first ever m42

[The Viper]

this is my first ever crack at imaging deep sky i know its poor compared with most of the pics ive enjyed looking at from others on the forum,but i got to start somewhere.50x10sec and 50x5 seconds iso 1600, the moon was close by,struggling to think of more excuses.TBH i was glad to get something,a big thanx for all the information i have gained from the forum and i hope to improve in the future.

[smudgeball]

Hi

Great shot, no obvious star trails.

Nothing to be ashamed of.

Well done

Neil

[Tommy B]

Fear not, this is an awsome first dso.

[The Viper]

Thank you very much for the kind comments,its daunting posting my first dso as the caliber is so high set by others

[Quatermass]

Dont be daunted thats a great first shot and the start of many more. The best ones are the first ones as we allways remember them. Keep going many more things out there to image you will be busy all year.

[The Viper]

Hope the weather gets better cause im getting addicted.I will cherish this image as its my first, its already my screen saver on my laptop

[Quatermass]

AH look out the addiction can be very hard to cure just make sure you have some nice warm clothing for those severe addiction nights..

[SJJ]

Great first post, well done. The never ending quest for astro-imaging perfection has begun.......

[Jannis]

Very good start there. Lots of details!

[The Viper]

Again thanks very much cant wait to get another clear night to try again.I have ordered an adapter to attach a 2" lp filter to my camera,and try for longer subs,what sub lenght is realistic for a motor driven eq5 if anyone knows,my polar alignment is pretty good

[Quatermass]

most I was able to get from my eq5 was a tad under 3 mins but mainly around 80 seconds with a good pa. Exsposures at 800 iso 10*40 10*60 10* 80seconds plus 30 darks flats and bias\offsets should give you a fair result.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[Jessun]

Thanks for sharing! Surprisingly noise free image and lot of signal IMHO for the relatively short total exposure. One to return to and add more!

I just had a play with the colours a bit to see what was in there, and there is loads:)

Cheers

[The Viper]

wow just been shown how poor my photoshop skills are so much to learn,dont think my brain can take anymore.If i can manage 60 seconds subs i would be pleased thanks for sharing

[Quatermass]

wow just been shown how poor my photoshop skills are so much to learn,dont think my brain can take anymore.If i can manage 60 seconds subs i would be pleased thanks for sharing

If you want some help with photoshop I put together a set of 13 video tutorials covering most of the things you will need to be doing fed up with looking all over the place for tutorials so decided to put together a set that covered all I had learned the last year from the tour of tutorial on the net check em out and hopefully they will be helpful to you.

All the best QM

boodlewoodle's Channel - YouTube

[The Viper]

Thanks for the heads up,i will check these videos out any help is appreciated

[Jessun]

wow just been shown how poor my photoshop skills are

I have pretty much zero PS skills, I just tweaked the curves/levels a bit.

I believe that the subs you have a great for the 'core' and some other bits. Then you could add some longer subs for the fainter parts and combine the two in PS for instance - an art that I have yet to learn...

Why do you think longer subs will be tricky?

[Catanonia]

Excellent effort especially seeing the conditions with the moon etc.

Well done, nice image and clean.

[The Viper]

i was under the inpression if i take longer subs the light pollution i have where i stay will start to fog the image,but got a neodynium filter to attach for the next effort

[Arringar]

Tell us a little about your equipment.

[Jessun]

If you have lots of light pollution all that really happens is that your colours R G B won't equal in the subs. This is easily adjusted in editing IMHO - click of a button if you wish, and despite living in the centre of a big city I never use filters as then I know for a fact that some signal will be lost forever.

I'd rather grab it all and then tweak. Just an opinion btw not 'cold fact' perhaps.

Try some more subs, and some flats if possible, they are pretty much free and do more good to the end result than any filter.

[The Viper]

thought data would be lost using the filter never thought photoshop could help with lp any tips on how to take flats they sound rather confusing

[The Viper]

my equipment is basically whats in my signature just made a pier for my mount to sit on,fed up polar aligning ever time i set up,it cost me 30 pounds to make and its not like the expensive ones some ppl have on the forum but it does the job imo

[Jessun]

Try a search here on SGL on flats, there are many ways of doing them and applying them.

In short, you do a series of exposures against an even light, a light panel, the twilight sky, a white laptop screen or something home made to create an image that shows the vignetting and also any dust you have on the various lenses and mirrors. Clever programs then use these flats to 'even out' the image allowing for more agressive editing.

Your image ended up with a circular bright area in the centre and rather dark corners after some editing. Flats can cure this to a certain degree.

But search for more info from the Jedi's on this forum. Here is a good video too kindly made by a very skilled member:

http://www.harrysastroshed.com/AA4flat.html

Good luck!

[The Viper]

thanks for your help its appreciated