Dazzyt66

10 hours ago, BCN_Sean said:

Ah, that's not too bad... Forgetting to click "Apply" before clicking on OK after spending a few minutes getting the perfect histogram is one that gets me more often than not!

Ain’t we all done that!! 😂

4 hours ago, StuartT said:

Thanks everyone. 

The photometric calibration is just wonderful! Works like a dream.

I can't manage to get the asinh transformation to do anything useful tho. This is puzzling. In my hands, it just leaves the image totally dark. Fortunately the automatic gear button in the histogram tool seems to do a nice job so I just use that

I do love Siril for its ease of use. I usually use asinh just before I use the histo - it usually works by the time I get to 100 - I don't think I've ever gone over 200 with it as it washes stuff out. Whilst I was getting used to Siril I used the histo 'nuke' (auto) button and then just wound it back a bit. With practice you'll quickly get in a flow for quite quick processing with decent results.

What I love here is that you learn something every day! I didn’t realise you can do background extraction before stacking so I will give it a try! If I don’t use Startools, my processing workflow in Siril after stacking (and generally works well for me) is:

Background Extraction

Remove Green Noise

Photometric calibration (using get info from image)

Crop (use auto stretch to see where then go back to linear - photo metric cal will often fail if you crop before)

sinh stretch

histo stretch

After that I use gimp for final tweaks. 😊

1 hour ago, AstroMuni said:

Everytime you platesolve, the frame is rotated on screen to reflect the correct orientation. So after you rotate the camera just do a platesolve to get an updated display.

Does that answer your question? If not I can elaborate.

If you know the orientation beforehand you can also set the rotation in the configuration so the sensor shows the approximate framing of your object without a platesolve.

That’s how I understand it. Thanks 🙏 

Had another go at it last night with my 135mm at f4. Due to cloud was only able to get 6 viable 30s subs but even with that the nebulosity is becoming apparent:

Hey Stuart, I use Siril a lot. This is the best tutorial that I've used from the start and get great results:

54 minutes ago, Rustang said:

I shot my last widefield image at f4 and that was only 38 mins worth in a Bortle 6 location so not sure if that helps!?

That sounds good - I'm in Bortle 7 and was aiming for around an hour worth of subs given the erratic weather...

After a disappointing night last night with a 400mm I'm going back to widefield, but want to try my 50mm (which I haven't used with tracking before).

I've worked out that widefield gives me the most satisfaction image wise, but its a learning curve atm.

I want to try and get a decent image with about 1-2 hours of exposures - probably around 60s max on my HEQ5. I'm wary of doing the subs wide open f1.8 (or even a few stops down f2.8) as I think this will not give me clean stars. I'm tempted to go for f4 but will this give me enough data for a viable image in the time?

At the moment I'm interested in just getting a nice visual with an hour or so of data - with the intention of doing longer and longer integrations as I work out what works and what doesn't.

I just want to make sure I get something from the limited clear periods we're having so any advice greatly appreciated.

Here's my go. Nothing fancy, just what I've learned over last few days - you've got some great data there - I'm hopeful I can get something like that at some point! Did a .tif version so you can save and alter colors as you wish - I think there's a bit too much green in there atm... I would normally do some further colour tweaks in Gimp but this is pure ST output...

M31ST.tif

39 minutes ago, qisback said:

I have a little EOS CLS clip-filter in some kit I bought from a friend, always been using the HA filter but will have to give the CLS a go.

Yeah, its the clip in version I'm using. Really pleased with it!

1 minute ago, happy-kat said:

Good to see examples of this filter being used and 30 second exposures, coupled with f16 it shows I shouldn't rule this filter out with even shorter exposure potential. 

Having never used a filter before and not being sure how much it would be of use now that LED seems to be taking over the world I was really impressed with the difference - takes my garden viewing to a different level. I'm hoping additional use at different settings will be super impressive! And it was only £60! 🤞

27 minutes ago, qisback said:

Very impressed with the reprocessing,  what did you do differently?

Thanks! I was impressed with how it changed just by tweaks here and there.

I mainly used the mask in different ways - firstly to bring out the colour in the nebulosity (after getting sampled colouring from the stars rather than let ST do its thing globally). I then used the mask again to de-fringe and dim the stars and then eased off on the noise reduction. It was a mix from about 4 different Youtube ST tutorials. Good use of bad weather! 

5 minutes ago, wornish said:

If you have an electronic rotator Ekos will allow you to adjust the rotation.  If you don't then the only way is to physically rotate the camera in its mount or the whole scope by hand. Failing that you can rotate the image in post processing.

Thanks for this - I was just going to do it by hand but thought I'd check in case I was missing an automated trick. I don't have a rotator. 🙂

Hi all,

What is the best way to adjust the framing of an image in Ekos. I can get subjects centered using plate solving but if i want to rotate the camera slightly for better framing do I just do this using the EQMOD controls in Kstars? If I then image over multiple nights using the scheduler will it re-orientate to what I used before if I provide a sample fits image in the scheduler?

Alas, google has failed me on this detail...

Cheers

Daz

Either way these are great images (although I do prefer the first). On your ST image how much noise removal did you use? - I've found if I go much higher than it suggests that I get too blurry final image -which I think may be the case here - detail wise it looks very similar to the other version.

I have also found that I get a better (to my eyes) version of M31 in Siril using colour cal etc. and final tweaks in GIMP than I do in ST. Although to be fair, the more I practice with ST the better they are getting. If I do 'nebulous' images such as NGC7000 or IC1340 they come out really well with just presets in ST. Here's what I mean about M31, first i Siril and Gimp and second from ST (my latest try which is probably version 10!)

I run Siril under windows 10 on my Toshiba laptop which is i5 7200 2.5ghz with 8gb ram all OK - in fact its similar speed to DSS process wise...

Hey Danny, I must admit it sounds like alignment to me but I’ll let someone with greater experience guide you on that. 

5 mins unguided is expecting a lot (I’m assuming you are unguided)? I have a HEQ5 with spot on polar alignment and I only go for around 60s exposures to be sure of no trails - with UK weather I don’t want to ruin what chances we have.

I also leave a 1s delay between exposures to allow for camera shake due to the mirror even though all my imaging is done remotely.

HTH

Weather has been rubbish so I practiced my StarTools skills and reprocessed to this - and I'm quite happy with this considering where it started! 🤣

9 hours ago, Felias said:

I did exactly that the first time around, but only ended up with a green blotch in the end. I still have Startools in my laptop, so I will try again. The stacking will be in DSS or Sequator, though, I can't afford the 15+ hours that Siril takes, not to mention that the computer gets so hot it may melt down! When you say calibrate in Siril, what do you mean exactly? Is it the colour?

I’ve started to use DSS too to check the difference - I think DSS does get the final stack data slightly better for ST. I followed the exact setup as per the link. The thing that makes the difference in ST at the start is if I select ‘linear’ I get a very bright green image until first wipe - which isn’t useful for seeing what needs fixing, so as you are using a DSLR make sure you use the ‘linear for DSLR or OSC….’ selection. One thing I have found (and I think it’s just my ST skill atm) is that ST is better for nebulae etc whereas I can get a better final image just using Siril/Gimp for Galaxies. I haven’t had any success (so far) if I additionally process the post-stack more in Siril in any way before opening in ST.

15 hours ago, gilesco said:

I know you have a solution, but for others who might search for this, if you enable ssh on the Pi, which is often enabled by default (sometimes on a different port from the default 22) then you can transfer files from the Pi to a Windows system using WinSCP, which requires the same login credentials as you might use for ssh.

On a Linux desktop / laptop, you can just use the command line "scp" command, although I'm sure that a lot of file managers under various Linux distributions support the "scp://$hostname" prefix for files as well.

It’s all useful stuff. My particular problem was that the Astroberry build for the RPI doesn’t include samba so trying to find all the info to do that is problematic when I am not so savvy with the RPI/Linux protocols. In the end FileZilla was easy and quick - and it worked first time 😊

Taken from my bortle 7/8 back garden when there was a brief break in the clouds last night - I really just wanted to see how much difference the CLS filter made. Taken with 200mm prime lens at f16! (yes, stupidly I turned the aperture the wrong way as I was in such a rush!!)

This is just 20x30s lights (best 16 used), iso1600, 20 Darks, 40 Flats stacked in DSS (for a change!), processed in StarTools and final tweaks in Gimp.

I know its a bit rubbish and slightly out of focus but it bodes well for my filter when I can do longer sessions with the right settings!! 

I only imaged it cos that's where the break in the clouds were and when I saw 'supernova remnant' I couldn't resist!

Same here!!!👍

Brilliant. As I live in Bortle 7/8 this gives me lots of inspiration for what's possible! Great image!! 👍

8 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

To make sure you have your data in the best shape possible (we need every gram we can muster) be sure to read the dataset preparation detail.

Cheers and good luck

This is what I follow albeit for Siril rather than DSS for prep. The main problem (apart from user error 😂) was which ‘linear’ selection to make initially in ST as that makes a massive difference to image quality. The colour section will also be down to personal preference as I personally don’t like the default apply. It’s pretty straight forward once you work out your workflow and worth the money if you don’t want to spend PI or PS wise. 😊
 

ps I’ve tried doing some initial processing in Siril and then moving across to ST with not much success so I find it best just to stack and then go to ST - again that could be user error!

1 minute ago, Steve143 said:

Thanks Daz. That's really helpful. I realised I would need a suitable mount too that can provide the adjustments needed to ensure good tracking. I have been looking at the Star Adventurer Pro as an entry-level mount for astrophotography, and then move up to an HEQ5 once I'm more experienced. 

That sounds an excellent plan and if I could do it all again its the route I probably should've taken...🤣

Good luck! Its a really rewarding hobby but can be a money pit if you let it!

It sounds easy when you read the blurb, but you'll still need a mount, so what starts as £700ish suddenly turns into £1500-£2000 if you include a HEQ5. I'm not saying that you need an HEQ5 but that is known to be the beginners 'AP standard'. You will always need polar aligning (or a way to do it without seeing the pole) to be able to take long exposures as well as other basic setup.

IMO you'd be better of with a star tracker to begin with (unless you want to go down the HEQ5 route) which are relatively easy to setup and you'll get some decent images with just a DSLR, lens and a remote shutter control (there are plenty of Youtube videos showing what can be done). Assuming you have the DSLR and lens already the whole lot would cost around £300 new. This is the star tracker I'm hoping to get soon:

Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini (SAM) Wifi Astro-Imaging Mount Pro Pack | First Light Optics

There aren't really any shortcuts to get decent AP images, I've tried lots and failed 🤣 there is plenty of advice here though and I'm sure others will have their own views of where to start. What I will say though is that a DSLR and lens will give you some great images with potential minimal outlay.

Hope that helps.

Daz