My first DSO images

[ryandsimmons]

Okay, had my first proper attempt at doing DSO imaging last night.  I would really appreciate some tips and advice if possible.

All were taken last night with 30 second exposures.

Equipment:

Celestron C8 on CG5 GOTO

Canon EOS 1000D unmodified

F/10

ISO 800

__________________________________

First up, my "main" attempt, Whirlpool Galaxy. 25 frames, 30 secs each.  This was a nightmare to stack as the moon washed it out badly and Deep Sky Stacker could not find reference points.  Eventually after an hour of googling I found that changing the brightness in the .raw settings in DSS makes it find the points and achieve stacking.  I played around with GIMP but in the end I cannot get anything out of it.  (Please note I know nothing about image editing, other than in DSS make all 3 colour "mountains" overlap, and then in Gimp play around with the curves.)

There is the faintest hint  of the spirals, and most stars are reasonable sharp, however there is a lot of poor focus on the edges.  I have no idea why as yet.  (Please note this is a TIF that has not had curves adjusted in GIMP as I could only get Gimp to save in XCF format, so I have resized the DSS Tif.)

Spiral.tif

[ryandsimmons]

Image 2: The Crab Nebula

Just tried this as a test.  3 frames, 30 secs each.It looks like I should have made this my primary instead of the Whirlpool as the Nebula is very clear, probably as it is on the other side of the sky from the moon.  Given the comparison with my Whirpool failure this actually gives me a bit of hope that I can achieve something.  Again though focus is out towards the edges.

...And I just realise I can't attach any more images.  I will add a link and upload to Flickr.

Image 3: Double Cluster

Again a test image, 3 frames, 30 secs.  Not really much to say on this, it is washed out due to light pollution, and has real patches of dark and light (again probably due to it being just above a house) but was a useful test for focus.  It really shows how bad the upper right focus is compared to the middle.

[ryandsimmons]

And Flickr won't accept Tifs.. so converted to JPG.  Here they are:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8992108@N07/

Lessons learned:

1) I need to spend more time on focus and figure out why corners are blurred.

2) Never try anything near the moon.

3) I really need to get a new laptop so I can run the camera through it instead of being limited to 30 second shots.  Or at least get a bulb remote.

[PeterCPC]

I would definitely recommend using a computer and have a look at Backyard EOS. It's a brilliant bit of software for single shots or AVIs to stack. It's so much easier with a screen in front of you.

Peter

[Stargazer33]

There are some good attempts there Ryan!

There is definitely more information in the Whirlpool Galaxy and Crab Nebula, it's just a case of pulling the data out. I think the blurred corners may be due to curvature or possibly due to imperfect polar alignment. Longer exposures would give you more data but your polar alignment must be spot on or you will get star trails and a blurred target at worst, egg shaped stars at best. 

EOS Utilities that comes with your Canon is a very good piece of capture software too. You can control most things on the camera from it including your bulb settings.

[ryandsimmons]

I would love to use the EOS software, however my laptop is a netbook, and it won't run EOS as the screen is too small which is annoying.  And I can't justify a new one as my £1,200 budget scope has already cost nearly £2,000 thanks to T-Tings, Camera, Barlows, Battery Packs and so on.  I think I have pushed my bank account (and my wife!!!) as far as I realistically can for the time being.

[hornedreaper33]

Morning guys,

I am close to getting into imaging for the first time and I have a similar set up to the one mentioned at the start of this post. I am wondering how good the Celestron all star polar alignment feature on the CG-5 mount is at getting the accurate polar alignment that you need for imaging?

[Hackleby]

Hi Ryan,  your Whirlpool attempt looks similar to mine (pre-processing), if not better.  I too had the same issues with both the moon and heavy light pollution (couldn't even see the target) but like Southerdiver said there is more information that can be pulled out.  After I played around with the curve in the DSS histogram (3 colour "mountains") and clicked various options in CoralDraw (no idea what I was doing) I got a reasonable image with some colour.  I have masses of noise in the image from the centre out which I hope is due to me not applying noise reduction, this has prevented me from tweaking the image too much as M51 blurs into the noise radiating from the centre of the image.  I stacked 40 frames of 20s using the exact same camera and ISO. Try having a play with what you already have and if need be restack, you may well be surprised with your results.

[ryandsimmons]

Cheers for the feedback guys.  One question though, should I try different ISO settings tonight? 

I am torn between:

1) Do 40 exposures to try to capture something

or

2) Do 3 exposures at each ISO to test, but it won't be a proper test as I will not be capturing enough data.

[Hackleby]

Being as new to this as you probably are (only had my scope 6 weeks) my advice is limited to none existent but having a Research& Development background I would offer that any changes you make should be one at a time.  More than one change and you wont know what caused an effect.  Personally I would stick to option 1)  Do 40 exposures to try to capture something and maybe try a different ISO if you feel the need to have a play.  Hopefully someone else will offer some better advice that we can benefit from.