Help!!! Can these be saved?

[Adamar98]

Hi all,

Had a disaster of a night. Set up my rig for capturing more data on the heart nebula. Got everything running fine. Phd graph was looking good. Checked the first two subs and everything looked fine. Went inside for a few hours and when I came back out I noticed every sub after the first two had slight trailing. Is there any way of reducing the trailing in the images with photoshop or any other software? Otherwise I have 3 and 1/2 hours of data wasted.

Heres 4 900 second subs in ha.

Your help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Adam

[Steve Ward]

This may be of use , not a PS user myself so haven't tried it but Doug knows his stuff .... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQy1OWfRg-I

[lensman57]

Hi all,

Had a disaster of a night. Set up my rig for capturing more data on the heart nebula. Got everything running fine. Phd graph was looking good. Checked the first two subs and everything looked fine. Went inside for a few hours and when I came back out I noticed every sub after the first two had slight trailing. Is there any way of reducing the trailing in the images with photoshop or any other software? Otherwise I have 3 and 1/2 hours of data wasted.

Heres 4 900 second subs in ha.

heart4.jpg

Your help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Adam

You can correct to a small degree, for oval  shaped  stars using either PS or some dedicated AP software. Best to stack these separately if the trailing is costant and then decide if they are worth keeping. Two good subs are a lot better than a bunch of substandard stuff I am afraid and you have to be ruthless  there.

A.G

[Adamar98]

Cheers guys. Anything is worth a try. I'll be gutted to lose so much data.

[lensman57]

Cheers guys. Anything is worth a try. I'll be gutted to lose so much data.

You have my sympathy, a few weeks ago after the first 3 subs for some unknwon reason my capture software ( Artemis )  failed to write the subs to the hard disk, I had one of my best guiding sessions that evening and the seeing was really good. These things happen I guess.

A.G

[glowingturnip]

had a go at deconvolving it with the actual star shape as the psf, but it introduced far too much star halo-ing.  Also tried the motion blur tool in PS, gave rounder stars, but still too many artifacts and didn't look good imho.

Mind you, I'd have been happy with the original 

[Astrosurf]

That's still a gorgeous image, but I can see why you're peeved. Why not reduce the exposure length and get in lots more subs to build up data? Less chance of errors getting in. Then you also have that may subs that losing a few won't hurt.

Alexxx

[Adamar98]

Hi Alex,

It's not a matter of the exposure times. My guiding is usually spot on for 900 second exposures. I think the problem was I had to much weight on the mount. I stuck the canon 500 on the main scope for a few images. The last imaging session before I didn't do this and my guiding and images where spot on. I'm not going to try and salvage these subs. I'll just have to get out there and get more data. I've still got over 2 hours of good subs to add to and work with.

heres 2 hours worth

I'm slowly learning it goes one way or the other in this game.

Thank you for all your replies.

Adam

[Astrosurf]

Good luck!

[michaelmorris]

Focusmagic software has a nifty 'motion deblur' function that may be worth a try.

http://www.focusmagic.com/

[lensman57]

"It's not a matter of the exposure times. My guiding is usually spot on for 900 second exposures. I think the problem was I had to much weight on the mount. I stuck the canon 500 on the main scope for a few images."

Hi Alex,

The problem is not the weigth but of balance, HEQ5 pro can carry a heck of a load but you have to get the balance right particularly if you are mounting an assymetric load on the scope. I have a small side by side saddle and it is a pain to get this balanced for imaging even with a small 50 mm guide camera mounted . The mounts are designed to work well if the centre of gravity of your imaging rig is placed vertcally on top of the vertcal axis of your mount. Getting this right is  the key.

Regards,

A.G

[Adamar98]

Balance was spot on buddy. I alway check balance before every session. I had the ts65q with canon 500. St80 with the qhy5 then the canon 200 ef with the sxvh9 and the rig to connect the ccd and the lens. I'm sure it was a weight issue. Next clear skies will tell.

[Leveye]

Never had any luck "fixing" these type of shots my condolences my trash bin has a few right now time to purge! I  have learned my lesson as boring as it is i check each exposure as it comes down the pipe now using Adobe Bridge.