imakebeer

I posted an image of M42 early last December, one of my first pics with my 150PDS, and very pleased with the result at the time. But in an effort to keep upping my skills I went back and had another go at processing it in GIMP, this time using layer masks to try and bring out more nebulosity yet preserve the bright core. The original stack was only 60 x 15s @ ISO 400 + 10 darks, so not ideal. The difference in the processed results is quite subtle but it's definitely there and I'm encouraged to keep trying with this technique (plus when the opportunity arises I plan to re-image M42 capture way more data, like 120 x 60s!) Original Image Re-Processed Image with Layer Mask

Umm... What's GHT? I mean, obviously I know, but just in case anyone else is reading 😉

Funnily enough I posted a pic of M45 yesterday taken with my 150PDS and precessed in Siril. I think yours is cropped a tad more than mine but I felt like Siril had made the diffraction sounds go a bit bananas and I'm wondering if it's had a similar effect for you. You've done a great job at bringing out the nebulosity though, and I like the colours better then mine 👍 I feel like Siril also results in uneven backgrounds, lighter in some areas and darker in others - maybe to do with background extraction? I can maybe see it a little in yours but not as stark, or I could be imagining it! 😂 So much to learn and such a long way to go with post processing - onwards & upwards! 👍

@wesdon1 That's a nice looking image of Jupiter 👍 You should post it up in the planetary section with a few details

Continuing to hone my AP skills I went back to M31, plus a bit of M45 since I had the gear setup and time in hand. I still think I've got miles to go with processing compared to the best pics but I'm pleased that I can see my progress in my own work from one session to the next after just a few months. With both of these images I wonder if I'd benefit from getting to grips with layer masks to process the lighter and darker regions separately? Something to try I guess! SW150PDS + Nikon D5500 + BYN. I doubled my previous longest imaging time on M31 from 60 to 120 x 60s @ ISO 400. Same settings for M45 but only 30 x 60s. I also did 20 each darks, bias and flats. Stacked and processed in Siril, plus a bit more tweaking in GIMP. For M31 I think this time I've managed to capture a hint of the finer detail further out - this just really emphasises to me how flippin' big M31 is! I wonder if it's possible to do a mosaic to capture a wider field? (I'm sure it is). I think I can also see some hint of coma(?) towards the edges - I do have a coma corrector that I haven't used it which will also widen the FOV a little I believe so can give it a try. With M45 the framing isn't so good - ideally I'd have rotated the camera to frame it better but I wanted to leave it in place until the morning to do my flat frames. Also something somewhere must have happened in Siril that made the diffraction spikes go a bit bananas!

Little update - I posted a recent pic of M33 over here. As noted there it was the first chance I'd had to put into practice the tips everyone has kindly given in this thread. Still a way to go but I'm pleased with the improvement over previous images of M33. I think 120 x 60s has made a big difference compared with earlier efforts using only 30-60 light frames. Also it seems ISO 400 is plenty good enough and leaves plenty of leeway for messing with the histogram 👍 Question: I "only" did 10 each darks, flats and biases (vs. 120 lights). Would there be any benefit to doing more of these, say, 20?

Been a few weeks since I did any DSOs and still very early days for me but I had a few hours to leave the gear to do its thing and put into practice the advice kindly given over in this thread. SW150PDS + HEQ5 + Nikon D5500 120 x 60s @ ISO 400 (+10 each darks, flats & bias) processed in Siril plus fund running in GIMP I'm pleased with the result - I'm still a way behind the best but I only started in Oct 22 and looking at my previous images of M33 the progression is clear 😊

Newbie question: I've read about layer masks, particularly relating to M42, so I've a rough idea of what they are and why you might use them in this case. If I've understood correctly you kinda trace round the bright nebula so you can tweak the colours independently of the darker background. Is it a very manual process to draw the outline in GIMP which I'm using in my case?

Thanks for that @inFINNity Deck, I will try processing my video using similar steps. Main differences for me are I'm capturing in colour, I use GIMP and don't have Topaz yet. I'll be interested to try those settings in AS3! though. Aren't they the same thing, or at least different sides of the same coin? I.e. exposure time = 1 / Frame rate??? From my limited experience in Sharpcap so far (assume Fire Capture will do pretty much the same thing) I could set the exposure time much lower, but then I'd have to crank up the gain... Maybe I'm wrong but in my simple brain I'm thinking of gain as an analogue to ISO, so more gain => more noise??? There also seems to be a relationship between gain and frame rate, or at least write speed to the HDD over USB3, but u haven't que figured it out yet 🤔

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll check them out 👍 Incidentally, while I was out the other night I also had a look at Polaris and - ooh, can't remember now, it was either Rigel or Alnitek, both in Orion - anyway, I was unable to split either... Not sure if these are particularly challenging, but equally it could have been a misted up eyepiece, Polaris was just in the treetops and Orion was just peeking over the top of my house. For some reason I'm also determined to try and see Epsilon Lyrae but as soon as Vega appears it's almost disappearing being trees for me so this might have to wait 6-9 months.

Hard to say as I'm still figuring out what settings work best for me but I'm typically playing around in Sharpcap with exposures around 1/60 or 1/125, I think (from memory), plus doing different combinations of exposure and gain. But mostly I'm looking at the histogram and going for something between approximately 30-70%. It might be that I need to crank up the frame rate and use more gain, but as I say, I'm still figuring this out.

Wow! That really is mind-blowing! 🤯🤯🤯😲😲😁😁

I just split my first binary star and literally gasped like a little kid the instant I saw it and jumped up and down excitedly! 🤣😊🤩 I went out for an hour or two earlier this evening, dodging clouds and determined just to do some visual. Pointed the scope at Almach and there it was, bang in the centre of the FOV, the big yellow one and the smaller blue one staring back at me. (Apologies if I have the whole double/binary star terminology wrong for Almach, I'm aware there's a difference - Stellarium says it's a "spectroscopic binary") I'm intrigued to understand more about the two stars, what the colours tell us about their size etc. as I'm only vaguely aware of the science I also had a look at the Hyades which I've never really looked at before - it's like a triangle of 3 pairs (double?) of stars and reminds me of The Predator's laser sight! 😂 My daughter also joined me - she loved using the Synscan controller to point the scope. We had a look at Jupiter and looked up which moon was which, then Mars, and then we looked at Uranus and Neptune, neither of which I've ever actually looked at before. Neptune is so faint, but there's a star just up/down from it that is marginally brighter. Alas, the clouds rolled in again so I called it a night, but that was fun and I'm pleased to have shared some of it with my daughter 😊

Thanks again everyone for the advice, I have some updates with a couple of images below. I spent some time playing during the day earlier this week, comparing different combinations of no Barlow / 2x / 5x and the ZWO ASI120 vs Altair 224 (3x Barlow arrived in the post today!). Initially the ZWO seemed to give a more pronounced difference between the 2x & 5x Barlows. One important thing I figured out, which @PeterC65 alluded to, is each camera has a different distance from the extension tube to the samera. The Altair has an extra 20mm-ish extension tube you can screw on, but I think even this isn't enough so I need to push it not all the way in to the Barlow. Later that evening (2nd Jan) I had a few clear hours after sunset to try with Jupiter and Mars. Not ideal doing it from the back garden at it meant Jupiter was just over the roof of the house - I could go out the front but then I have to contend with streetlights! I took way more video (at various different gains and exposure times) than I've yet had time to process but I did the ZWO + 2x Barlow and the Altair + 5x Barlow. The latter seemed better overall. I'll also add that the Altair + 5x Barlow combo (with the camera not pushed fully in!) now seems to give me an image size of Jupiter about 150px across which is more or less what Stellarium predicts in its FOV tool. I had a go at using the tools in PIPP to select the best quality frames but it didn't seem to add any benefit. I've also had a go with Winjupos but so far it's only outputting my colour videos in black & white (anyone know why?). So for now it's just trusty old AS3! + Registax. I've had a few goes and the images below are probably the best I've done yet for either planet. In particular I'm interested to try and relate the patterns on Mars to a map but I've not figured it out yet (1954hrs on 2nd Jan 2023 if anyone can tell me) Jupiter (no drizzle) Mars (3x drizzle)

@PeterStudz this is a fantastic picture you're painting, I really should give it a go myself. My journey into astronomy was similar - a couple of years ago we bought a telescope for my youngest daughter (similar age to yours from what I've read on here) and it's kind of gone from there. The trick will be to keep the kids involved and not get carried away on my own. Although neither of them have the stamina to spend ages in the cold, they are interested to come and have a look. Oh, and they also like driving the laptop to capture planetary images or telling the Go-To where to point! 😊 And for everyone else, thank you so much for the inspiration about visual astronomy. I'm surprised at the level of responses I've seen. The other night I was out with the scope - I ended up capturing way more planetary images then I have time to process and I'm inclined next time to allow way more time for visual and try some sketching (it also occurred to me the kids might also like to try sketching too). One thing that really caught my eye during that session was actually while I was polar aligning. I was looking at Vega down the eyepiece at the time, but what really caught my eye was the more faint stars surrounding it. The 150PDS with it's supplied 2" 28mm eyepiece seems to do a great job of resolving these. I'll have to make a sketch next time 🔭👍

Nice image @geoflewis👍 I've seen similar vertical horizontal marks in some of my own images from time to time, but hasn't realised the cause. Question: Do you think there's any benefit to using PIPP in this way more routinely? So far I've only used it to merge zillions of JPEGs into a single AVI, not much of a surprise to learn it can do lots more. I suppose what you're doing here is using it to pre-discard bad frames that will later on get discarded (probably) by AS3!. Also making a mental note to check out Winjupos to see what that can add for me 👍

Great job @wesdon1, glad to see you're keeping at it 👍This is still just with your DSLR on a fixed tripod, right? Funnily enough I was out a couple of nights ago (29th Dec) having another go at the moon and planets and took a similar pic of the moon. One thing I can recommend from one newbie to another is take a look at http://planetaryimagingtutorials.com/ and the associated videos on YouTube. In the stacking section he takes you through Autostakkert, then in the processing section he goes through sharpening in Registax. He doesn't profess to be an all knowing expert, but his basic steps with these powerful tools continue to serve me well for the time being. Anyway, I used these basic steps on my own moon pic and was pleased with the result - I did a tiny bit of extra work in GIMP using the histogram tools just to bring out the shadows and highlights just a little more (remember the GIMP tutorial video I shared in your other thread recently?). Anyway, keep it up, it's looking good 👍

Prevent a spaghettified rats nest of laptop/goto mount/camera/USB cables by using old bog roll tubes as cable tidies 👍 (or possibly just take up visual astronomy 🤣)

Yeah, this is something I'd been wondering. When I was imaging Mars I did actually try moving the Barlow relative to the focuser tube, and also the camera relative to the Barlow - it certainly wasn't exhaustive but I couldn't find a sharper or much bigger image (yet!). I will kepp experimenting, including with the 2x & 3x Barlows 👍 Haha, BackyardNikon and BackyardEOS - commonly used for capture if you're using a Nikon or Canon. Free trial and thereafter paid for but starting out I found them much more user friendly and intuitive than anything else. I use them for DSO AP as I have a Nikon D5500 & Canon 450D, but the Altair/ZWO planetRY cameras necessitate someting else, hence Sharpcap. OK, so might be worth me checking out DeNoise as a possible alternative to Registax - thanks 👍 Thanks for the encouragement buddy, I will 👍💪😊

Hey @TheThing , I asked a similar question here a few weeks back. Might be worthwhile having a read through to see what else you can pick up in addition to what's been said here. A number of the kind folks on SGL were kind enough to add their thoughts, plenty of great advice there which I will be putting in to practice as and when the opportunity arises 👍

Couldn't resist also sharing this Mars image - was too ashamed of the poor quality to share them before but just gone through the post-processing again and was rather pleased and surprised when this popped out from Registax. Still not amazing but probably my best Mars image yet, much better than my previous orange/brown blobs! 😊

Thanks for the offer, much appreciated 👍🙏 These are the 3 Jupiter logs from Sharpcap (Mars wasn't much different). Mainly I was just playing around with gain and exposure to vary the histogram between about 40-60% (or maybe 30-70%). 20_28_58.CameraSettings.txt 20_33_06.CameraSettings.txt 20_24_48.CameraSettings.txt

Thanks again for the tips @PeterC65 👍 I've gone through AS3! again now I know what drizzle is doing - there was a moon (I think) just on the edge of the image so I've uncropped it slightly and done it with drizzle = 3, sharpened again in Registax and stretched the histogram round the moon to brighten it a little. I'm still mystified why the initial image of Jupiter is so small, so few pixels. I'd like to solve this. I'm not sure the drizzled image is much different to just enlarging it in GIMP of MS Paint, it's still fuzzy, but maybe the seeing last night really was just rubbish. Maybe here in the UK we just need to budget for an ADC??? But I will keep trying, and experiment with different Barlows and maybe try the ASI120 just to see.

Good point, but no - it's set to 1x1 which I think is correct (I read up recently roughly what binning is, so hopefully I've got that right)

The AVI files are 320 x 240 as expected - that's what I had set in Sharpcap. The stacked images output from AS3!, and also the sharpened ones from Registax are 144 x 144 - again, expected as that's how I cropped them in AS3!. But the actual disc of Jupiter is only about 83px in diameter. @PeterC65 - I can input the gear into my Stellarium mobile app, and as you say it simulates the FOV (I guess I could also use the similar tool linked on the FLO website!). I wasn't clear if I should input the maximum sensor size (1280 x 960) or what I actually captured (320 x 240). Also I assume your estimated Jupiter being about 200px diameter is just based on eyeballing the size relative to the frame size - at least the app doesn't tell me "Jupiter is x-pixels big".