AdityaR

PRE-READ: Everything was made possible by me(17), with the help of My Brother(16) and My Father and My Mother. It was a combined effort ofc! Equipment: Telescope - Celestron Nexstar 8SE with f/6.3 SCT Focal Reducer on an Alt-Az Mount Alignment - Standard Three Star SkyAlign Camera - Canon EOS 600D/ T3i (used a Canon T-Ring and T-Adapter to mount it to the OTA.) Software Used to Capture Light Frames - APT Processing Softwares - Siril, Photoshop 2023 Total Light - ~40mins LIght Frames - 6s x 400 decent frames at ISO1600 (took 500 but DSS rejected 100 of 'em) Dark Frames - 6s x 60 decent frames at ISO1600 So Hey Guys, This is my first attempt at another galaxy after my failed M31 attempt back in October of 2023. I guess it turned out pretty well for a Newb like me lol😅. My area has two big Mercury Lights and they were a lot of hindrances, but they turned off one night somehow and I knew it was a signal. The area I live in has a Bortle 7-8 sky (Pretty Harsh!), so had to deal with a lot of noise. But I somehow managed it. The processing is still off and I can see it, you can too, (talking about those clouds, idk how they got there, I think Siril is at fault). But since it's the Galaxy Season - I will get a lot of chances till Early June. So Yeah that's pretty much it. I hope I will have lots more to show to you guys. Thanks and Sayonara~ Edit: The Third Photo is processed solely with Adobe Photoshop 23 and minimal use of SiriL for Background Extraction with very high count, Used a low count for other. PS: My brother aligned the scope. I did everything tech related, and My Dad and Mom were there with us for the Moral Support😤😤😤

okk!

Hey anyways could somebody please tell me out of my light frames which are the best ones, I would use those frames as a target quality for my next time yk. Basically it would help me set a standard for me achieve.

Wow! never thought the collimation of the telescope would come into play, would see if I can do somethin' also I just made a batinov mask today, lol. Anyways these are some very helpful tips you gave me - would try them. Thanks William!

Here in india the equatorial mounts costs more than the full setup itself and as mentioned I have blown my budget out. However in half a year or so I would be getting the wedge which I think would help - and I would try again on this setup until I get a result (sorry, I am persistent) But thanks!

Yo thanks for doing that, I was not expecting someone to actually fiddle and experiment with the data and here you are! Well as you said it a learning experience and but I would be sticking to this trial and error for a while tho(I blew my budget lol). However, I am persistent so I would be trying again until I get a showable result! Thanks again!

So basically the current lights can't do me any good? that about right? - then I should probably pass it as a learning experience and just try again, lol. Tbh, I was questioning the tracking of the scope too - and you confirmed it. Next time would double check the tracking. I wont get a chance this week but I will try again and surely post the results here. Thanks!

Equipment: Telescope - Celestron Nexstar 8SE with f/6.3 SCT Focal Reducer on an Alt-Az Mount Alignment - Standard Three Star Align Camera - Canon EOS 600D/ T3i (used a Canon T-Ring and T-Adapter to mount it to the OTA.) Software Used to Capture - APT LIght Frames - 10s x 60 decent frames at ISO800 Dark Frames - 10s x 60 decent frames at ISO800 (The Dark Frames were taken after dismounting the camera from the OTA and covering the camera sensor with its Black Cover.) Problem: *This is my first time taking a Deep Sky Image So Correct Me If You Can In Anyway, Thanks!* So, I recently took around 60 light/ 60 dark frames of Andromeda Galaxy (Bortle Scale of my area is usually 5). But when I tried to process(stack) the images the next morning with DeepSkyStacker - It wasn't able to detect the Stars in the images(I set the threshold to 2% but then it started detecting noise too.). However, I somehow solved that and got the star count to 50 at 20% threshold but when I proceeded to stack the images it gave me warning sayin "Only three out 60 frames would be stacked". Me being a dumb brain proceeded with this anyways, and the resulting image was NOT aligned and was with an Exposure of only 30s, and now The star count problem has also come back. Moreover, when I tried the same process with Sequater (WHICH I THINK I READ SOMEWHERE IS NOT SUITED FOR DSO's) gave a decent aligned result but not much data for processing. I can't seem to get around these problems with DSS, So any help would be appreciated. Please! for those who might say the 8se is not suited for DSO imaging, refer to here - https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/826723-nexstar-8se-imaging/ Here are the images if you might want to take a look - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VTqSG77R2kvuEKq1cQvcXFhS72FHF6rW?usp=drive_link I have also attached some light and dark frames and the image I got from Sequater and SIRIL. Pardon my english (am not a native speaker)! IMG_6470.CR2 IMG_6492.CR2 IMG_6493.CR2 IMG_6494.CR2 Andromeda-Proccessed.tif