M13 The Great Hercules cluster.

[Astrodaz83]

Hi all

Started t get much better now with my imaging. I started off pulling my hair out at one stage but as the old saying goes, ''practice makes perfect'' i stuck at it and now i am conquering astrophotography with much better alignment and tracking.

Taken with a canon 1000d. Using a skywatcher 200p newt with eq5 pro mount.

1min subs x 20

10 darks

10 flats

10 bias

Iso setting 1600 and also used a eos clip filter.

Pretty chuffed with that. Maybe need to tighten up my photoshop skills but still pretty chuffed.

Onwards and upwards!.

[andyo]

Well done.I started out with the 200p and eq5 and know the tracking and alignment is not easy to get right.You have got some nice star shapes and data to work with but it looks like you may have clipped the blackpoint in your processing.I don't know what stacking program you have used but maybe a saturation boost would reveal more colour.Working on your processing skills will help you get the best out of your data but a good start capturing it.

[Astrodaz83]

Thanks a lot. I used deepskystacker to stack it all together. Can i ask what you meant by ''clipped the blackpoint''?.

[Astrodaz83]

i did a bit more processing this morning and managed to get some color into it. Looks much better as well.

[Gina]

Nice start I think the middle may be overexposed or simply too stretched in photoshop.

[andyo]

Thanks a lot. I used deepskystacker to stack it all together. Can i ask what you meant by ''clipped the blackpoint''?.

Hi when you stretch in levels there are three sliders the left one sets the black point the right one sets the white point and the middle one is for the pixels between these two points(the grey areas) this is the slider that should be used to stretch the data by moving it to the right towards the black point.If you move the left slider two far to the right past the start of the histogram it will set the black point to high thus setting grey pixels to black when in fact they contain data.Black can also be clipped in a similar fashion using curves.The best way to do these adjustments is to keep a close eye on the histogram.

Generaly after opening the image in photoshop open levels,stretch the data by moving the middle slider to the left but be careful not to let it become to noisy,maybe a few iterations with small adjustments to start then set the blackpoint by moving the left slider to the start of the histogram just before the curve starts on the bottom edge don't go over this point or you run the risk of clipping the data.

In DSS after you have calibrated and stacked your light you are presented with three sliders, RGB levels move these so the RG and B align on the histogram,Luminance I would probably leave this alone and saturation I would move this to about 15% or 20%.When you save the picture to file when the save options opens make sure you have ticked the box apply adjustments to the saved image.

Sorry if I have oversimplified this but I don't know how much you already know.Anyway I hope this helps

[Sirius Bizness]

That is a great start. I have found that dropping the ISO down gives a better image with more colour. Try ISO 800 or 400.

[Astrodaz83]

Thanks everyone for your input. I shall put everything into practice.