First Attempt with Astrophotgraphy

[Selborne]

Good Evening,

well just in from the garden in the middle of Ramsgate, having taken hundreds of pictures through my new telescope, very much trial and error. Light pollution was not very good, but the first evening for a long time where it is clear, so time for my first attempt at astrophotography.

Using my Canon 60d in lots of different settings I managed a few reasonable pictures the best of which is attached.

The Jupiter picture was taken at 1/400sec ISO 500 at F10 through my Celestron CPC925

The Orion Nebular was taken at 5sec ISO 4000 at F6.3 using the focal reducer.

The telescope was in standard Alt Az position so I am very happy with the pictures.

I struggled a little to get the focus perfect, as the image is very dim through the camera, but trail and error got me these results.

So what is the next step I am hooked and have got the buzz !!!!

Jamie

[Jannis]

Very nice start!

[Kropster]

Great Orion Nebula pic... especially for alt/az mount!

Next step might be to take some more and stack them..

[Selborne]

If I was to stack them, how many would I need to take ? and what would be the best software Registax ?

[Jannis]

deep sky stacker is better for nebulas, registax is for planets and the moon.

For the amount, the more the better - there is basically no theoretical limit. I have personally stacked almost 1100 frames.

Though, there is a practical limit of where it's just not much point in taking more frames, and instead you need to focus on longer exposures.

I don't think most people stack much more then 100-150 frames tops.

[Selborne]

Thank You Jannis, I will try this and see what results I can obtain.

Jamie

[Jannis]

Before stacking, when taking the frames, set cameras long exposure noise reduction to off, and take dark frames manualy to remove hot pixels and so. This saves you a lot of time as you can then gather as much data as possible, and take the dark frames when the clouds roll in, or the target gets behind a tree or so.

Also disable the cameras high ISO noise reduction when stacking frames.

And of course, RAW, RAW, RAW - compressed JPG is banned for astro-imaging, lol

You might need to download the latest beta verson to suppord the 60D's RAW files, you can download it from DSS's yahoo group page. I'm unsure if the one on their homepage supports the 60D or not.

Alternatively, in worst case, if you don't want to use the beta, you can convert then to uncompressed TIFF files first and stack those.

For the stacking settings, just try what it recommends to begin with. Personally I almost always go with kappa sigma-clipping method.

Just remember in DSS, after you have stacked the frames, the pic will normally look rather gray. Go to the processing tab and set saturation to +10 to +20, and you'll have your colors back.

Then i usually align the color channels roughly, save to TIFF with "apply adjustments" and process in PS, GIMP, or whatever software you prefer.

I'm sure your M42 will look very good with more frames stacked to reduce the noise, as you already have a very good start there!

[Pete Presland]

a couple of very nice first images,well done!

[Astrosurf]

Excellent work on an alt/az!

Alexxx

[Selborne]

Ok Jannis,

I did not have any flats or darks to play with but I did down load DSS and have a little play with the image, the result is better, but it is clear that I need to learn out darks and flats etc.

Thanks for the information,

Jamie

[scoobee]

liking the images, well-one.

[jazzysam]

Hi Jamie,

I'm a newbie too, and I went thru pretty much the same challenges you are experiencing.

I found a very useful piece of software called SimCCD, that allows to calculate how many exposures you need at what duration etc, to get a decent image. It's free (always helps), and it uses the data in a single image you take to calculate what the noise is/how many subs you need to increase the signal to noise ratio to a point you specify.

i found it invaluable, together with a book called 'The 100 Best Targets for AstroPhotography by Ruben Kier', which tells you how many subs/duration/binning/filters you need for a specific target. I must have read twenty books so far, and this is the best in my opinion.

you should be able to google the website for SimCCD, if not, let me know and I'll pull it out from my laptop.

clear skies,

Sam

[Selborne]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the information, I will find the SimCCD software, and at such a good price, I could not ask for more !!

I am at the very beginning of this adventure, so I have to learn about subs/darks/bias etc first, so I have some reading and 'You Tubing' to do

Cheers

Jamie

[AstroAndy]

Good image, and in 5s, too.

[starman1969]

Superb images. Very good detail in both.

[Obi Wan Ken00bi]

For a first attempt, wow! Congrats... Perhaps you can use photoshop to remove some of the orange glow using curves and color balance, without affecting the actual nebula?

[Selborne]

I do not have a copy of Photoshop, any ideas where I could obtain a reasonably priced version ?

[Jannis]

Photoshop CS2 is free now from Adobes website, should should get should get you started at least.

[Selborne]

thanks Jannis, i will have a look

Jamie