Brightstar l429 first light (and my first dso's)

[toml42]

Had my first try at deep sky imaging last night, intermittent clouds ruined about half of my shots and my ccd was uncooled as i didn't have the correct power lead handy, but i'm very happy with what i have so far!

I started with m13, i took 20x 45 second subs, but unfortunately nearly all of them were ruined by low clouds. I salvaged 6 for this image. here it is with a logarithmic stretch applied as an experiment.

i'd like to add a few more subs here to try and cut down on the noise a little (also i've now purchased the required power lead, so next time the ccd will be cooled )

I moved onto the ring nebula next, i took 20x45 second subs, then 20x45 seconds 2x binned in H-alpha and a uhc filter. I lost quite a few of these again due to poor tracking (i think my mount didn't like the high altitude) but i'm reasonably happy with the result

I have a lot to learn about processing, any advice welcome.

[toml42]

i tried adding a flatfield to the m13 image, and had another play with the curves in DSS. better / worse?

[riklaunim]

The images aren't that bad. That gradient is nasty - uncooled camera noise or light pollution?

The ICX429 powered cameras have quite high read out noise + it's interlaced. It will be much better when used on few very long exposures (using nearly the whole histogram) than on many short - those will suffer from much greater interlacing + will be noisy.

BTW. do you get some water "fog" on the CCD when you turn the cooling on?

[Parallax]

I hope you don't mind but I had a quick play.

Using Photoshop I removed most of the gradient and applied a high pass filter.

For your first DSO that's very good.

Steve

[toml42]

I think the gradient was caused by light pollution, although it may be the fact that the camera wasn't cooled. The power adapter arrived today so next time it's clear i'll put it through its paces and see if it's a recurring problem

I'm not sure how much longer i'll be able to make my subs at present, as i'm unguided and imaging at a fairly high focal length, i'll try for longer next time!

Thanks for the reprocess, it looks better! how do you go about removing the gradient in photoshop? is there a tool for it?

[Deneb]

Sorry I couldn't resist...

Gradient Xterminator used..

Nadeem.

[riklaunim]

I'm not sure how much longer i'll be able to make my subs at present, as i'm unguided and imaging at a fairly high focal length, i'll try for longer next time!

What about some webcam guider setup?

[toml42]

What about some webcam guider setup?

Funny you should mention that! I'm assembling the required parts piece by piece, all I need now is the eqmod cables. After splashing out on the camera i need to give my wallet a week or two to recover though!

and wow! that gradient exterminator certainly does the trick! cheers