Ursa Major 2nd attempt!

[Carl M]

The big dipper from Ursa Major - also first light for 1000D My first attempt was with 300D and the results are much better this time IMO

18x30s subs at 18mm f/3.5

no darks, bias, flats or anything

Im not great at processing really...Is there anyway I can supply the .tif for you guys to play with?

Any feedback given is much appreciated

Thanks for looking,

Carl

[stolenfeather]

I look at the pictures because I'm fascinated by the talent found on this forum but have little to say when it comes to constructive feedback because my experience with imaging is,.. nil. I find all entries amazing and this one falls in that category! Very sharp image indeed Carl!

Isabelle

[Demonperformer]

You may find that reprocessing with a master bias frame will reduce the noise.

Take 20 frames minimum exposure with the lens cap on at the same ISO as your picture - put them in DSS in the 'bias' section, then put your lights in the 'lights' section and let it process. This removes the noise created by the act of taking and saving the subs and the same master bias that DSS will produce can be used on all subsequent pictures taken at the same ISO rating. If you take darks frames, you do not need to include 'bias' frames in the DSS mix (unless you also take 'flats' - long story, there is another thread on SGL that goes into this in detail).

Are you allowing any sort of interval between each of the subs? This allows the camera electronics to cool down a little and so reduce noise. I usually allow an interval the same as the exposure length, so 30 second subs are taken at 60s intervals.

Darks will also reduce the noise. They should be taken at the same temperature as the lights, which is great on nights when the temperature is dropping while you are taking them. I usually take 10 at the start and 10 at the end and put them all in together, on the basis that they should average out at roughly the average temperature of the lights in between.

Finally, more lights will reduce noise still further. Applying all of the above, in an hour session you would be able to do 10 darks+40 lights+10 darks. Quite doable.

That said, it is a :icon_salut:GREAT PHOTO:icon_salut: as it stands. You have brought out loads of stars, of which, from my front garden, I can see 6!

HTH

[Carl M]

Thank you both very much for comments and the advice on darks demon.

Nope I am not leaving any intervals inbetween subs well not much anyway. Normally what I do is click the camera, then go off and do some visual with the telescope and once I hear the camera beep, go back and press it again On a side note my electronic shutter remote has arrived today which I guess should be able to leave intervals inbetween exposures so i'll test it out.

It's a pity that the meteor on bottom right corner has faded out quite a lot when stacking. On the sub it looks pretty good:

[Bumfluff]

Hi Carl, That's a great pic. Loving the 2nd one (with the meteor)

Which software did you use to stack the images?

I ask because I took some pics last night and I plan to have a go at stacking later. Hope mine turn out this well!

Greg

[Carl M]

I use DeepSkyStacker which most people call DSS on here for short.

You can download it from this link DeepSkyStacker - Free

There are other softwares on the web but I think most people use DSS

[yeti monster]

Sadly, all I see is a little white box with a wee red ecks in it...