First go at DSO with LPI

[LaVey]

Hi Guys... Not sure what kind of results i am to expect using the meade LPI and envisage on DSO's but I had a go at the orion nebula the other night.

Here is the original shot:

and here I reduced the RGB midranges by -1 in PS (not sure if this is right - but vrought out more detail - kinda bloated my stars though):

Not sure if anyone uses envisage, but here are my settings.. (80 images at 4secs)

as you can see, i'm proper new to this .. so any advice/pointers welcome.

Cheers

LaVey

[GordonH]

Hi Lavey

Pretty good for a firts effort with LPI and envisage especially with 4 second subs. The focus looks a little soft and what I could see of the magic eye tool in envisage seems to reinforce this. Of what I remember with envisage as you get closer to perfect focus you should get 2 green arrows coming closer together, if you use this as a guide and also concentrate on focusing on one star (doesn't have to be one you are imaging) and try and get that star as small as possible. Don't worry if this takes a while as this is one area you should take time over as it can't be adjusted later in processing. From your two images the stars look fairly round which would suggest you could try longer subs, I would suggest you experiment by taking 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 second subs and so on until you find the limit of accurate tracking for your mount, basically the longer your exposures the more detail you will get.

Well done, you will find that as you practice more each time will producer better images.

regards

Gordon

[legion48]

Nice first go Lavey. I reckon you should post the first pic in the Double star section as it shows the Trapezium very nicely.

[Sam]

That quite a good picture with the trapezium quite clearly defined.