Hi all, (whoa it's been ages since i've been here. 👋)
This is my first stab a tracking and stacking using a Star Adventurer, or anything in fact. I've never tracked and stacked before. I'm using a Fuji X-T2 mirrorless camera with an adapted vintage Pentax Super Takumar 200mm/f4 at f5.6. ISO 2500. Happy enough with star shape (apart from the aperture blade spikes) so I think my polar alignment is ok. Used a 5litre bottle of water to weigh down the tripod.
Bortle 4/5 back garden, Moon not yet risen. 15 lights at 165s, 10 darks and 10 flats. (Flats shot by holding the camera to a white screen on my phone). Stacked with DSS and processed in PS using Astronomy Tools Action set using AstroBackyard's methods here. Transparency wasn't the best, i think I was shooting through think cloud most of the time.
To be honest I'm not delighted with it:
The nebula is a bit dim eh? Very low contrast on the nebulosity. I don't think I could go much longer untracked than 2'30" or 3' on the Star Adventurer.
There's a red cast. Stars that should be bluer all seem to be a bit reddish. Not sure why. White balance? I think I probably had it on auto but I was shooting raw so would think I'd be able to deal with that.
It's a bit noisy.
Big pointy stars.
What I think I need to do to improve it:
To increase nebula contrast, I'm thinking of getting myself an old 600d off fleebay and getting it modded. Maybe one day getting an h-alpha clip filter for it. It would leave my gorgeous Fuji X-T2 to have normal human being settings, and not weird astro settings.
Redness? I don't know. It doesn't look very natural to me.
Noisy? More subs I guess. I could drop the ISO but then I'd need have longer subs, and the SA won't be up for it.
Spiky big stars. I have a stop down ring that I forgot to use. Note: Don't forget to use it.
Does this make sense? Any further advice on improvements i could make would be hugely appreciated. (I'm a budget astrophotographer if you hadn't guessed)
Thanks all!