First steps in imaging - guidance please :)

[autonm]

I know this forum is not a charity but I am looked for any advice or even members showing me from my images what is possible....

If you care to take a look at my website www.mauton.co.uk you can see that I have managed to take my first steps into astrophotography That being said I think I have done well for an unguided mount - 200p Dobsonian and a basic digital camera.

Few questions:

I have managed to use registax / pipp against avi files from an xbox webcam. However they seem to all lack in depth of colour. You will see my attempt at Jupiter. Any suggestions to pull in any further colour?

I have recently started looking into constellations / stars - rather than planets/moon. If you care to take a look at :

Pleiades - http://mauton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/P1010500.jpg

Orion Nebula - http://mauton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/P1010530.jpg

Orions Belt - http://mauton.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/P1010693.jpg

These are the images direct from my camera (no processing). I would appreciate any tips or help on how I could begin processing these.

My knowledge of GIMP / PS is very very basic. I understand the ideas of layers etc - but I dont know anything about processing.

Appreciate any comments at all or any advice, guidance !

Also appreciate anyone taking my images and using them to show me what is possible.

HNY !!

Thanks.

[rfdesigner]

I would go and buy "making every photon count"

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

a second hand version may be available through the SGL buy sell section.

As for your images..

If you are doing low light imaging you must first appreciate that you will always be grubbing around in the noise trying to pick out details most people will overlook. Because people overlook these details, and JPEG is designed to compress images by removing the details people overlook, if you JPEG an image before processing it, you throw away almost all of the data you want. So always work in RAW. I had a play with your images, and although I got a tiny bit more detail I was limited more by the JPEG issues than anything else.

Programs like Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) work well, and people have taken decent images with static mounts by taking lots of short images and then stacking them rather than tracking with a powered mount, so persevere you can suceed without spending any/much more cash.

Personally I use IRIS (free) which has a steep learning curve.. I think DSS will be much easier to master quickly.

Derek

[autonm]

Thanks for the comments.

Funnily enough I ordered that book on Sunday - so just waiting for it to be processed ! at FLO.

My current camera can only save as jpeg - not RAW, so thats a brickwall itself until I look into possibly a DSLR camera.

I am currently at a crossroads - do I but a DSLR camera to take RAW images and look at stacking.

or

Look at buying a HEQ5 mount to replace my DOB mount - which I can then use for tracking.

I suppose even with my current digital camera I will still have the JPEG/RAW problem. So the tracking would only improve my webcam capabilities.

With what I have right now - my camera is adjustable for ISO/shutter speed/aperture and can take multiple burst pictures. So I could try this out again with DSS / Registax. - but again limited by JPEG.

I have actually tried DSS on a few stacked images - however the output was B&W, and then I was stuck on the next steps to bring the colour back out ????

If I wanted to go further with DSS - any advice on ISO/shutter speed/aperture ?

Lots of questions, but hopefully you guys/gals - an keep pointing me in the right direction.

thanks