How to stack and process?

[Lovisa]

Heya, So I finally got a new camera. The Nikon D3100.. I love it, beats my mums D40 I have tried to use for a long time. anyway.

Last night I was messing round with the camera and took 5 shots of the milkyway and stacked and processed with Rot 'n' Stack, not a bad program but my image came out looking like this

I'm not too sad nor am I too happy about this picture as it is my first attempt. But I need to learn.

What programs do you use to stack images that don't over expose them? or how do you do it via photoshop?

oh yeah my settings were:

ISO 800

5 images over 20 secs each

18 - 55 kit lens

[Freddie]

You can stack using Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) free to download. You can then apply levels and curves in PS. Plenty of tutorials available for both on line and on SGL.

[JamesF]

Yup. I'm at the beginning of this journey too. DSS seems to be the place to start. There's a tutorial sticky here somewhere that may help. I'll dig that out in a moment. Basically I think you want more subs, slightly longer, and some darks. Let DSS work its magic and then tweak the image in photoshop or at the very least you can stretch it a bit in DSS.

That's what I'm doing anyhow

James

[JamesF]

Here's the image I took last night:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/157267-another-cygnus-widefield/

James

[JamesF]

And here's the basic tutorial, which I found excellent as a place for getting started:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/36308-basic-widefield-with-a-camera-and-tripod/

James

[Lovisa]

So I tired DSS and my image turned out a lot better I think.

I like your image James and thanks for the tutorial.

i

[JamesF]

By sheer chance it looks like your image is almost exactly the same area od the sky as mine, so it makes for an interesting comparison. I wonder if the orange glow on yours may be due to light pollution or cloud? I don't have to deal with much light pollution here, but the image I took the previous night when there was a lot of moisture in the air definitely had an orangey-brown tint to it.

I look forward to seeing your results if you decide to go for more, longer subs. Looks like you have an aircraft trail on one of yours and you'd be able to just drop that sub without compromising quality if you had more. I'd really like to get some longer subs, but I don't think my EQ3-2 is up to much more than 45 seconds without some trailing showing.

Looks like another clear night tonight so I'll definitely be out again despite the fact that my body is screaming for more sleep after an entire week of late nights Be nice if the sky is clear down towards Sagittarius so I can try to get an image of that. Otherwise it'll probably be Cassiopeia.

James

[Lovisa]

By sheer chance it looks like your image is almost exactly the same area od the sky as mine, so it makes for an interesting comparison. I wonder if the orange glow on yours may be due to light pollution or cloud? I don't have to deal with much light pollution here, but the image I took the previous night when there was a lot of moisture in the air definitely had an orangey-brown tint to it.

I look forward to seeing your results if you decide to go for more, longer subs. Looks like you have an aircraft trail on one of yours and you'd be able to just drop that sub without compromising quality if you had more. I'd really like to get some longer subs, but I don't think my EQ3-2 is up to much more than 45 seconds without some trailing showing.

Looks like another clear night tonight so I'll definitely be out again despite the fact that my body is screaming for more sleep after an entire week of late nights Be nice if the sky is clear down towards Sagittarius so I can try to get an image of that. Otherwise it'll probably be Cassiopeia.

James

lol I was looking South and straight up into the sky. I think the orange glow might of been the camera as there are no lights near me. I'll hopefully be trying again tonight IF the clouds decide to nice. When I was practising with shots, I caught a few meteors too which made my night even more

[JamesF]

Could just be cloud. There was a fair bit of very high thin cloud about here last night and I'd guess most of it was heading in your general direction.

James

[Anweniel]

It looks like you have good skies as the Milky Way has come through lovely. As most have said DSS is a good start for stacking and Photoshop for processing if you have it. Its all a bit of a dark art that I am also in the process of learning. Only advice I can really give is : take a few more exposures and select your best to stack. Your picture is fantastic you do have a satellite or plane trail in one of your subs thats showing up in the bottom, best way to lose that is lose the sub its in.

Love to see our galaxy though and I think you have done well