1st attempt at Orion Nebula

[drumsolo]

Hi Everyone,

I appreciate this has been imaged so much by others that are much more capable than myself at the moment and have produced really magnificent images. This is my very first attempt at Orion, its a stack of around 20 x 1 min and 10 x 30 sec at ISO400 with dark frames subtracted. I am still struggling with post processing in Photoshop CS5 especially with bringing out colours. I would very much appreciate comments and pointers with my processing.

Thanks for looking

[rocketandroll]

That's really quite nice... it's a great object for getting to grips with DSO imaging!

A few things to try...

1: Obviously framing isn't quite right... the running man is running off the top of the page a little :-) That's a nice easy fix though for next time.

2: Focus is a little off... get a Bahtinov mask... best thing I ever bought! They really are critical for this sort of thing.

3: There seems to be a bit of a wierd halo thing going on in the middle of the image... not sure what that's from... however I've had a play and removed some of it by creating a flat from the original image and subtracting it from the image... a good tutorial on this (mainly for removing gradients) here: Gradient Removal

4: If you clip in the black a little more and push the levels up a tad there's a bit more data to be had.... I also added in a reduced brightness layer for the core to keep that under control whilst boosting the outer bits of the nebula...

Here's a rough stab at improving it a little based on what you have... it's not great, pleanty more people here are WAY better at processing than me and could almost certainly do far better :-)

Great first pic though, keep it coming!

Ben

[Quatermass]

Great start Suggest higher ISo of 800 and take a few shorter exsposures for the core if you need help with cs5 go to the astrophotography section on my blog. I got sick of going all over the net looking for tutorials and after a year of sifting through them all decided to put together a set of 13 cs5 photoshop astrophotography video tutorials that cover just about everything you need. Hope you find them helpful and several of them deal with the Orion Nebula.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[Simms]

Hi Everyone,

I appreciate this has been imaged so much by others that are much more capable than myself at the moment and have produced really magnificent images. This is my very first attempt at Orion, its a stack of around 20 x 1 min and 10 x 30 sec at ISO400 with dark frames subtracted. I am still struggling with post processing in Photoshop CS5 especially with bringing out colours. I would very much appreciate comments and pointers with my processing.

Thanks for looking

Hi Mate, M42 is great for cutting ones teeth on - I know thats where I started! Astrophotography really is a difficult beast to get to grips with initially (and the processing even moreso), but with the help of the users on this forum you will find your feet very quickly. To give you some encouragement, I started out in Feb/March of this year, erm, last year now I guess - and below you will find my first attempt at capturing M42 - then you will see my most recent effort taken with pretty much the same setup as your self (but using a Canon instead of Sony, shouldn`t make any difference to be honest). If it helps, I am a photographer by trade and I found it a completely different skillset to get to grips with than anything I had attempted before. Don`t give up and well done on your first image!

[drumsolo]

Wow that's some improvement! I take it you are auto guiding, what is your guide camera and scope? Is your canon modified? One thing I don't understand is why I wasn't getting any colour after I stacked the image. I had to play with the colour levels in paint shop which seemed like cheating to get a bit of colour.

[todd8137]

nice first image,it a great efort,simms really made it look 3d and very intense

[Simms]

Wow that's some improvement! I take it you are auto guiding, what is your guide camera and scope? Is your canon modified? One thing I don't understand is why I wasn't getting any colour after I stacked the image. I had to play with the colour levels in paint shop which seemed like cheating to get a bit of colour.

I basically just use a Philips webcam attached to the finderscope than comes with the 200P - this in turn connects to a laptop running PHD (free software) and that guides the mount - as long as its not windy I can guide for at least 6 mins if required (havent tried any longer) Out of every 10 subs I shoot I usually have at least 6/7 keepers. Canon is not modded at all. Are you using DSS to stack the subs?

[Catanonia]

To OP.

First off, amazingly well done for getting your 1st image and even stacking / processing and posting. Top work and the major hurdle. It all does get easier from here as you have the thought process and methodolgy in your head now. Basically you get it

Next to concentrate on.

1. Framing. Check the 1st image, centre and use the web to reference what you are looking at.

2. ISO. Up it to 800

3. Focus. Get it bang on and you DID

4. Image for as long as you can with your guiding or mount.

5. Take loads and loads of images

6. Learn flats and apply them, it will help massively.

Things for the future.

I notice in your sig you have a Sony A700. I have one too and although they are great DSLR's, they are not the best for AP. Save up for a cheap modified EOS 1000D

Get some guiding sorted out with a guide scope and camera. It can be done relatively cheaply with a finderscope / guide setup. Check out ModernAstronomy for info.

Over all, top work, feel proud and expect to spend some doh

Welcome young Jedi to the VERY dark side

[drumsolo]

Thanks for all your replies and encouragement, it is really nice and appreciated to have the advice and I will take it all on board.

Another point I was pondering is why I dont have any colour in my images after stacking and a little stretching? I ended up playing with Colour balance and hue/saturation in PS to get any kind of colour. Is this correct?

[Catanonia]

Try using vibrance and saturation dialog box in PS.

[Spikey]

Thanks for all your replies and encouragement, it is really nice and appreciated to have the advice and I will take it all on board.

Another point I was pondering is why I dont have any colour in my images after stacking and a little stretching? I ended up playing with Colour balance and hue/saturation in PS to get any kind of colour. Is this correct?

Or try setting the saturation to about 10-15% in DSS and saving the image .tif with the changes applied.

[drumsolo]

Ahh that brings me to another question! When stacking in DSS it applies some processsing to the image for me. Should I ignore this and only save the raw stacked image to work on?

[Spikey]

Ahh that brings me to another question! When stacking in DSS it applies some processsing to the image for me. Should I ignore this and only save the raw stacked image to work on?

I don't think there is a definitive answer to that question. My preference is to at first save the file that DSS outputs. Then I tend to do a little bit of processing in DSS such as moving the black level slightly and perhaps adding saturation, maybe even a quick move about of the luminance curve. It really depends (for me) on how the stacked image came out of DSS. I look at it as a bit of pre-processing before importing into photoshop but it's only my preference and other people will have their own ways of approaching processing. Try both ways with a stacked image and see how it comes out perhaps ?

[midge91]

Would my telescope be able to picture Orion as I would like to get into AP?

[Simms]

Would my telescope be able to picture Orion as I would like to get into AP?

What telescope/mount/camera do you have?

[midge91]

What telescope/mount/camera do you have?

Telescope: Skywatcher Skyliner 250PX

Mount: Dob:( (not best for AP) Could I ever put it on EQ?

Camera: Canon EOS 350d