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M82, straight from camera.. and M57

Tim

By Tim
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Tim

Tim

Posted
Posted

Ok, slightly cropped but no editing, not sure what to do with it.

This is a 180 second exposure at F10, on a mount which has a large clumsy piece of lead flashing attached to the weights as a temporary measure until my new counterweight arrives. There was a fair bit of dew freezing on the OTA, had the Mrs hair dryer out getting that off. Focus was manual throught the eyepiece of the camera. Thanks to SteveL who told me how to get PHD to guide on stars near the CP.

For this shot I tried the Canon's (400D) automatic dark frame subtraction. I have 10 more frames like this without the dark. Is it worth stacking them? What settings are best for DSS? It always seems to me that the image you see in DSS after stacking is never the same as it looks in the saved image?

M82 was NOT the intended target, the Mrs is after "Wow" factor shots and I was trying for M81, but the goto slewed round and the first test exposure showed m82 just framed centrally, so it was rude not to!!

Also captured my first m57, gobsmacked at the colour in that right out of the camera. Will post one of them when I find the pics :?

M82_3mins_F10.jpg

Cheers

TJ

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Andrew*

Andrew*

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That's a really good effort - superb focus and tracking. This is what I made of it, btu just wait for CW to get at it! :wink:

4324_normal.jpeg

(click to enlarge)

First I upped the contrast and downed the brightness. Then I increased cyan, green and blue in colour balance. Then I did some levels - black and white in a bit. Edited the colour balance again. And finally curves.

Andrew

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Tim

Tim

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The focus was off on this one, and I forgot to switch the autoguider to a shorter time for guiding, hence the trails, but it was 4 in the morning and -4 degrees, so I let myself off.

Some of the M57 images are better than this one, but I posted this as it shows a meteor streaking across the view. Shame about the trails, would have been a nice pic I think.

I only slewed around to M57 as once again I failed to find any of the whirlies. But boy, what a target, I will definetly be back for this one, cant get over the colours.

Cheers

TJ

EDIT : and anybody got a clue as to where I should start looking for the blob that is on all of the shots? OTA lens or camera?

m57_meteor.jpg

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Andrew*

Andrew*

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Sorry - here's another one - this time I did some Unsharp mask and despeckle too:

4325_normal.jpeg

(click to enlarge)

Nice M57 too. Simply cannot wait a minute to get my Atik and new OIII filter onto this target 8)

Andrew

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barkis

barkis

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It looks very good, and a lot of good data in there. Somebody is going to transform that for you.

I would do it, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start.

You are improving as you progress, this time next year your missus will be telling all her friends you are a famous imager on the biggest and best Astronomy forum in the UK. Now you have to be excited holding on to that thought. :wink:

Ron. :)

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Tim

Tim

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Thank you for the encouragement anyways! I was pleased with the 3mins guiding at F10, thats for sure. Longer was ok too, but the LP just took over completely.

Here's about the best Ring neb I can do.

If anybody would like any or all of my dodgy data, planets, avis, RAW (CR2) etc, to "Practice" on, I'm more than happy to share.

Cheers

TJ

RingNebulasml.jpg

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Neo_uk

Neo_uk

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Hi,

Nice images had a go at the ring nebula for you.But im by no means the best at processing

regards chris

i would like a some of your data to practise on if you dont mind.

post-14104-13387733863_thumb.jpg

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Tim

Tim

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I think its why they call them "messier" objects, cause everyone wants to mess with them :wink:

Im gonna try and find somewhere I can upload a load of raw stuff then, and make it available.

TJ

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Cloudwatcher

Cloudwatcher

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He's very naughty,that Andrew,putting temptation in my path like that! :wink:

Anyway TJ,resistance was useless so here is my offering. :)

I have overdone the sharpening tool work a bit I'm afraid,artifacts starting to appear. It's a fine image and deserves more time spent on it. At high-res there are some very interesting 'clouds' visible. Might be worth your while having a close look at the original.

Cheers

CW

(click as usual)

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Cloudwatcher

Cloudwatcher

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Hi TJ

I meant to post the hi-res copy along with the previous one but it was too large. I have cropped it, highlighted the area and reduced it so hopefully it will fit now but will have lost some definition. The 'clouds' still show reasonable well on my screen but it's pot luck what it looks like on the SGL screen. :wink: Still,not all that long ago the sort of detail in these DSLR images would have been unthinkable and probably restricted to the professional astronomer.

Cheers

CW

(click as usual)

(Well, it appears a bit 'grainy' on this screen but I hope it give a general idea of what I mean.)

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LostNSpace

LostNSpace

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Nice images you have there TJ.......

CW has done a good job on M82 for you, i did try but failed miserably it was just too grainy.......

Your data is far from dodgy, just needs a bit of time spent processing the image to get the most out of it....As to where to begin, hopefully somebody will point you in the right direction there......

Mark

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Tim

Tim

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So, anybody know where I can stick these RAWs? I have 10 more exposures of similar quality, and would really like somebody who knows what they are doing to process them.

Dont 'spose any of you wizards live near and wanna pop round for a coffee ? :wink:

I will have another go tonight, and give it my best shot, but last time it looked NOTHING like CW's version!!

Cheers

TJ

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Cloudwatcher

Cloudwatcher

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Got the day off today so just spent an hour or so playing with your M57,TJ.

You may well have tried this but in inverted mode a lot more background is easier to see and work with. Anyhow,I made separate layers for background,ring and streak with dpi @ 300 and generally darkened the dark bits and lightened the light. Bit of saturation (possible a bit too much) some sharpening and blurring here and there and this is the combined result. Afraid I couldn't pull out the stars in the ring even at very high-res. :wink:

Cheers

CW

(click as usual)

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Tim

Tim

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unbelievable.

You may very well have just saved me 2 grand CW. I think I must owe you a beer at least!! Are you going to Kelling in september?

I have a couple of other image sequences that I tried really hard with, only to be dissappointed when it came to processing.

Any chance you could take a look? There's an M81, the centre of M31, M42. I also have better images of M57 than this one if you're interested :wink:

As per the thread in the lounge, I have been toying with getting a CCD, as the Mrs has complained about the lack of WOW factor with the images. (She doesnt care what I spend as long as the result is shiny :) ) However your processing has given me more confidence in the 400D, and highlighted my lack of experience in editing. I think therefore that even with a CCD, I'm gonna be dissapointed with the images straight fom the camera.

Thanks again for doing those, it just goes to show what is possible. Just wish I knew where to start!!

TJ

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Tim

Tim

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yeh, sort of, the pix are missing on the sgl link, but Martin did give me a permalink somewhere I think.

More of a doer than a reader Im afraid, but after seeing what is possible im gonna give it a go.

I have a clear and sharp M31 through my new WO 72 megrez that I am processing atm, showed the wife, she went,

"WOW"

result!!

Will post that soon.

But what format does everybody work in? The raws from the canon are 12bit as I understand it, so I usually save from DSS as 16bit Tiff then open in CS3.

Cheers

TJ

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Cloudwatcher

Cloudwatcher

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I have a couple of other image sequences that I tried really hard with, only to be dissappointed when it came to processing.

Any chance you could take a look? There's an M81, the centre of M31, M42. I also have better images of M57 than this one if you're interested :)

TJ

By all means,TJ. You post 'em I'll pummel 'em! :wink:

I have to say that you could not have chosen worse subjects. :) Both M31 and M81 are my 'betes noirs'. My images always seem to end up with burned out cores. If this is the problem you have been having as well then I probably wont be of much use to you.

Cheers

CW

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