Double Cluster (Not very good)

[DaveS]

Just trying things out with the Trius set-up, stacking 10 out of 12 x 30 sec subs. Stacked in DSS then a simple histogram stretch and unsharp mask in AstroArt. I was looking to the north east, surprised that I could even see it at this time of year.

[Grotemobile]

There is nothing wrong with that.

I think it looks very good.

Steve

[Knight of Clear Skies]

That is good, the stars of the clusters are very well resolved. I was imagining it earlier this week, and the brighter stars at the centre tended to turn into a single blob for me. Might be worth raising (or is that lowering?) the black point a little, the sky is very black.

[DaveS]

Ah. When I was looking at the stars in AstroArt I thought the brightest ones looked bloated. Perhaps just the effect of exposure.

I'll put this on my hit list for a full LRGB run, I was just "fooling around" and happy to have got *any* image at all. But I'll have another closer look at processing the data, see what I can do.

Beats my DSLR!

[simmo39]

V nice.

[robbie c]

I agree with what's been said that's a great image Dave well done 

[DaveS]

Thanks guys, that's very incouraging. Given my low northern horizon I should be able to give it some real exposure times. I also need to look at my processing.

[uhb1966]

I like it, too!

[Moonshane]

I like it. It's a bit like a superbly detailed sketch to my eyes. being visual only it appeals to me a lot. more exposure and processing should bring out some colour I'd think?

[DaveS]

I should have said it was only a trial run of 30 sec Luminance subs to see if I could get anything at all and to check that everything was working as it should.

I'll be gearing up for a full LRGB run as soon as we get a clear night with little or no moon. At the moment with the moon getting in the way I'll be looking at NB.

Edit:

Oh, and I'll take more care over framing, too much wasted space on the right, and the top of the cluster is disappearing off the frame. A 90 deg rotation should sort that out.

[Pete Presland]

very nice start look forward to seeing the next image.

[ollypenrice]

Focus and tracking are good. As KOCS said, the background is jet black, probably because you clipped the black point. I think a nice background level is 23 in Photoshop.

I would hardly ever sharpen stars and never ever sharpen a whoe image. If you sharpen the background it's the noise you are sharpening!

Olly

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I would hardly ever sharpen stars and never ever sharpen a whoe image. If you sharpen the background it's the noise you are sharpening!

I'll bear that in mind thanks. I've been giving my images a gentle sharpen as to my eye it makes the stars pop out a bit more, but perhaps that's not a good idea.

[DaveS]

I'll take on board what Olly has said (I was wondering if he would reply) about the black point and sharpening. As I was looking at the unsharp mask preview I could see the background noise come up and reduced the strength to just clear it.

There was an odd problem that I'm still trying to get to the bottom of, although I saved the stacked TIFF from DSS as 16 bit, when I opened it in AstroArt and looked at the histogram it looked like 8 bit.

Thinks....DSS can save as a 32 bit FIT.....may be worth a try.