Pleiades unmodded 600D tips most welcome

[Ewan]

Hi everyone, was out last night till 2.00 ish brrrrr!!!, my first serious attempt at Pleiades on my un-modded 600D & no filters Canon 55-250mm @ f5.6 (would Baader Blue filter help bring out more detail ? ), fighting against all night dew was a headache but that's why i bought the wife a nice hair dryer for , final shot is 3 subs @ 1600 / 20 secs, 8 subs @ 1600 / 60 secs, 10 dark frames & 5 flat frames (i keep forgetting to do them), processed in DSS & CS6. My 'main' stars seem blown, i used levels + curves but not sure exactly what to adjust to reduce the bright whites but keep background dark & keep blues in tact ?

I'm please how it's come out & hope you like it too.

[VigdisVZ]

Nice job!

Good work with the flats, it really helps the vignetting.

The image is nice, you can definetly see some nebulosity in there. I think you need to do more subs though. And I think you can play around more in DSS to tease out the mid range that should be in there.

Here is a similar shot i did sunday:

It's an unmodded Nikon D5100 on my 6" newt. I had to work quite vigorously with the mid range sliders in DSS then push the saturation up a bit. 33x30sec subs, 9 darks. I think I was very lucky with the result, and the focus, but using zoomed live view to focus is really effective.

So just keep playing with the levels and sliders in DSS and you should probably be able to tease out more data.

[tingting44]

that really is an amazing shot!! for no telescope, tracking or guiding!!! may i ask how you got 60 sec subs with no tracking or guiding? totally awsome picture!! i actually tried imaging this through my scope last night, but i didnt get results half as good as you mate

[VigdisVZ]

that really is an amazing shot!! for no telescope, tracking or guiding!!! may i ask how you got 60 sec subs with no tracking or guiding? totally awsome picture!! i actually tried imaging this through my scope last night, but i didnt get results half as good as you mate

Guessing he used his EQ5 and C8.

Erm. Meant CG-5

60 seconds is usually no trouble. I've heard about guys in my club who managed 3 minute unguideds...

[Ewan]

Sorry, Carl is correct, i piggy-backed the 600 on my C8, i did a couple of 4 minute subs but the neighbour was nice enough to turn their garden light on to let the dog out & the dew was very heavy then so i didnt bother including that in the stack, should still be able to do a lot longer than 4 mins as well, just take the time to set the scope up correctly first, i pay a lot of attention to the mounts level using a bubble.

I did push up the mids & the sat but the whole pic went blue but looking at your pic Carl dosent seem to bad an idea, ill give it a go m8 :-)

[sologuitarist61]

Great stuff Ewan

[stellawolf]

Great image well done