First attempt from last night M57 / M52

[Andyfx]

Well I finally got my rig together (see sig), and although I'm limited to 30sec exposures as my dslr remote hasn't arrived yet, I couldn't resist trying out my new toys

I've attached the two images I managed to get using ISO 800, 15 subs, 30 sec exposure, no darks or flats (didn't know what they were till 5 mins ago lol).

Think I did ok-ish as I'm around a mile from the town center so never have particularly dark skies.

Btw did I manage to get some slight hint of the bubble nebula in my M52 shot, and does anyone have tips to make them look any better?

Cheers!

[Steve Ward]

You can shoot longer than 30s in the bulb setting without a remote , set the Drive mode to the 10 s self-timer mode , this lets you press shutter button manually but gives 10s for things to stop shaking before the shutter fires , then before you close the shutter hold a piece of black card or similar in front of the scopes front end and then press shutter again.

this is the way I operated to start before my remote arrived.

Alternatively , run it thru your lappie with the EosUtility package

Steve.

[Andyfx]

Cheers Steve, handy trick to know! I really should take some darks and flats too and see what difference it makes. Hopefully I will have the remote soon anyway and can try for 2 min exposures

[Steve Ward]

I haven't gone down the flats road yet , but darks are a must I've found , I usually do about 20 and that works fine for my meager efforts.

I managed pretty good 3 min subs unguided on Tuesday night , was meticulous with PA for a change , paid off.......

Steve.

[Spikey]

Great start Andy. Looks like your ISO is pretty spot on a the images aren't as noisy as they can get at higher ISO's.

I think aligning the RGB might help with your images as would dropping the black point slightly with levels and bring out some mre details with an application of curves - a touch more saturation will make things more colourful

To be honest they look OK to me without flats and darks are much easier to get - simply leave the camera taking the same length exposures with the cap over the telescope - got for about 15-20 darks.

It's really worth considering computer control in the longer term, you can't go wrong with EQMOD and camera control such as APT.

[Andyfx]

Thanks Simon I think I could definately have got 2 min exposures last night as the mount was tracking quite well albeit unguided at current, I'll do some darks next time and do a stack with and without the darks to see the difference. I think I'll take your advice and re-stack later and have a fiddle in photoshop, I must admit I was struggling with the levels but not sure if things are a bit different on Photoshop cs5.

[Andyfx]

Ok here's the M57 shot that I just re-processed. How does this look guys?

And M52...

[Spikey]

I think you've gone too far with the levels this time and it's clipped the black point.

Try using the original stack, go into levels and just move the left hand slider that positions the black point until it is slightly before the start of the histogram and see how it looks.

Very good though

[Andyfx]

Lol, I'll keep at it and check out some of the imaging primers too

[Chris]

Excellant debut Andy mate:), you've got off to a flying start there I wish my first attempts where even half as good as these:)

Processing takes a bit of getting used to but for your first attempt at it I think you've done well! I used to have my background really dark like your reprocessed images then someone mentioned that it didn't look very natural so I tried lifting the backgound a bit so it had some texture and wasn't pitch black and I really liked how my images started to look. I think it might be similar to what Spikey is saying with the clipping of the darker shades at the left side of the histogram, you don't want your left slider to touch the gradient on the left side, let it sit just before it:)

Welcome to the almost dark side, the proper dark side is guiding:D

[Andyfx]

Hi mate and thanks for being so kind, I guess no one feels confident showing their first attempts. I have been fiddling with PS CS5 and have got a much better result now, all about stretching out that histogram for the Levels! Definately need to practise as I'm a complete Photoshop noob, also I need to get a good number or longer exposures to work with.

Well the weather has turned again and I'm working the weekend anyway, so hope to get cracking again sometime next week (weather permitting), and see what I come up with.

Btw, does anyone know what narrowband filters might be useful on my tiddley little 70ed? I think that maybe some might block too much light....

[Spikey]

I had a look on something other than my laptop and had a quick play with the levels for you, it's only the jpeg so it's still a little noisy.

If you look at the original the red channel is over to the right of the blue & green channels. All I've done is to try and align them and move the black point slightly inward

[Gina]

That's nice

[Andyfx]

Yea it is nice eh Gina, and thanks for taking the time Spikey! I do find them level things a bit confusing but i am a talentless space monkey at the mo lol. Really should watch them photoshop tutorials....... :-D

[farunj]

That's really wonderful!!

[Andyfx]

Thanks cant wait to more done :-)

[Quatermass]

Imaging is great fun and thats a great start if your stuck on the processing take a run through my blog and have a gander at the utube ps tutorials I put up they cover most stuff you need. Looking forward to seeing more from you

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk 2

[Andyfx]

Thanks Quartermass, Starfox has also been helping me out and was the one who convinced me to get my HEQ5, must say that the pro synscan is sooooo sooth and tracks really well!

The pics above were focused by eye as i couldnt see the star using my bahtinov, and it never occured to me to take a short exposure lol. Live and learn eh ;-)

Must say that its some of your images that inspired me to empty my wallet hehe.