jgs001

Worked nicely Ant. Good stuff.

Thanks Mark, I know what you mean about the blue sky.

The usual processing, 45 images, best 75% stacked in AS3, registax for wavelets, couple of minor tweaks in lightroom

With some colour

And a mahoosive crop

Gotta say, over the past few nights, and the images from them, I'm really impressed with the Sigma 150-600 C lens. For a relatively cheap (note I said relatively) lens with 600mm, the results seem to speak for themselves. (I know that the processing improves the results).

Looks good, but did you use RGB channel align in registax?? I tried that out and got pretty similar effects.

And a couple of test shots... i tried to estimate where 150mm on the 70-200 was, but it appears I failed. I also can't get a clear shot at brickwork, so this will just have to do. The only thing done in editing, lens profile adjustment in LR.

Sigma 150

Canon 70-200 f/4 L (@144mm)

Doesn't look to bad.. better than the images I got from the 7th, which would not stack.

I found a couple of lens reveiws for the two

https://www.ephotozine.com/article/sigma-150mm-f-2-8-ex-if-hsm-macro-interchangeable-lens-review-13652

https://www.ephotozine.com/article/canon-ef-70-200mm-f-4l-is-usm-interchangeable-lens-review-14848

I've never actually tried to compare them directly like that. L's do use high quality glass, but they are also built like tanks for the use of Pro's. Macro lenses are also designed and built to high quality standards, they need to be, because of what is asked of a macro lens under normal macro circumstances. In some ways, the flat field, is probably better in a macro lens than any zoom L is likely to be. I may be inclined, as it's possible I may have plenty of time over the weekend, to try and get some comparison images (they may be quite boring though)...Anyway, here's an example shot with my 150mm macro (Canon 450d with a Sigma 150mm Macro lens. 13x 165 seconds, ISO800 @f/2.8. Mounted on an Astrotrac)

Another piece of software I found... Exif Pilot.. you can use  it to export the EXIF data from your RAW images (focal length, shutter, ISO etc) to an XML file, then import it again into a TIF (It'll probably work with other image formats, but I've not tried them) that you just saved from registax etc. May not be useful, but as I host my images on Flickr, it's handy to have that information available on the image view directly, and, saves me typing

Thanks will have a listen

the 70-200 is a beauty, but never used mine for Astro. I picked up a second hand Sigma 150 f/2.8 macro lens, which is what I use. You can use it wide open, without issues (Macro - True macro lenses that is, not a zoom with macro moniker) are designed to have very flat image fields. And, at f/2.8 I've picked up the horse head with an unmodded 450d in 30 minutes of 2 or 3 minute exposures.

If you have an android device, it's also worthwhile looking at DSLR controller, as you can use that to zoom in to 10x on a larger screen than the back of the camera and apply very fine tweaks to focus. If you set the camera to back button focusing, you can then leave the lens in AF mode, and shoot away without issues.

Convert the CR2's to TIF (I use lightroom) load them all into AS!3 (64 bit) no need to align or crop... You can drag and drop to add them. Analyse, auto apply align points, stack. Save output. Open in Regi and apply gentle wavelets.

These stacked fine (after the rubbish results from yesterday).

Here's my take on it... After failing for several hours to get a bunch of these to stack, I've taken the best single image, and processed it.

With some natural colouring

Pink, cos apparently it was and is therefore meant to be

And an attempt at a slightly more arty/moody rendition (a teensy bit pinkified)

Thanks Guys... to be honest.. .I was actually more trying out my 150-600 to see how it handled the moon, it was only after, when I was processing the images, I realised it.

Looks good Stu, the cloud is evidenced on the closeup, still, it's worked well... As for the pink, reminds me of one of those stabilo dayglo markers...

Toby, I suspect they didn't include one, as to do so, and then allow you to move the focus ring past it would be rather odd. To rephrase, the focus ring will turn past the infinity focus point, which is apparently to allow for temperature variations. So don't rely on the end of the focus ring travel as being infinity focus.

Something else to bear in mind.. the infinity focus mark on the lens... on you're lenses (at least the 18-55) the focus ring will move past it (the stop is not at infinity but beyond it (weird as that sounds), apparently to allow for temperature fluctuations, so something else to bear in mind when focusing. If you have a recent canon (with liveview) and an android device with a USB OTG port, you can use the DLSR controller app to set focus.

Take a look at

and give it a try. This will not produce the best images, but it will get you going, and get you some experience of using the gear and image processing.

Toby, you should be able to manage passable images, but, without tracking it'll be difficult (18mm on the kit lens), and you may well have to stop the lenses down quite hard, which will then require longer exposures. One thing I have discovered, Macro lenses are superb for astro imaging, as you can use them wide open. What are you putting the camera on?

Dan, If you're using a canon, then you should have been provided with an eye viewer cap, often attached to the strap. if so, slide off the rubber cup, should move upward, and slide the cap on in it's place, it's provided to prevent just that kind of thing.

Thanks guys... Yeah, I see what you mean, perhaps a little bright.

I think I've got this process flow down now

And a large crop of the first one

Another one 45 stacked frames, 60d+ Sigma 150-600. (They are all the same source image)

Normal

4nightmoonregi-3.jpg

Normal Cropped

4nightmoonregi.jpg

Colour

4nightmoonregi-2.jpg

Looking at the cropped one, do you feel I'm applying to strong a wavelet set in Registax? I'm not sure, and undecided. This image had about half the wavelet strength I'd originally planned.

I've been working on my workflow, and whilst it's gotten a lot more complex, the results are much better. These are all heay crops (using my 150-600 at 600), but it seems to me it's working

2AprilMoonregi.jpg

crescentregi.jpg

bluemoonstackregi.jpg

The process..

Import to Lightroom, export as TIF's (AS3 doesn't support raw)

Stack in AS3 (being as it's 64 bit, it had no issue with using memory (and the 18Mp images from the 60d really use a lot)

Wavelets in Registax

Load and save in PS (for some reason, Lightroom has issues with the TIF's from Registax)

At least I now have a computer on which I can actually do this, and no longer relying on a 2008 iMac.

Was just experimenting with my Sigma 150-600 to see how it would handle a daytime moon (pretty good on nighttime), and discovered, I'd also captured the Lunar X, which surprised me...

12 images (600mm, ISO100, f/8.0 1/125s) initial process and crop in Lightroom, stacked in Astrostakkert. I was really pleased with how this turned out

Stacked Blue Moon with X