Grant93

Yea a modded camera is something I've wanted.. Don't want to fork out the money for an Astro camera with a decent sized sensor, as I understand you have to spend above a grand for something with a decent sized sensor. But I am getting a modded camera this weekend, been reluctant to mod mine as I use it for daytime aswell. But I am looking forward to being able to experiment more with HA targets, and can still use my 800D for reflection nebula. Not gotten into guiding yet, so I have not been able to dither. As usual tried starting this hobby as cheap as possible, now wanting more and more things, such as a guiding set up haha. But thank you for the advice! Thanks for the effort! Its considerably better than mine But arent the text files created when stacking in DSS anyhow? Thanks for that Didnt even notice the light pollution before cropping! Have you uploaded it? I wanna see

Hello everyone. Decided to try and image the western veil a couple of nights ago, got just under 4 hours of data. And I just cant seem to crack it. I feel all of my current photos to date have often been quite grainy, cropped and uncropped. From the Andromeda which was hardly cropped, to this, which is cropped more than I wanted to something unusual going on in DSS which I can't figure out. First issue, the image DSS keeps producing has a lot of star trails at the top, but non at the bottom, this is being caused some how by the first nights data, as when I only stack the second night, this doesn't happen. But I don't wanna throw the data away, as I am trying to bring out as much nebulosity as possible, just to practice processing. I have scanned all through the first nights. But due to this I have had to crop it more than I wanted. I will upload the original TIFF so you can see for yourselves Second issue is one I can't get away from on any picture, it always looks grainy, overprocessed, and just unrealistic, like a cartoon, not matter how much I seem to crop. How do I get away from this? Anyhow here it is, Tell me what you think. Around 3 hours and 45minutes Lights @ 45 seconds each @ 1600 ISO. 25 Flats 25 Dark Flats 40 Darks 40 Bias EOS800D ZS61 SGP VEIL5.TIF

Hi there! Think I sorted the problem, today I pointed it straight up at the sky, rather than an angle, and no shadow at the bottom. Thanks for the reply though!

Hello there! After taking some flats and stacking them to a set of data, its basically made the bottom of my picture super light, where the flat is super dark. Just wondering how I can amend this. I do the T-shirt and daytime sky method, keeping the t shirt tight with one of my fiances hair bobbles! 😅 Thanks in advance! IMG_1252.CR2

Definitely an impressive improvement from the first to the second attempt! I'd be well happy!

Looking nice! What camera was this taken with? Working on the Witches Broom nebula myself last night and tonight, using a unmodded DSLR, so wondering if my results may be similar.

Such a great idea, Will definitely be trying this out on my next opportunity

Thank you Gonna have another play with processing it on the weekend I think

Yes it does! I use layer masks for stars but for some reason never thought of using it for the core, good idea My thoughts exactly, I was hoping for more color, and if you stretch it enough it does come out, but so does more noise

Such simple but such brilliant advice I didnt know about, with a very very slight levels adjustment in GIMP and adjusting the white point, its brought out more detail, whilst still not revealing too much noise! I didnt want to stretch too much as to not overexpose the core. Cheers! Updated below Thank you! I start in startools, then as I'm not too good with the colors in startools, I do some RBG levels adjustment in GIMP, and also run their noise reduction to see if it improves it further

Hello everyone, Been inactive for a while due to terribly cloudy skies. But finally a target is up more suitable to my setup that I can actually capture from my backyard, although many HA targets are up and visible from the backyard, my camera is stock (Will change in september when I purchase a modded camera , a decent astrodedicated is way way way out of my budget at the moment). Although I feel that the target is still reasonbly low in the skies at the moment when I start imaging at 23:00, which I think is reflected in the photo. But it will glide across the zenith later in the year, which I will then target it again , for hopefully more exposure time also. It's taken me a while, but I think I am happy with the finished product. EOS 800D iOptron Skyguider Pro ZS61 Its 2 hours and 30 minutes worth of 45 second exposures. 20 Darks 40 Bias 20 Flats (First time using flats also, didnt know it was easy as a white t shirt, elastic band and pointing it towards the sky!) Let me know what you think Critism always welcome! Grant

Seeing it makes me even more jealous! 😊

Such a nice first image 😃 Jealous of some of that set up! I'm the same with credit, never use it.. All my upgrades come from buying and selling, don't even like to fund this hobby with my day job 😅

Hello there! Knowing I would have a clear night on Friday, I was preparing myself to image the whole Veil Nebula in Cygnus with my samyang 135mm. Sadly, after watching TV and getting up at half 4 every morning for work that week, I fell to sleep at about half 9 and woke up at half 11 (When I should of already been imaging!), So I got up, and with a slight rush I went out and set up, trying to find the Veil after setting up. After a few frustrating test shots at different stars trying to find the right one, I came across the Sadr region, and as I didnt want to waste anymore time, I just thought, what the hell, Ill image this instead. The shots looked good, surprising myself at how much HA the unmodded 800d was picking up, and almost clearly seeing IC1318 in a 60 second exposure. After seeing that, and googling other peoples un modded attempts, I was excited thinking it was going to be my best image yet! Sadly this wasn't the case, although I truly believe the data has potential, but my editting skills just don't. I've tried editting in both GIMP and startools multiple times. But I am struggling with the glow of the milky way, washing out half my picture and the crescent nebula area. In my best edit, which I will post, you can clearly see all of the nebula I was trying to pick up, but half of it is washed out. Advise on this will be greatly appreciated, on how to darken the glow of the milkyway without loosing data on the nebulas. I also think flats would massively help, but still trying to find the right equipment to do this with. As always I will post my attempt, which was done in startools, and the TIFF incase anyone else would like to tackle this . As always the details; Canon 800D iOptron Skyguider pro Samyang 135mm 1 Hour and 30 Minutes of lights @ 60 second exposures. 25 Darks 25 Bias sadr3rd.TIF

Woah! You posted this just as I am downloading the free trial hahahaha Must be fate

Woah, I'm always amazed when someone else makes a brilliant image out of my captures. Shows I really have a lot to learn on processing! Maybe I should learn something along the lines of pixinsight or photoshop. Cheers

Hello everyone! Got another clear night on a Saturday last weekend. So I decided to try and capture some more data for my last attempt at the North american nebula, which was posted here not too long ago. First time I've tried to add data to a picture from more than 1 night, I would say it didnt go too successfully. I was using the Samyang 135mm, and when stacking the pictures all together, I noticed the outcome was insanely white. Even when saved to a TIFF when it gets even darker, it wasn't very dark, which I will also upload for everyone to see. So I think I over exposed the picture, the NA wasn't at the zenith, but it was very high when I started imaging, so I don't think its the surrounding bortle 5 light pollution that was the problem. I was shooting 90 second exposures which is the same exposure length as what I was adding to, at F2.8. Now I didnt take note last time at the F stop, stupid of me, so am I right by assuming I just had it open too wide? If so, would it be better next time to shorten the exposures and have it wide open, or keep it at 90 seconds and find the sweet spot F stop (Seems to be the most I can get before trails, unguided)? The stack is only bright when I add last Saturdays shots, not my month old ones. What I am pleased with is I feel its picked up far more structure of the Pelican and NA by stacking the combined 2 nights worth of data. And to be perfectly honest, I think the extra color just comes from me experimenting with saturation for the first time haha, not the extra data. But just to reiterate, I do believe the extra structure and density of the nebula is from the extra data. I understand these sort of targets aren't great for unmodded, but what other bright HA targets are good to have a go at? And in comparison to the NA nebula, how bright are they? Stock EOS 800D iOptron Skyguider Pro Samyang 135mm 800 ISO 2hrs of Lights @ 90 second exposures 30 Darks 30 Bias No Flats (I want a sock I can pull over my lenses and rest a tablet on it, anyone know where to find one?) Heres the new, heavily cropped as you will see from the TIFF the edges are terrible from my framing. The old one which has been posted here before. And the TIFF, feel free to experiment with it I know it terribly bright though! Edit: Also one thing I forgot to mention, on the new picture, also not happy with them unusually blue stars! I feel the first attempt look more 'real' na2ndtry.TIF

Haha no problem A lot of trials and errors for us new comers in astrophotography

Ignore this post, accidentally added when trying to edit old one.

Thank you, that would be brilliant. I'll have to look into when the next meet up is Be nice to get advise off experienced people in person . Cheers! I think I have only had one in the past three weeks now

Hey there, With a T2I and a ZS61, and me assuming that a T2i is a crop sensor, if you see deneb in your exposure, its a good chance you have missed the NA nebula anyway (Tordapending on rotation), this is just from my experience of a crop sensor eos 800d and ZS61. To frame up your ZS61 to NA Nebula, I'm not sure on the exact vocabulary to use so Ill try and explain it as best as I can. But in Cygnus's current position in the early night sky, Deneb is above Xi Cygni (Which it should be if I am assuming right, with you being in the Northern Hemisphere), You should frame XI Cygni right at the bottom of your shot, this way you will have all of the NA nebula in your shot, but you will not see Deneb. Here is also an example of a single shot on my unmodified 800D, 90 seconds exposure in a bortle 5 sky, compared to 1 hours data (If I remember right), stretched A LOT. As you see, if you didnt know NA nebula was there in the single shot, you probably wouldnt see it at all. The final image is cropped, the single exposure is uncropped, as you can see both Deneb and XI Cygni is visible, but this is because Im using a Samyang 135mm at the time, not my ZS61. I just put these there to show you even in a 90 second exposure NA Neb is basically invisible compared to the finished product. So when framing objects like this, you've got to look for the positions of the brighter stars and compare to other finished photos of the NA neb, kind of like old fashioned manual platesolving 😅. Hope this helps, Grant

Ill check it out thank you! 😃

Wow, I can't thank you enough for all that haha! That looks brilliant, will definitely be using that to plan my nights in future 😀 and referring back to this for instructions 😅

Hello there! I know the feeling from my first night of trying to frame something, very frustrating burning away valuable imaging time just finding an object 😅 some people advise platesolving which is probably the best way, not got round to doing that myself so wouldn't be able to explain exactly how that works. Plenty of youtube videos on it I'm sure 😀 But I use a red dot finder myself, I find a bright star to focus on anyway, usually deneb or vega at the moment, you should know when these bright stars are on your cameras live view, compared to the less bright surrounding stars, whilst doing that I also align my Red dot finder to that star. That way when it comes to finding your object you just need to know where it lies relative to the stars, take a short exposure when you think you're about right, check and adjust accordingly, can usually get the object framed within 2-3 30 second exposures 😀 Hope this helps 😀 Grant

Thank you I do want to take flat frames, just havent got round to getting the equipment for it, I could use my fiances tablet, just need one of them handy socks I see some people using. I am really looking forward to shooting some of them targets you mentioned, just hope we have enough clear skies during the winter. Just looked at the link you sent me, very handy tool, I will use this in future thank you Grant