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M13

Peter

By Peter
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Peter

Peter

Posted
Posted

Hi,

Well here goes, Deep breath, Don't be nervous. This is my first time at showing you lot one of my pictures, so be gentle with me.

The picture is of the globular cluster M13 thats in the constellation of Hercules. It was taken on Saturday 12th May 2007 using my mate's 12" f6 reflector. The camera used was my Canon EOS 20D with the speed set to 400ASA, and the exposure was 1 minute.

I have not done any processing to the image, mainly because I'm not sure how to do it. I must set some time aside and have a go at it.If anybody can help by telling me in simple terms how to process, then please tell me.

I hope you like it.

M13Sat12thMay2007.jpg

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MikeD

MikeD

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This is a very good image, focus is pin sharp and the exposure is just right.

All that is needed now is more of them to stack and maybe a flat frame to help with the gradient.

I don't have a DSLR so am not sure what is the best (free) program to stack with but I have heard "deep sky stacker" mentioned before.

Are you shooting Raw's rather than jpeg's (The blue channel was cliped a bir at the black point)?

I had a quick play : levels and curves in photoshop cs and tried to kill the gradient a bit in PixInsight LE ( a great free program) using the "dynamic background extraction" tool

http://pleiades-astrophoto.com/index.html

Hope this helps and keep them comming.

post-13376-133877328073_thumb.jpg

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Peter

Peter

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Hi, and thanks for the kind words.

The picture taken using the JPEG format, when I use the RAW format I find that I can my processing program will not open it. As for my processing program the only one that I've got is Adobe Photoshop Elements, and to be honest I struggle to improve my images.

Can you tell me how you "tweaked" the image and what program you used to do it.

Cheers Peter

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MartinB

MartinB

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Well I think that's a cracking image Peter. Certainly an excellent 1st posting and all off a single 1 min sub. I had to join in the fun as well with photoshop - curves and levels, unsharp mask and Noels actions for deep sky noise reduction.

image.jpg

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Peter

Peter

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Once again thanks for the kind remarks.

Now can you all explain in VERY SIMPLE TERMS how you improved on the picture. I have messed around with my Adobe Photoshop but It doesn't seem to end up like everybody else's end product, in fact it always ends up worse that when I started. :? :? :?

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geppetto

geppetto

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Peter

The main thing to play with in your image is Levels

In my Elements proggy (version 5) you select Enhance> Adjust Lighting> Levels

Move the sliders around to get a nice spread of brightness information between

black (minimum) and white (maximum)

Just drag the sliders to see what happens...

In your image, most of the information is at the black end so you need to stretch

out the white end to reveal what's hidden in that rather nice M13 of yours :)

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geppetto

geppetto

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This is a histogram (graphical representation of image detail from black to white)

from the Elements "levels" tool of your image.

As you can see, all the information is crowded down at the black end hence

a lot of detail is not shown.

lev1.jpg

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geppetto

geppetto

Posted
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Levels should be used hand in hand with curves for the best stretching.

This is true, my mistake for not mentioning it, thought Peter was using Elements not Photoshop :oops:

Anyway, dig into that excellent primer Peter :)

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