First Light for Modded 1100D

[Stargazer33]

Just thought I would post my attempt at M27 with my recently modified 1100D.

I bought the camera (my second 1100D) with the intention of having it modified by Juan at Cheap Astrophotography. He did a great job for me and rushed it through over a weekend before he went out of the country for a few days. The light frames were taken over the night of 19/20 August. No dark, bias or flat frames were injured during the processing of this image!

I have to say that this is a real mash-up of a stack! I was trying lots of different ISO and speed settings to see how long I could go before star trailing & what ISO I could use before noise became a real issue.

This is a stack of the best 95% of 16 frames that ranged from 600 secs at ISO 400 to 60 secs at ISO 6400!

Stacked in DSS, Converted to RGB tif files in Fits Liberator, Layered into one RGB image in PS 7 with curves and levels as well as other little tricks and finally tweaks in PE 11.

I appreciate that it is a long way off a lot of members images on the forum, but it is my first M27 and I am happy with it as a starting point. When I get my act together and do proper polar aligning and use my guide set-up I am hoping for a vast improvement - weather permitting of course!

I'm also hoping to upgrade to a more modern version of PS that can handle 16bit files and that has the HDR tool.

As always comments welcome - good, bad or aesthetically challenged!

[Guest]

Great first attempt, very impressive

Here's my attempt from two years ago, before I had my 1000D modded, haven't tried since it has been modded

.

Regards

Olly

[Astrosurf]

Good attempt! You can pull a little more out of that with gentle Curves and Levels. Anchor the white point in Curves, and even bring it down the right hand side a bit, to prevent the stars getting over-blown. Have a go with Hue and Saturation and tweak the Saturation to bring out the colour more. There are lots of techniques that help with imaging. Why not ask on the Imaging -  Tips, Tricks and Techniques section.

Onward and upward!

Alexxx

[Stargazer33]

That's a very nice image there Olly! You have captured so much of the blue nebulosity.

Thanks for the tips Alex! I may have another go at processing with your suggestions. At the moment Friday night looks like it could be clear here, so hopefully I can get out and have another go using guiding. Fingers, and everything else, crossed! 

[Astrosurf]

Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

[alcol620]

Excuse my ignorance, but can you put images with different ISO's and exposures into Deep Sky Stacker as one big stack, or do different setting have to be stacked separately?

[lensman57]

Good effort Bryan but next time just stick to 600s subs @ ISO800. There is no point in introducing unwanted noise and reduced dynamic range by pushing the iso 6400 subs into the mix, put too much salt in the stew and it will taste salty. Nice first try anyway.

A.G

[Astrosurf]

Excuse my ignorance, but can you put images with different ISO's and exposures into Deep Sky Stacker as one big stack, or do different setting have to be stacked separately?

I've not done it myself, but I think you can use the tabs at the bottom of the screen for stacks of different settings. What happens the I don't know. Ask in the Imaging - Image Processing, Help and Techniques section.