Art Gecko

To take those little tails off in Ps, blow up your image 4 times, then duplicate the layer, set blend mode to "darker" then move your top layer one or two pixels in the opposite direction to the tail of the star, just enough to remove the tail, then flatten the image and restore to its original size. HTH Art

Look forward to seeing it

Looks like you've started to lift that curse!

Hahaha thanks @mikey2000 I learned how to stretch something from nothing through iPhone imaging... I'm just tenacious enough to try stupid things like that! managed to get this M51 with an iPhone 6 when I got the EQ3: That's when my girlfriend felt sorry for me I think and bought the DSLR... anything is an improvement from there!! I do want to start shooting RAW and at some point I will get round to upgrading to a windows PC, so thanks for the offer but for now I'm quite happy pulling off "small miracles" Art

I think it should be called the "brain-ache" nebula. Mikey, I appreciate the advice, but to be fair I don't think my problem is down to my using photoshop for the full process.... seriously, if you saw the gear I'm using to get these images you'd be as amazed as I am that I can get anything at all!!.... My camera and my EQ3 mount are the best bits of equipment I own! (and the camera is technically my girlfriends)... my scope has been crudely botched for imaging and can just about gain focus before the draw tube pivots on the cog putting the sensor out of axis, and I can't use the camera in RAW because my 10 year old mac-mini hasn't got the memory to stack RAW files and DSS literally takes 6 days to do just a handful of subs.... I just use a planetary imaging software called Lynkeos to stack all of my jpeg images, since that's the only other software I can get working on my mac.... So... when I get over all these other issues, I'll try out astrotools, cheers

Nice, I like it Mikey!! My best effort from last night here... The crescent nebula (finally had a go!) 41 x 60s subs, darks and flats as usual and stretched beyond imagination in Ps. I cropped it down a fair bit as it was a real struggle to get anything out of it in full frame.

Hope you have a great holiday! Got to wait a few more weeks for mine

Yes indeed, I would imagine the near full moon would've been quite a hindrance last night... did you use a filter? I would have been out imaging last night myself, but it was me and my girlfriend's anniversary, so I sacrificed the clear skies for the opportunity to give myself a hangover... A trade I'm now regretting!

Hey Peter, that's coming on nicely! That light patch is in mine as well if you look carefully, I put it down to the new LED streetlight outside my house but it may just be the natural glare of trying to image the galaxy this close... your FOV is very similar to mine. Gradient removal with help lessen it though. I'd say the data is in there, but M31 is quite tricky to process as the core is very very easy to blow out... what I did was stretch it a very small amount, duplicate the layer, then stretch that and mask off just the core with a soft brush so it shows the layer underneath with the pin-point core, then flatten and repeat.... it takes a while, but this way you can pull out the fainter details in the spiral arms without blowing out the core into a giant white blob. HTH Art.

All 3 are excellent, particularly when viewed full size! But for me, the one with 4+6+10 is still the winner

welcome @jjosefsen to the EQ3 challenge! All the advice you received above is good sound advice and I stand by what these good people have said.... But before you go stripping your mount I'd like to say that 40% retention is not actually all that bad for unguided imaging... If you take a look at my M31 you'll see I was down to 27% on that image!! I would say definitely check/adjust your RA axis wormgear a little and see if that makes a difference, and as Neil said, try biasing your balance to the east.... New grease will make an improvement especially for those who are autoguiding, but if you're not autoguiding, you'll only be using one motor for 99% of the imaging session, your dec axis will be locked in place so there's really nothing you can do about periodic errors other than get your polar alignment as spot on as possible.... If you decide to go for autoguiding, then it'd be advisable to do the strip down and regrease as both motors will be under a heavier work load and the upgraded lubrication will be essential... But until then I'd save yourself the effort and give yourself a pat on the back for what you've managed to acheive so far! Oh yeah, and wind factor does make a big difference!! Remember you've only got to move your scope a couple of millimetres and the field of view will change by several degrees... you may not be able to see the scope moving in a light breeze, but it will be evident when checking your subs. HTH Art.

Cheers Nige, I'll definitely be getting more data on this one, and certainly a good candidate for a mosaic! Was a tricky one to process without blowing out the core though!

Well, here's my attempt from last night.... had quite a few subs with wobbly stars this time round... not sure why, putting it down to either wind factor (which didn't seem too bad while I was out there) or the increasing number of cats chasing around the garden! Only used 27 out of 100 subs!! 27 x 60s at 1600 ISO with darks and flats.. more flats than light frames come to think of it! Anyway here she is.. my first ever Andromeda.

I can't comment on the functions of DSS and stacking different length subs or the maths involved... It worked when I did it in Lynkeos, but then I do inspect all my subs manually and remove any of the files I don't want, plus I'm more concerned with getting the signal in the first place than removing the noise... but that's just me trying desperately to capture nebulae on an unmodded camera! Even so, I never let the computer decide on the quality... Visual inspection all the way! I used to do a lot of music production and tend to think of my AP in similar ways.... rule 1: The better the signal you put in.. the better it's going to come out... Rule 2: It's easier to cut out unwanted signal than it is to boost signal you simply don't have enough of. Those 10 minute subs made a real difference in my opinion, increasing the floor level of the darker areas has given more dynamic range and no doubt made stretching smoother and easier... Nice one @Nigel G, a really good experiment and I hope you're pleased with the results?! I managed to get out and have my first go at M31 last night... haven't got round to processing it yet... Also tried it as a single panel rather than jumping straight into a mosaic... wanted to see exactly how much of it will fit in my FOV... will post the results later. Art

Nige that is magnificent!

Me too! Nige I think that bubble is beautiful mate, and not so sure it's all that noisy really.. remember in the part of the sky you're imaging, the only bits that are actually black are where the dust gets in the way! if you go a little easier on black point and aim for a dark grey you'll smooth out that noise... not that I'm trying to preach to a guy that's got way more experience than me! You do produce some fantastic stuff!

Nicely done @Nigel G I wonder what the nebulosity is left of top centre? I managed to add to my North America Nebula last night... Hard for me as my camera isn't tethered to a laptop so I can't really plate solve for position, but got it pretty close and collected another 40 mins of good data....At this point I tried something new, since my stacking software doesn't do rotational alignment and the 2 sets of subs were very slightly out... I stacked the new lot separately then loaded both stacks into photoshop (one 26min and one 40min) spent a while carefully aligning them, then blended the two layers and flattened them into one layer before starting the stretch... I'm not sure this would be a recommended technique, but it seemed to work better this way than stretching them each before blending (it also got me thinking it might help get a nice even stretch across a 4 panel mozaic when I get around to do M31? Anyway, here it is... 1hour and 6 mins unmodded and unguided, but the best shot of a nebula I've done so far! Hope you all have clear skies! Art

Nice one @bobro hope you've got the weather to add to that tonight! Nige, I wish I had time in one night to image two targets!! I'm actually hoping to add to my NAN tonight (at least the Cygnus' Wall region)... got the camera out there taking shots right now so fingers crossed.... and before anyone asks... yes, I have set the shutter to 'B' tonight! The intervalometer should be working it's magic in the right way!

That veil is coming along nicely Bob! I'm guessing the prize is Pride rather than Cash??

Glad I'm not the only one!! Bob I am constantly amazed by your guiding on EQ2! I would say the new tripod may increase the overall stability of the setup, and hopefully will allow for more weight on the mount than the basic stock tripod would give... as for making a difference to the guiding... not so sure... if you could figure out a way of fitting some sort of polar scope, or even setting the tripod up as a permanent pillar, maybe use drift alignment to pinpoint the NCP, your graph might look more consistent (this is just speculation though from what I've learned about guiding from SGL.. as you know, I still operate unguided)... To be fair I can only imagine the hassle you go through setting up every time you want to image! You deserve to be in the EQ3 challenge as much as anyone!

I had the same idea last night, was going to add to my North America Nebula, it was so clear I could see the milkyway from my back garden even with the street lights!! I set up as usual and got underway thinking "This is going to be brilliant"... Managed about 90 mins of imaging, I did think the subs were a bit on the dark side, but I was using an LP filter for the first time properly so didn't think any more about it... half an hour on dark frames.... Moved my scope into the kitchen to get some flats and then realised I hadn't set the shutter to "B".... for 2 hours my it'd been taking 1.6 second snaps and waiting a minute between frames!! FACE PALM!!!

You guys have been busy while I've been away! Some really nice work too, well done everyone! Managed to get out last night for the first time in a while, finally had a shot at the NAN... managed 26 mins in 1 minute subs (accidentally left the ISO up at 3200 as I was distracted by a friend who was out with me asking loads of questions and such... but the high ISO seemed to work out ok anyway).. flats and darks applied... quite pleased with the outcome for such a small integration time.

Good effort mate, it's not an easy one to process.. Think I stretched mine 3 or 4 times and removed the gradient each time to get anything out of it... Keep going, there's more in there as Alacant has shown

First of all, well done Peter, managing to get those shots on a full moon with an unmodded camera... Not Easy!! But you can pull more out of that veil Nebula for sure! Load it up in Photoshop, then open up the Levels window, in there are 3 eyedroppers (black white and greyscale) double click on the Black point eyedropper and set the RGB to 35:35:35 if it isn't already, then just click on the background with the eyedropper (somewhere close to the nebula, but away from the stars)... The nebula will instantly pop out with colour and the background will lose all that horrible brightness... you will have some vignetting to deal with, but try it and show us the results. HTH Art.

Can't help with DSS questions I'm afraid as I don't use it... But that turned out really nice Mikey!!