Nigel G

Orion, H/H, flame 40 x 30s Modded and comparison, the original was twice the total exposure time and sub length, Modded far easier to process, but a lot of taming reds. I think the exposure times can be reduced quite a bit with the modded camera, looking forward to using the scope with it. All with 135mm lens and 1600 ISO, Nige. HnS Modded

Thanks, I have been following that post

First light with modded camera. First impression is I'm amazed at the difference in the subs, the Rosette is clearly visible compared to unmodded hardly visible. I'm impressed, I managed 3 targets last night, have quickly processed 1 and am taking the wife away for 3 days so they will have to wait till later. The difference is incredible, Rosette nebula, modified Canon 1200D with 135mm lens at F3.5, CLS-CCD fliter . 50 x 30s with flats and bias. Star discovery mount. Looking forward to getting home to take more time over processing. A quick stretch and colour module produced this. I also imaged Heart and soul nebula , which looked awesome in the individual 20s subs, and Orion and flame, all with 135mm Nige

Finally after an epic journey its done 1300D 1200D modified The main PCB had shorted out, fitting a new one, no problem.....apart from the new board needs focusing to the camera. So an unmodified sensor needs to be fitted to focus the PCB to the camera, then the modified sensor can be re installed and bingo.... Come on clear sky's, I have a new toy to play with. The modified camera can also be used for daytime photography by setting to jpg taking a photo of a white sheet of paper and doing a white balance if needed. Nige.

My first post here was my first stack, not quite what this thread is about. So Here's my very first DSO, taken about a year ago, I was chuffed to bits with this. Snapped with my first scope 200p dob and dslr. Cheers Nige.

Thanks for your comments guy's. update on WF 30% stack, not worth it, I think I have got as much as I can with what I have got. Next clear night I will use the 80mm lens F3.6 and I can use the LP filter with it I think. I'm not sure if I can fit Rosette and Orion in the field of view though. Nige.

I used Photoshop express and reduced the highlights and boosted the shadows, I thought I had over done it a touch with sharpen but it did bring out a bit more so I settled for the middle Nige.

I'm stacking 30 % of the W/F image to see what difference it will make. Seeing Steve's 10x50s I thought I'd give it a go, maybe it will be better maybe not. In the mean time I had a play with my 30 minutes of M42 without LP filter and come up with this, I prefer it to the first try, there seems to be more detail than I managed before and more nebula. I may have pushed it to far but it is colourful I'm wondering if I am getting better images stacking less sub's. The last few have been better with less, maybe its bad subs but I check every sub as it downloads and dump any with trails. Nige.

I have managed to bully an image from the data. Due to very heavy gradient removal most of the detail that is there has been lost, but they are all visible, just. The gradient removal has also removed any fainter emissions in the surrounding area, not that they were clearly visible anyway. A large crop off the bottom of the image and loads of ST tinkering. So not a total loss but not far from it. This is a second stack of 60x60s ISO 800, Canon 1300D & 55mm lens F5.4 on my Star discovery mount, flats and bias. DSS & ST Cheers Nige.

It was a stock lens with a large matt black flowerpot as a dew shield. The lens max F5.4 so not ideal but have had fairly good images with it before.

I tried a 55mm image of Orion and Rosette last night, I took 60x60s ISO 800 and 45x30s ISO 1600 with flats and bias. Its horrid, I can see Orion- Running man, Flame- H/H- and Rosette but the noise is horrendous, also theres a spiral from the lens throughout the whole image, I can't seem to do anything with it. This is my first total disaster, I'm trying different stacks but don't hold much hope. I think theres just too much LP from below. Going to have to try something else, different settings maybe. Ahh well, win some loose some :/ Nige.

I got a fair image of the HorseHead and flame nebula with 60 x 30 second exposures at ISO 1600 unmodded 1300D. 15 flat frames, 50 bias frames, no dark frames. Also Orion and HH with 135mm lense and unmodded camera. 120x 30 seconds. All on Alt-AZ mount, no guiding. Give it a go Nige.

There's some fantastic images posted recently, to be quite honest far better than I thought was possible with Alt-Az mounts., I'm sure we're far from the limits still. If only admin would agree to a new forum to organise the ton of information that has been gathered and posted over the last year or so, I still struggle to find past data to refer to. I have a list of pages for certain bits, but it needs organisation of some kind. Keep them coming guy's. I have been experimenting a bit with old and new data, mixing ISO, lots of subs, few subs, no darks, no flats, different mixes. Will post some results later today Nige

I have just finished taking more on M45 and M42, my scope and mount are covered in frost, I had to defrost the secondary mirror an hour after starting at 6.30 , an early dew build up froze . Darn cold out there. but very clear. Nige.

I think maybe we are Steve. A comparison, first the original then 60% with darks. For some reason I don't know DSS left 2 jet trails in the image which were removed in life & isolate, the only setting I changed was to up the hot and cold pixel removal.... Not much in it at all, about the same to process . Nige.

Jon, I know what you mean about low alt objects and LP, I took 120 sub's on NGC 253 last night, it's max altitude was around 18 degrees, it was just above the houses to my south. Really hard to get any detail at all, no colour. Pushing my luck, but you don't know until you try. This was ISO 1600. with LP filter mixed subs 30s 45s and 60s total 1 hour 10 minutes, flats and bias, no dark. When I done the first auto dev I have never seen anything like it before a bright burnt image with a multi coloured cigar shaped smudge. Its amazing what processing programs can do with a stack of rubbish I'm stacking a different amount of subs atm 60 % to see if that changes and adding darks. Nige.

Have you tried binning 35% that can improve S/N ratio by a fair amount.

I have had a little play around with different stacks of Rosette, the best I can do atm is the following. first the original image which was 60% of 245 frames, the second is 45% but after street lights out at 1am and no dark frames. Reminder- stacking 95% was almost impossible to process. The colour is the most noticeable difference to me, and there seems to be a touch more detail in the 45% stack. I have reduced the stars a little. Nige.

Jon, don't worry about the frames with satellites in, DSS removes the satellite trails Its worth having 2 or 3 spare battery's , I use 2 at least on a 4 hour session. Nige.

Ken , I take darks between taking the lights to get full benifit of them, so I'll take 30 light the 10 dark, then 30 light 10 dark and so on to try and capture the camera and outside conditions at different temperatures etc. Thanks for pointing out about stacking darks though, your right. The master dark is subtracted from each frame before being stacked. Nige.

Personally I have London 25 miles to my West, 2 large towns to my South, my bungalow to the north and the dark North sea 5 miles to my east with 1 small village in between. Nige