First DSO

[TFC]

My first attempt at a DSO last night with my new Ikharus 102 f7.

Olympus E-3 at ISO 800

2 x 4min lights and darks stacked in DSS

Unguided and focus pure guesswork

Adjusted in Capture 1.4 and C3

Not much detail, which is quite disapointing - so a long way to go

Cheers,

Tony

[rocketandroll]

Dude... for TWO 4min subs that's quite a GOOD bit of detail!!!

:-)

Take a look at mine (M31 through a 200mm lens) which is an hour and a half of data at f4... not much more detail, even pushed a LONG way in the processing.

I recon with another 20 subs like that you'd have a beautiful image.

Awesome first shot!!!!

Ben

[rocketandroll]

...I know this has made it more noisy, but stretching it a little further shows there's actually a lot of detail in there, even the feint dust lanes spiraling in to the core are visible... just needs a load more data so it can be drawn out without it getting to grainy.

Definitely the start of an awesome pic.

Ben

[bigal1]

Nice going Tony , more subs and you will be sorted

[RogerTheDodger]

M31 is a bit hard, and that is a great start

[TFC]

...I know this has made it more noisy, but stretching it a little further shows there's actually a lot of detail in there, even the feint dust lanes spiraling in to the core are visible... just needs a load more data so it can be drawn out without it getting to grainy.

Definitely the start of an awesome pic.

Ben

[ATTACH]64580[/ATTACH]

Wow - thanks Ben.

How did you do that!

Tony

[rocketandroll]

Wow - thanks Ben.

How did you do that!

Tony

Just pushed the levels a bit in Photoshop.

I think Gimp (which is free) has similar tools.

If you have PS you just open the 'Image' - 'Adjust' - 'Levels' drop down menu, then pull the left hand slider in until it touches the start of the peak of the histogram to take out some of the background nosie and make the background darker, and the middle slider a little to the left to bring up the brightness... by tweaking those sliders (sometimes doing it, saving it, then doing it again to stretch it further) you can bring a LOT more detail out of feint data.

That's what's called 'stretching' in imaging terminology I believe.

As I said though, it does make it a bit more grainy, but at least it shows what IS there, and more data will allow you to get that same result but MUCH smoother.

Ben

[TFC]

Thanks Ben.

That's what thought you meant. However, after I originally adjusted the levels the histogram became tight against the left hand side - no more room to adjust.

I'll open the attachement up again in PS to see if there's more room, as you obviously did.

After I did the basics in PS and turned it from a tif (out of DSS) into a jpg - I then opened it in Phase 1, Capture 1 and can then adjust the WB to get rid of the 'orange' glow from the LP.

Thanks for your help

Cheers,

Tony

[rocketandroll]

Thanks Ben.

That's what thought you meant. However, after I originally adjusted the levels the histogram became tight against the left hand side - no more room to adjust.

I'll open the attachement up again in PS to see if there's more room, as you obviously did.

After I did the basics in PS and turned it from a tif (out of DSS) into a jpg - I then opened it in Phase 1, Capture 1 and can then adjust the WB to get rid of the 'orange' glow from the LP.

Thanks for your help

Cheers,

Tony

Sorry, didn't mean to sound patronising in what I said, just re-read it and I did sound like I was assuming you'd not used PS before :-)

Doh.

Anyway, yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly what I did with it now, but IIRC it was just a couple of stretches and a tweak in curves too I think to bring out the colours that seemed to have the most data in it (the blue IIRC).

I should add... I'm rubbish at processing and consider myself an over-enthusiastic newbie :-)

Just have a play for a while and see what you can get... that's really all I ever do with any images :-)

Ben

[TFC]

Thanks again Ben - I didn't think you were being patronising

I'll open in in PS again and see what I can see

Cheers,

Tony

[TFC]

Slightly better perhaps.

I assume that capturing more subs increases the signal/noise ratio which allows more stretching in PS???

Cheers,

Tony

[ollypenrice]

Slightly better perhaps.

I assume that capturing more subs increases the signal/noise ratio which allows more stretching in PS???

Cheers,

Tony

Yes, which is why I spent 11 hours on the target at F3.9!!!

I'd have a look at the framing and then settle down to a good long slog over many nights. That's the only way I know.

Olly

[TFC]

Thanks Olly - I'll be using your excellent images as a yardstick.

Can't wait to have a go at the horsehead

Cheers,

Tony