First Attempt.... Great Hercules Cluster

[Th3Edge]

Hi guys this is my first attempt at astro photography great hercules cluster.

Skywatcher 150p EQ3 goto

Canon 600d 6 x 800 iso and 6 x 1600 iso

12 x 30 sec lights 

no darks

no bios

DSS

Adobe Lightroom

Im pretty sure it'sout of focus. Any tips and more advice please would be grateful.

[VikN46]

Nice image!. If your not using one already I highly rate the use of a Bhatinov Mask. I use one and I tend to try to get the best focus as I can by focusing on a bright star zooming in on live view adjusting then leaving alone and the find my object and start imaging. Really made a difference to my focusing.

[Leveye]

Looks real close. If your camera has live view and it magnifies use that feature to help you focus more accurately. You don't need to use that high an ISO for clusters. You'll blow out the core like this one.I get great results with 400 or 800. Experiment with the exposure lengths. 

[Th3Edge]

Thanks for the advice guys very helpful, i will look into the  Bhatinov Mask suggestion.

James

[glowingturnip]

looking pretty good there, and I think the focus is not too bad, but get a bahtinov mask anyway, you can make your own with some stiff card and a Stanley knife here - http://astrojargon.net/MaskGenerator.aspx

You should do darks and bias, they really are easy to take - in fact you can do both now, and reprocess them into your image.  They don't have to be taken at the same time, and you can build up a library to use over again.  Just make sure the darks are same ISO, exposure length and temperature as the light frames and that no light can leak into the camera, and that the bias are the same ISO.  Take lots.  It would help if you took flats too, but they ideally have to be taken at the time, would have solved those darker corners you have at the bottom there.

In your post processing, you might want to raise the black point a little in the histogram (I don't know Lightroom so don't know the proper terminology).  Not enough to start clipping the histogram, but enough to make the background a little darker.

Looking good though !