M45 - First Attempt with 600D

[Christopher Davenport]

Hello,

I have taken my first steps into DSO Astrophotography last night. 

It was a bit frustrating as my Polar alignment can really do with some work.

I tried to drift align, but I think I just made it worst

Anyway I had to reduce my exposures to 120S from 300S and then it seemed stable enough.

I captured 8xLights and 4xDarks @ ISO800, 120S, F4.75 (i.e 378mm with my 80ED, used a reducer / flattener) 

I have still had to crop the image down to size a bit as the corners are a little dark / odd.

Stacked in Deepskystacker and then edited in Image analyser - I think I have over processed abit

I really want to extract more of the nebulosity, but not sure how to.

Anyway enough faff heres the image (Png has been reduced to 3rd of Size)

I have two ISO1600, but they are quite washed out, not sure how to use these.

4 of the 8 iso800 lights are best contrast, so might restack with just these.

Anybody have any idea on how to use the star mask in DSS?

Any comments / suggestions welcome.

       

[Christopher Davenport]

So no suggestions then?

I have taken the best x5 ISO800 frames for 10min of unguided exposure.

Anyway I have been reprocessing, probably to aggressively, but I have managed to tease out some color and nebulosity.

DSS stack (with darks), RGB manually aligned and playing with midtone sliders tone and then a +- 20% saturation.

Used Image analyser to reduce noise and play with curves. Then increased the vibrancy and did a resize and format.

Any comments on what I may do differently? 

[Purplehayze104]

hi there

nice image like the second picture havnt quite managed to get the nebulosity showing up as much as that maybe i should be a bit more aggressive with my processing.

keep going & clear skies

john

[Christopher Davenport]

hi there

nice image like the second picture havnt quite managed to get the nebulosity showing up as much as that maybe i should be a bit more aggressive with my processing.

keep going & clear skies

john

Thanks John,

That image the processing was far to aggressive, I guess I just wanted to see what was in it. Busy working on a third and final version.

[Christopher Davenport]

So my final attempt, until I can gather more data with longer exposures. This is the best 5 images (10 min exposure.)

(I think I have learnt a fair bit about PS5 in the process been a lot of fun.)

I have framed the picture size and added my settings for good measure.

[RoysSkies]

Fine image, love the way the stars shine blue through the nebulosity..

Cheers Roy

[todd8137]

Nice first go ,more bata is needed to bring the neb out. Try the free version of align master ,make sure balance is ok as well ,balance your scope with all you image kit attached ,then remove what ever to align and put on ,or if you can leave it all on ect looks good I have a 600d and it's a not bad camera once you start hitting 5min plus the detail jumps out

Try alignmaster makes a big difference I brought it for 14 euro the free version lasts a month but it's that good I brought it

http://www.alignmaster.de

[Christopher Davenport]

Nice first go ,more bata is needed to bring the neb out. Try the free version of align master ,make sure balance is ok as well ,balance your scope with all you image kit attached ,then remove what ever to align and put on ,or if you can leave it all on ect looks good I have a 600d and it's a not bad camera once you start hitting 5min plus the detail jumps out

Try alignmaster makes a big difference I brought it for 14 euro the free version lasts a month but it's that good I brought it

http://www.alignmaster.de

This looks like a brilliant piece of software, my synscan handset has similar functionality.

If I do a three point align, then I get the option to do a polar align. I don't think it is as easy as this software though.

Thanks for this, I will definitely give it a go.