First Stacking Session! - Oh dear

[biondi]

Hi,

So, after a lot of trying (and failing) I've ended up with about 15 lights of M101, between about 60 and 300 seconds. They're not perfect but I learnt some stuff so have a few things I can do a lot better next time. I took some darks (not as many as I should have, only about 5 but it was getting late with work in the morning) and I have a load of bias shots. So, not perfect but enough for me to finally have a crack at stacking. I've got a MAC so use Nebulosity. The target was M101 and in each of the exposures you can see it, reasonably clearly. I've attached a single 300 second light to this post.

I've followed the astro-shed walkthrough and the walkthrough on the Nebulosity website. However, whatever I do, once stacked, the end result is actually worse than an individual exposure That was not what I was expecting! I can't see M101 at all in the end result. So, I'm obviously doing something wrong but having followed the walkthroughs 3 times now and ending up with the same result I don't know what that can be. No matter how much stretching I do I can not resolve a thing of M101 in the end-data.

I appreciate this is kind of tricky for you to help with based on the information I've provided, but if someone else has also experienced this it would at least make me feel better. If anyone knows what I might be doing wrong, please share!

Thanks,

Matt

[lensman57]

Hi,

So, after a lot of trying (and failing) I've ended up with about 15 lights of M101, between about 60 and 300 seconds. They're not perfect but I learnt some stuff so have a few things I can do a lot better next time. I took some darks (not as many as I should have, only about 5 but it was getting late with work in the morning) and I have a load of bias shots. So, not perfect but enough for me to finally have a crack at stacking. I've got a MAC so use Nebulosity. The target was M101 and in each of the exposures you can see it, reasonably clearly. I've attached a single 300 second light to this post.

I've followed the astro-shed walkthrough and the walkthrough on the Nebulosity website. However, whatever I do, once stacked, the end result is actually worse than an individual exposure That was not what I was expecting! I can't see M101 at all in the end result. So, I'm obviously doing something wrong but having followed the walkthroughs 3 times now and ending up with the same result I don't know what that can be. No matter how much stretching I do I can not resolve a thing of M101 in the end-data.

I appreciate this is kind of tricky for you to help with based on the information I've provided, but if someone else has also experienced this it would at least make me feel better. If anyone knows what I might be doing wrong, please share!

Thanks,

Matt

Hi,

Is this the streched result? If so something has gone wrong. Try stacking the files in the latest beta version of the DSS that can deal with 1100d's raw files. and see if the end result is any different. I have Nebulasity 3 but I find the stacking process a chore because it creates all the xtra files all over the place and then I have to get rid of them.

Regards,

A.G

[biondi]

Thanks - but DSS isn't available to the MAC (from what I can see)?