pie_in_the_sky

Yep - camera raw were the settings I was thinking about but unsharp makes more sense. I will have another go. Ah, right so the core definitely is blown out - they are actually individual stars and not just a bright cloud...right ok, that makes sense. I'm definitely going to experiment with stacking or blending in some lower exposure images. I think all of the images I currently have are blown out so will wait for the next clear sky. Seems obvious now but I didn't realise how obsessed I'd become with weather reports Can I sneak in a quick follow up question. During processing in Siril, I looked at the histogram preview and saw the image below. Is the white glow from bottom right light pollution or did I make a mistake somewhere?

Oh - when you say nebulosity, does this mean sharpening up the nebula itself. I.e. adding clarity in photoshop or similar?

Cheers Onikken, really appreciate that feedback - yep brand new but lucky that I had a pretty open December and January so lots of time for reading and just practicing getting polar alignment. I had basic understanding of cameras and photoshop which was a huge help too. I also tested the patience of the team at First Light Optics to the limit with a ton of questions I completely messed everything up to begin with. I didn't realise the scope was only for deep sky, my camera couldn't attach to the redcat, my tripod was wrong etc etc. The folk at FLO helped so much. Good point on the core - I thought I'd cracked it with a darker exposure and a layer mask. Do you have a good example of a non-blown core? I'll give it another go. I also have the picture below where I took the vibrancy much higher. This feels a bit over processed to me though.

Thanks Elp. Yes, I feathered the star layer - from memory I think I also made them smaller too. I'm not happy with the large stars just below the nebula - although I do like the apparent depth they provide. With a week of cloud forecast I might re-run processing and try some different approaches. Ha - I thought it might be overkill. It was more to get muscle memory and get the process down. Will bear that in mind later though thanks.

Hi all, Pretty sure this is a thing (asking for critique), if this should go somewhere else please let me know. As the title says. Brand new to astro photography, this was my 6th session but 1st 'proper' session with tracking and multiple exposures (and an actual target vs. poining the scope at random parts of the sky). I was lucky enough to have 3 nights of clear skies so was actually 3 sessions combined: Context: Bortle class 4 location (according to https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/) Approx. 60% moon Camera: Unmodified Canon 700D / T5i Scope: RedCat 51 No filters No guiding Mount: Sky Watcher Star Adventurer GTi Camera settings: manual mode | manual focus | RAW | white balance: daylight | ISO 800 | Shutter: 30 seconds | total lights: 350 | Overkill calibration darks, flats and biases - about 300 Photos stacked in Siril - some processing of the background to level out light pollution. More complete processing in Photoshop - separation of stars and nebula. Stars slightly subdued. Nebula darks and midtones adjusted with colour vibrancy added (more was done but these are the broadstrokes). I had to reaquaint myself with mask layers but it really helped bring the core back. Perhaps an obvious one but two star alignment really improved the initial goto and tracking (although goto is still some way out and needs manual adjustment). Really keen to hear your thoughts, tips for improving (tech or process). I'm keen to know - based on what I've put in the detail above, what change do you think would have the biggest impact? Ta

Hi Michael, Belated thanks for your reply - I was thrown by the multiplier. Makes sense now. Cheers

Hi all, I can't seem to update the Guiding Rate settings in the app. When I make the change from 0.5x Sidereal to just Sidereal the settings revert back to the default when I leave the screen (Settings > Advanced) and come back in. What am I doing wrong? Thanks For context: I'm super new to everything astrophotopgraphy, this is my first set. Also new to the forum so if there is a better channel for this, please let me know. I have the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi and am just getting to grips with how it works. For now, I'm learning what the app does while indoors and will get out asap (it's been cloudy anyway). I wanted to get an approximate of alignment just to see if I can get the tracking working (I realise 'working' isn't really accurate, I just want to see the mount move for now). Out the box the app defaults to tracking being off. Then the two guiding rates (Guiding rate RA/AZ and Guiding rate Dec/Alt) are set to 0.5 x sidereal. My understanding is that this means tracking will be running at 50% slower than it should be to maintain tracking/alignment with an object. App is on Android, but I've also tried via the desktop app on MacOS