Long exposure DLSR shot of North American Nebula

[griz11]

Tried this the other night with the 200mm but I bought the StarLapse for my 400mm lens so I decided I'd try it out with some extra long exposures. Missed the polar alignment but just a touch so there is a tiny bit of drift on the 10 minute subs. But not much and its not the mount its the operator I can't process them worth a flip yet but they don't look too bad. Love that it fills the frame with the 400. And with the longer exposure you can clearly see the dust cloud covering up the Hydrogen clouds. This is the 4th image I've taken with the rig.

Someone on another forum gave me some links to some pretty good tutorials,  Neil's Astro Tools Action, and gradientXterminator, HLVG and WhiteCal. Learning to use those now so hopefully the processing will get better soon.  The Argo Navis will be here later this week and I can try out my DIY encoder.

Griz

[griz11]

Finally figured out DSS so I was able to calibrate as well as stack. Darks anyways I haven't taken the other ones yet. Wish I could figure out how to make the thin gas areas less grainy. Do I need to integrate longer to make that grainy look go away or is there a filter or process that people use?

Should be able to progress a little faster now. Get some bias and flats and see if that helps.

Griz

[Willi1972]

Hi Griz

This looks great. Bis sits will certainly improve the noise. Flats will help any vignetting. Can you post what length subs you used for the lights and darks? The nose will be improved by using more darks.

I'm relatively new to dss but it never ceases to amaze me how much noise can be reduced from what look to be terrible subs

[Willi1972]

Sits should have been bias. Stupid autocorrect!

[griz11]

6 darks and 6 lights 600sec f5.6 I'm just getting back into astronomy myself. This is the 4th image I"ve made with this new set-up. Just trying to figure out the processing. My mount is working great. This is the first image I've used my 400mm lens on and went for some long exposures. There is a slight bit of drift but its operator error not mount problems. I figured with the EF400 I'd be getting into the zone where you need to do a drift align. Finally hammered on DSS long enough to get some calibrated stacks with this one as well. Everything is rolling along nicely now. I used an Astronomik CLS clip in filter as well. I like the clip in filters. I want to get some narrowband ones.

Griz

[Willi1972]

Maybe it just needs more lights and darks to be able to cancel out the noise. The more the better.

[griz11]

Yep thats what I'm thinking the exposure is almost too much not much color in the stars. So next time out I'll do 12 instead of 6 lights and darks.

Griz