Meine Komet ist ein Wenig Kaputt

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I was just wondering if anyone has any tips for getting the comet + stars mode to work in DSS please? I've tried it and this is the result, it looks like the RGB channels are misaligned or something. I've tried checking the comet position carefully in each frame and checking the 'RGB align' option, but no joy.

In the end I stacked the starfield and comet Jacques sseparately then blended the two images together. However, this has left some streaks around the comet that I'd like to remove if possible. Any help would be appreciated.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

No suggestions? I don't suppose there is another forum anyone would recommend that I could ask on?

[Spikey]

I couldn't get the comet stacking to work properly either. In the end I did the same as you and produced two pictures. I didn't blend though I layer masked the comet into the star field. When I get off a phone I'll put the pics up.

[Mr Spock]

This will happen if you do individual RGB. The comet will move inbetween each exposure so when you lign up the comet the start RGB images will not match. If you align the stars then the comet will have three images...

[Knight of Clear Skies]

This will happen if you do individual RGB. The comet will move inbetween each exposure so when you lign up the comet the start RGB images will not match. If you align the stars then the comet will have three images...

That would make sense, except I used a DSLR. Capture details are 24 x 2 minute subs with a 135mm lens on a modded Canon 100D, I'm trying to stack the best 15 due to tracking issues.

[Bizibilder]

2 min subs of Jacques will show a slight trail as Jacques is moving pretty quickly.  DSS may have trouble stacking these as it is trying to find a "single spot" image for the comet (hope this makes sense!).   When I took some similar shots I use 30sec subs and DSS stacked them OK - either fixed on the comet or the stars.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

2 min subs of Jacques will show a slight trail as Jacques is moving pretty quickly.

What focal length were you using though please? At 135mm it appears circular in my subs, I can't see a trail (its tail was pointing almost directly away from us when the image was taken).

Here's a cropped animation I made from the subs if that's any help, which covers 48 minutes plus some change waiting between shots for various reasons:

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Some things I've tried in case it is of any help:

- Setting the comet position in each sub, a couple times from scratch in case I made a mistake somewhere. The comet shows up nicely in the star mask.

- Setting the comet position in the first and last subs only (following the suggestion of this guide) - DSS then uses the timestamps to work out the position in the intermediate frames.

- Stacking all the subs, even the trailled ones.

- Removing unused subs from the file list.

- Different stacking modes.

- With and without RGB align checked.

Looking at the widefield imaging forum other people have managed it successfully, but I don't know what method they used and whether they used DSS or something else. I'm not sure if it's a problem with my methods or my data.

[RikM]

Could never get DSS to work for comment and stars. I did it the same as Spikey, stacked on the stars, then on the comet and dropped the comet on top with a layer mask..

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions everyone. I may have to give up on this for the time being, DSS comet + stars just worked for another poster so it probably doesn't like my subs for some reason. This is the best I can do for now, which is an improvement on the streaky version I think.

I don't have to photoshop skills to sort this out at the moment, I might revisit this again when I've had a chance to learn how to use layers and masks. It may seem like a lot of effort for a small green blob but Jacques is the first comet I've imaged, and I'd like to get the best out of it.