DSLR - no colour, losing detail?

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Evening all,

I use a Canon 450D for astro use, but noticed that my photos do not have much, if any, colour to them. For example, a photo of m11 and all the stars are white. I shoot in raw mode, ISO800, normally 1-2min subs. Any idea what is causing this, i seem to be losing data, which is needed for bringing out more detail

Is there a guide existing, or any tips on what to set the settings as, other than ISO and focus etc.

I dont have my camera with me right now but will tomorrow.

Thanks,

Matt

[JKB]

Hi Matt

When you say not much colour how do you mean?: Apart from the Camera what other equipment are you using?

If looking at the image through the screen on the camera it is quite often a bit bland. Are you stacking multiple images?

If you can give more info....

Thanks

Jamie

[Russe]

I use the same camera on two different scopes and in long exposures (>30s) I will see different coloured stars.

[Merlin66]

Using RAW images, with as much exposure as you can get before light pollution takes over, is as good as it gets....

[jgs001]

At way point in the processing are you seeing this, and what have you done to get there ? Did you stack using dss and save with settings applied or embedded ??

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Im using it on a akywatcher 200p, no guiding. I mean during and after the processing.

I couldnt tell you about the applied or embedded without actually look at DSS, but i stack and then use the autosave, and choose save picture to file, so im not sure if that would applied or embedded

. i will have a look tonight though and make sure.

First it was suggested by a friend that the long exposure noise reduction was turned on, but i double checked, and it says it is turned off (0).

Matt

[Matt Scunthorpe]

For an example, on some images ive got on my work pc. If you look at stars in the back ground, they are all white, the the objects themselves are grey as well.

I cannot remember what the individual subs were like, but im not sure if this is the camera not picking up colour, or my lack of processing skills to. But the stars should show colours whatever id of thought.

Matt.

[Russe]

The star colour is there w/o processing.

[Daniel-K]

doing long exposures will burn out the stars try to mask the stars before you do any stretching

[Spikey]

Are you moving the saturation slider up in DSS?, try setting it at 15 and apply, see what you get.

It might also be worth taking shorter exposures just for the stars and layering them in later.

[glowingturnip]

there are two settings in DSS, I forget what they are at the moment, but in your stacking params dialogue box, click the recommended settings button, scroll to the bottom of that dialogue, and they're there - one if you're having trouble colour processing, the other if the resulting image is too grey (sounds like that one ?) - try them both.  When saving-to-file make sure you use embed but don't apply - see if that works ?