And this i smy best pic yet

[Kevdan]

Hi all,

sorry to bore you with images youve all seen thousands of times but this is my best pic of anything, I spent all last night taking darks and lights and bias frames,

So Here it is.

I hope you like it, any comments on how I could improve will b gretafully recieved. It does look like the centre has blown too much when in small thumbnail but better when viewd properly.

Kev.

[hemihaggis]

exellent !!!!

[ItIsOnlyMe]

Never get bored of looking at this, excellent image.

[dabiscuit]

Very nice! I am also very jealous. I want to take shots like this, but so confused at to what is the best combination of equipment for my scope and my ability!

[Kevdan]

Very nice! I am also very jealous. I want to take shots like this, but so confused at to what is the best combination of equipment for my scope and my ability!

This is taken with my skywatcher 150p on an eq3-2 with dual axis drive motors, 25 1min30sec subs, 15 dark frames, 10 bias frames, stacked in deep sky stacker and manipulated in photoshop cs4.

If I can do it anyone can.

Kev.

[Brent]

That's excellent, Kev.

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Do you find you can push the sub length more with the DSLR over the webcam because of field of view? (Or do you get 1 min 30 second subs with the webcam as well?)

And, how many subs did you discard because of backlash/tracking errors on the EQ3-2 ?

[Shibby]

Hi Kev, that's a very nice start, you've got good colours and focus!

As you say, though, you have blown the core. Also, you have clipped the image quite badly (that means you have clipped the left-hand side of the histogram, resulting in a totally black background, losing all of the faint detail.) This is quite easy to do if there is a gradient in the image, so try to remove that first. Flats will eliminate it, but otherwise if you're using PS, try the GradientXTerminator plugin.

[iam]

Looks absolutely superb! Just to confirm - was this image made with the Pentax DSLR or the Philips webcam?

[Tribal-Wolf]

Very nice, is it possible to take a pic like that with a Dobsonian scope?

[ollypenrice]

Very well done. The core may be much less blown than you think. Try starting again from the linear image and lifting by doing the curves routine more gently, not lifting the upper part of the curve so much. Stop when you have the Trapezium region less blown than it is in the main pic. Then you place it as a layer on top and this is a good tutorial for the rest; Compositing 2 Different Exposures via Layer Masks

-or a simpler way is place it underneath and just use a big soft partial erasor to take the burned top layer off and reveal the softer stretch.

The soft curve for the trap area should be something like this;

This was to control Alnitak but the principle is the same.

Ideally you should shoot some short subs for the very bright Trap region. 15 seconds or so.

Olly

[Ant]

Very nice, is it possible to take a pic like that with a Dobsonian scope?

Not unless the dob is on some form of driven EQ platform.

Not a bad image Follow Olly's suggestions and see what happens.

Another method is to take a series of lower exposures (say 30seconds) so that the core is less exposed and then recombine them in PS as layers - I'm sure there is a primer about doing this and how to recombine the images in the primers section.

M42 and M31 are both hard images to get the outer feint parts without blowing the core...! Good luck.

Ant

Cheers

Ant

[Kevdan]

That's excellent, Kev.

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Do you find you can push the sub length more with the DSLR over the webcam because of field of view? (Or do you get 1 min 30 second subs with the webcam as well?)

And, how many subs did you discard because of backlash/tracking errors on the EQ3-2 ?

Hi,

with my mount a motor drives over 1min 30 secs is about all i can get without trailing, this is using the Pentax dslr which is 6.1mp Fortunately I didnt discard any sub although spending ages looking through them for problems, Hope this helps.

Kev.