"Running Man" and Messier 42 , Had enough of it for one day ! ! !

[Steve Ward]

Been messing with this all afternoon now , have 1.6 zillion versions that all look as bad as each other . . .

Tried to find a "reference" shot on-line to give me a guide but couldn't find two alike so I guess it's not just me . . . .

Result No. 1,335,582 from a stack of 51 x 120 second subs @ ISO 400 + Flats and Darks , very transparent sky but even Jupiter was twinkling so I guess the seeing could have been better , the occasional thin cloud wandered by which cost a few subs but not a sign of dew all night . . .

1000D + ED80 Pro + F/F ( slight crop to get rid of some of the gradient) 51 x 120s @ ISO 400 + Flats + 10 x 120s matched Darks , DSS + Gimp2.8.

Overcooked it somewhat as I've lost all the star colour .

Got to the point where I cannot see the wood for the trees now , let alone where the nebulosity ends and the nasty stuff starts . . . so putting this one to bed for a while . . . my head hurts . . .

Steve

[Mark72]

Steve,

It's just color balance is a bit off, you can get RBA plug-in for White Balance.

Should fix it at once.

Mark

[SJJ]

Looks like a nice image to me Steve. I'd agree with mark that it's a little blushish. I guess that's the un-modded camera.

[Gina]

Very nice I like it

[nmoushon]

I looks great for what you have. I think you are getting frustrated because you cant pull out as much as you've seen in other pictures and I think the reason is not your processing skills but the fact that you where shooting at iso400. Which is really low. I would suggest shooting at at least iso800. The noise is still pretty low and with enough subs and darks you'll be able to control it much better.

[Chris]

Its a good one be proud of your efforts:) Not many images are perfect and at least some of it is subjective anyway:)

I would also try ISO800-1600 on your next go, I find it works well:)

[Gina]

You should be able to go to ISO 1600 with these cold nights I would think.

[ollypenrice]

As above, it's just managing the colour balance. Try to get the three channels' histograms to line up at the top left of the peak, arrowed on the red channel here. This is from Ps CS3.

You won't get the outer dust in short subs.

Olly

[sologuitarist61]

Great image

[allcart]

You should be pleased Steve, there is plenty of detail in there even if you haven't got the outer dusty stuff.