First image - cassiopeia

[Andy-T]

Hi There

First attempt at imaging, very basic just taken with a D40 on a tripod. I tracked by hand and took 6 x 15 second subs with a few darks - I was just having a play. Then edited in elements and GIMP.

I am planning to get a few more shots of the constellations and work on processing techniques. Any advice for improvements would be greatly appreciated. I am just learning as i go, it' s so enjoyable!

Thanks

Andy

[JB80]

That is a very nice result.

Tracked by hand you say?

What lens were you using?

You may be better off not tracking it to start with.

[AstroGZ]

Fantastic first attempt!

[Alien 13]

Nicely done, if you are using gimp and PS elements it might be worth using DSS its free and does a reasonable job of stretching an image using its inbult tools you can then save it as an 8 bit image for gimp etc to finish off.

Alan

[Andy-T]

Thanks Guys

I did track by hand as it was taking me a while to get organised, i just had the camera Nikon D40 attached to my tripod. I did stack in DSS as i took 6 X 15 second subs. I will have a try at stretching Alan, someone else said this may bring more out of the image? Its a massive learning curve, im sure ill find a tutorial on here, it has been a massive help so far!

[Alien 13]

Not many people use the tools in DSS but i figure it has to be better than an 8 bit processing package of course you can save your image 1st then try and do as much as you can with it .

Alan

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I like that, it's quite arty and leaves the viewer in no doubt that they are viewing Cassiopeia. It's kind of like a photo constellation card.

You've got good star colour there (something I fail miserably to achieve). The bright stars are very large with huge diffraction spikes. This makes for an interesting effect but you might want to try stopping down the lens a little to prevent them from dominating the image. What aperture and ISO settings did you use please?

By tracking by hand I guess you mean re-framing between exposures rather than moving the tripod while the shutter was open?

[Pete Presland]

very nice capture, Schedar in particular is looking beautifull!

[WaveSoarer]

A very nice iamge the colours are very impressive indeed.

[symesie04]

really really nice. Think it looks great if that isnt obvious.

[kirkster501]

I like it as too.  I think you've got some nebulosity as well.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I really don't understand how you've managed to get such enormous diffraction spikes. I'd like to know as I'd like to recreate this effect!