First image with 80ED, NGC7000

[spacebloke]

Hi everyone,

This is the first image I've taken with my Skywatcher 80ED ds-pro with .85x focal reducer.

It's made up of,

20x 120sec frames (unguided)

ISO 800

20 Dark frames

20 Flats frames

20 Bias frames

1000d modded dslr

Adjusted the curves and levels in CS5.

Apart from curves and levels I'm unsure as to how to improve it further (If anyone wants to have a poke around with it then feel free ).

I'm very happy with it though seeing as it's my first image with this scope (and the moon was behind me trying to ruin it, and neighbours lighting their houses like it's christmas!)

NGC7000.jpg

[rocketandroll]

That's gorgeous.... I'd be incredibly proud of that... I'm wondering now if I even need to get my guider working to capture this with my Megrez72?!

I pushed it a little further... the stars need reducing a bit now, but it's brought a little more detail and colour out of the nebula, especially around the 'wall' area...

may have taken it a bit far though, I like your subtle version a lot.

Ben

[jonathan]

Nice! Been thinking about an 80ED for a while now, perhaps my next purchase once I get to grips with the NEQ6.

[ollypenrice]

Brilliant debut. Considering the moon and the LP and the fact that you are working unguided I reckon you've done brilliantly.

You don't have an enormous depth of data there so I would resist the temptation to stretch it beyond the noise limit. But what I might try is this;

Curves. Put the cursor on the background sky and alt click to put a fixed marker on the graph to pin the background where it is. Now click on the graph a small distance above the pin and lift it gently, just a tad. Then just around half way up the new curve straighten the graph so it goes in a straight line to the top. This might allow you to brighten just the nebulosity without blowing the stars. If you have overdone it just use Edit-Fade Curves.

Olly

[spacebloke]

Thanks for your great comments. I can count my 'proper' imaging sessions on one hand so I'm really excited for the future when I get started at guiding.