First chance at some proper long exposures - NA Nebula

[blackparticle]

I wasn't sure what to do tonight while waiting around for Jupiter so decided to see how far I could push the mount unguided with some long exposure wide field shots.

Pentax k10D / Asahi 50mm Prime @ f/4

After a few test shots I settled for an exposure time of 210 seconds at ISO 200. That seemed to give me something noise-free to work with and didn't produce any trailing in the image.

28 x 210s - Pentax "Auto-Dark" Noise Reduction ON.

A little over-processed but chuffed with this.

Alan.

[anthony]

Looks like it has come out pretty well.

[peteftm]

Is the camera modded and did you use a light pollution filter? This is the way i want to go now .

Peter

[blackparticle]

No camera mods, no filters and the lens spikes are real (which I like).

I've been using the DSLR with the scopes but I've found that -

a) Subs are usually limited to 40 seconds and under.

I've been wasting a lot of the image frame.

So I'm starting to come to the conclusion that DSLR's work best when you're getting the most out of the full frame sensor. With my unguided mount this appears to be in the sub-100mm fl lens range.

I'm going to carry on working on this one to see just how much the DSLR can capture. The full image is approx 5x larger and was still pin-sharp (albeit with some minor edge distortion) so it's in the realm of print-quality rather than just screen-quality.

[foundaplanet]

Good one, I like it and it will be interesting to see how it goes as you add to it.

[blackparticle]

No extra data but I went back and re-processed my RAW files and recorded some flats. I also tried a few re-stacking experiments where I'd build a series of images in PS of the finished stack, play around with the median / sharpen filters and colours and build a new stack of images to then produce a final result.

Still got to get some more subs to smooth out the edges and not quite decided on how much star reduction to apply.

Here's the larger widefield.

[peteftm]

Stunning mate , you seem to have nice dark skies where you are.

Peter

[Dangerous-Dave]

That's great for an unmodded Pentax. I am going to show this to my BIL as he has the same camera.

[Beyond_Vision]

Nicely done and spot on focus

Regards

Kevin

[bigal1]

Very nice

[Andrewsean1985]

Very nice image! Hope I can produce something of this quality soon! :-)

[blackparticle]

Here's progress after another night... with a dreamy marshmellow feel due to some misty lens soft focus on a sub or two. I'll have to find which ones.

Getting there though.

[Daniel-K]

id like to know what exposures times and iso settings you were using for this good looking picture too well done

[foundaplanet]

Looking good.

[whooshbang]

these are lovely, can only dream of shots like this with my camera and lenses.

[blackparticle]

After a couple more nights and a trip out on to Dartmoor I'm up to 94 subs all at 210 seconds. So approx 5 1/2 hrs. ISO still set at 200.

Dartmoor was quite special. So dark with the milky way streaking overhead almost from horizon to horizon. You could even see the NA nebula with the naked eye. I spent most of the night in the car lying back with the sunroof open while the camera was snapping away. I was even joined by a herd of wild ponies at one point.

The full frame image is going to require more processing but a quick downsized version with a lot of the stars removed so you can see the nebulosity.

[Fenriz]

Stunning image you've got going on there, keep up the good work.