sat back and took 20 x 180 images. Time did not allow more as it was 3am and work in the morning.  Later I used deepsky stacker and fitsliberator to get a tiff file. This i put into photoshop . I have done this with other images and had some fairly good results in my learning curve. However on this one when I adjusted the level and curve the first time it looked good but the second time the data block split in two looking like two mountains and the resulting image good as it is has vertical lines right across it. I am guessing the data split is the course?  Any processing tip would be great as youtube is the only place for souls like me and its very impersonal.  Jay

[red dwalf]

firstly congrats on your first image, 

when processing do your levels first, you need to move the left hand slider up alittle to the start of the information peak, then once done a few times little at a time, then move onto curve, place the eye dropper onto the darkest part of the image and click, it`ll show a point on the curves line, Ancker this point by clicking on the same point on the line, do the same but this time on the core of the image and acker again, this will help stop the core from over exposing when you move the line, thirdly click on the dust lanes and ancker this point, then move this point to bring out the dust lanes better.