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Had a go at the orion nebula last night

BillPickle

By BillPickle
in Getting Started With Imaging

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BillPickle

BillPickle

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I took 45 30s exposures at iso 800 

The moon was washing out everything but the clouds were gone so i thought why not.

I had to use a sky watcher light pollution filter so my image is a little purple but trying to remove this reduced the detail.

5 darks and 2 flats(still havent found a good way of doing them yet)

i like it though and is much better than my last attempt.

any tips would be great.

post-40820-0-82998200-1422967276_thumb.j

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Hi Bill, great picture - it is really rewarding when something appears on screen from all those images. It is obviously a little blown in the core and there still seems to be some vignetting which should be controlled by the flats (I think, I'm still learning!!!) - unless that appeared during processing?

I have the SW LP filter as well, and was taking images at 1600ISO at 60 seconds and they weren't quite as blown in the core as yours - so maybe the Moon was having a bad impact on the images. Definitely worth trying again when she is out of the way in a couple of weeks.

The next thing to do is take some shorter exposures to bring out the detail in the core. You can then stack two sets of images and blend them together in PS or GIMP to counter the over-blown central part of the image.

I had a go at this in this post - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/235224-getting-there-step-by-step-orion/

Still a long way to go for me, but it's a lot of fun.....except when there are nothing but clouds in the sky!

What do you use for stacking and processing? I've been using DSS and GIMP, so happy for you to PM me if you have any specific questions about what I have been playing around with!

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BillPickle

BillPickle

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Hi Bill, great picture - it is really rewarding when something appears on screen from all those images. It is obviously a little blown in the core and there still seems to be some vignetting which should be controlled by the flats (I think, I'm still learning!!!) - unless that appeared during processing?

I have the SW LP filter as well, and was taking images at 1600ISO at 60 seconds and they weren't quite as blown in the core as yours - so maybe the Moon was having a bad impact on the images. Definitely worth trying again when she is out of the way in a couple of weeks.

The next thing to do is take some shorter exposures to bring out the detail in the core. You can then stack two sets of images and blend them together in PS or GIMP to counter the over-blown central part of the image.

I had a go at this in this post - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/235224-getting-there-step-by-step-orion/

Still a long way to go for me, but it's a lot of fun.....except when there are nothing but clouds in the sky!

What do you use for stacking and processing? I've been using DSS and GIMP, so happy for you to PM me if you have any specific questions about what I have been playing around with!

Thanks :)

yeah i have a long way to go but learning at every step.

i took flats but when i used them it gave me a sort of brushed effect across the image. 

the processing part is whats blowing out the core of my image here is a single shot i had a go at...

Its all good fun though.

post-40820-0-76789600-1422969351_thumb.j

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BillPickle

BillPickle

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Oh i used DDS and PS cc to stack and process them.. im totally new to all this so not sure if its the messing around with curves in DDS or in PS thats over doing the image... i keep looking at the detail in the nebulosity instead of the core. plus it takes like 30 mins to see if the stack was a success haha 

thanks folks

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Bill, some will tell you to leave all alone in DSS, while I find it useful to tweak very slightly and then use GIMP (which is probably very similar to DSS) - I'll try and remember to check tonight and will let you know what I do in DSS - although it may not work for your of course - I usually have at least 20 Lights.

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Hi BIll, I said I would come back and let you know what I do in DSS. This is from reading books, watching tutorials and generally fiddling with my own images.

  1. Load LIGHTS/DARKS/BIAS/FLATS
  2. CHECK ALL
  3. REGISTER CHECKED PICTURES
  4. In the REGISTER SETTINGS box that appears I click ADVANCED and set the star detection threshold to find around 150 stars.
  5. Then to STACKING PARAMETERS
  6. in RESULT - I have STANDARD, ALIGN RGB, REDUCE WORKER THREADS PRIORITY and USE ALL AVAILABLE RESOURCES checked
  7. Under LIGHTS, I chose MEDIAN - nothing else is checked in the main window
  8. UNDER DARK, FLATS and BIAS I check MEDIAN KAPPA-SIGMA CLIPPING - nothing else is selected in the main window
  9. ALIGNMENT is set to AUTOMATIC
  10. Everything unchecked in COSMETIC (I was having trouble with my stars coming out like donuts and the hot pixel detection/removal settings in this tab appeared to be causing the issue
  11. INTERMEDIATE FILES and OUTPUT can be set to whatever works for you.
  12. Then OKAY and back to the REGISTER SETTINGS - usually I have this set to select the best 95% of pictures
  13. Then OKAY to get the stack
  14. When the image appears I do some basic tweaks in DSS. Firstly, on the LUMINANCE TAB, I change the bottom sliders on each of the 3 settings to 100% for DARKNESS 36.3% MIDTONE and 50% HIGHLIGHT - then click APPLY                                                                                  post-35662-0-25592000-1423082321_thumb.j
  15. Back to RGB/K Levels and with the LINKED SETTINGS box unchecked, line up the curves with each other and then click LINKED SETTINGS and move the combined curves so that it intersects the black curve (sorry for the lack of technical wording!) near the bottom bend in the curve with a good intersection between the two.                                                                                                                post-35662-0-06418900-1423082517_thumb.j
  16. Then finally on to SATURATION and set that to somewhere between 16% and 22% to draw out some colour.                                                      post-35662-0-69370800-1423082838_thumb.j
  17. I'll then save it as a TIFF for playing around with in GIMP or a FITS if I am playing around in STARTOOLS (although I am very much a learner with that one)
  18. You can also make a selection of an area and save the image as a cropped TIFF or FITS file                                                                                    post-35662-0-62691000-1423084028_thumb.j

Anyway, hope that helps in some way. I am sure everyone has a different way of doing things, and the results are definitely going to depend on what goes in in the first place. Some people say NO processing in DSS, while others apply a little processing, it is all, really, a personal thing, so its worth spending some time playing around!

Hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs - but if I am, feel free to ignore me!  :grin:

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BillPickle

BillPickle

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Nice one!!

It seems ive been doing it completely different. Im gonna give that a go right now...

Here is another attempt from last night...

Do you have any advice on flats as the ones ive taken really make my images look like they are printed on a tshirt haha

post-40820-0-43828300-1423085006_thumb.j

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Bill, another nice image!

I have no idea with flats other than what I have cobbled together! I am sure my method would give a few experts a heart attack...

I may have posted this already, but I use my Flower Pot contraption in this post.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/227341-flower-pot-flats-the-test/?hl=%2Bflowerpot+%2Bflats#entry2449850

All I really know is that you need to have the camera on AV setting and try and get the histogram to about 25% when you are taking the exposures. I'm still not entirely sure what this means and how to do it - I need to practice one night inside when it is cloudy, so I can spend the time figuring it all out - I just get too excited and run out when I can!

Just play around with DSS and see what all the different settings do! Obviously the more subs you have the better! I believe 30 is considered a maximum, so I usually go for around 20-30.

Good luck!

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BillPickle

BillPickle

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Bill, another nice image!

I have no idea with flats other than what I have cobbled together! I am sure my method would give a few experts a heart attack...

I may have posted this already, but I use my Flower Pot contraption in this post.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/227341-flower-pot-flats-the-test/?hl=%2Bflowerpot+%2Bflats#entry2449850

All I really know is that you need to have the camera on AV setting and try and get the histogram to about 25% when you are taking the exposures. I'm still not entirely sure what this means and how to do it - I need to practice one night inside when it is cloudy, so I can spend the time figuring it all out - I just get too excited and run out when I can!

Just play around with DSS and see what all the different settings do! Obviously the more subs you have the better! I believe 30 is considered a maximum, so I usually go for around 20-30.

Good luck!

Do you mean a maximum of 30 light frames?

maybe that explains the huge rings i got round my image when i tried to process 200 from diff nights this week.

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Well, it may depend on your exposure length etc. I am not sure it will hurt, but the benefit of more subs diminishes after a point. I've read a few accounts that suggest 30 is the key....but I am sure isn't a hard and fast rule!

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BillPickle

BillPickle

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Well the technique has made an amazing difference to my andromeda stack despite being a full moon wash out... I have a long way to go and the moon isnt helping but its all practice and I'm quite pleased with this.

I didnt think that when 8 weeks ago i got my first telescope id have images like this by now.

thanks for all the help everyone 

great tutorial marky... thanks for taking the time mate.

Much appreciated!

post-40820-0-73787100-1423095120_thumb.j

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Hi Bill, that last one might be a bit overcooked  :wink: , but at least you can see how there can always be more to eke out of the images. There are so many variables when stacking/processing that it can be a bit mind-boggling! A lot of it will come down to trial and error! Andromeda is a tricky one though, and you do need a lot more data to get the detail. If you can get the star adventurer up to 90 seconds or higher, you should be able to get more detail with less aggressive processing - just wait a little longer for the moon to fade a bit!

As for colours, a lot of it comes down to the equipment in the first palace, but then the processing is a personal thing and you can mix and match colours to your own preferences. I quite like Orion with a bit more blue in the image, while my wife prefers the images that are slightly redder. I believe the blue is going to be predominant though as my DLSR is unmodified. You just have to play around and see what you can come up with. Definitely worth checking out images on line to see what other people have done - which will also show the wide variety of ways you can process.

As I say, just my way of doing things, but hope it helps you out a bit!

Good luck and clear skies!

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