First efforts - Progress Thread (eq6 + ed80)

[Christopher Davenport]

So I gave my first go at the horsehead nebula last night. This is my 2nd attempt at DSO imaging, so please be gentle! Pretty low in the sky, so light pollution was a little bit of an issue. I welcome all comments ...

20x180s lights

10x180s darks

Canon 7D unmodded - ed80 with 0.85 reducer on neq6 unguided. I didn't take any lights which I assume is why I have a bit of vinagretting. I struggled a bit to get any contrast on the horsehead and haven't seemed to have captured much of the surrounding nebula, possibly over processed? Subs too short?

Very nice, I kind of thought this was off limits myself, but now that i see what you have achieved,I think I need to add this to my target list

Some quick thoughts off the top of my head.

You will struggle to get much longer subs than you have with out guiding.

However, you can overcome this somewhat by adding alot more data, once you up to 4hrs, you will have a lot less noise and more detail.

Have a look at this thread for some tips on how to bring the nebula out and control those bloated stars

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/87021-photoshop-astrophotography-tutorials/

[Rico]

Very nice, I kind of thought this was off limits myself, but now that i see what you have achieved,I think I need to add this to my target list

Some quick thoughts off the top of my head.

You will struggle to get much longer subs than you have with out guiding.

However, you can overcome this somewhat by adding alot more data, once you up to 4hrs, you will have a lot less noise and more detail.

Have a look at this thread for some tips on how to bring the nebula out and control those bloated stars

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/87021-photoshop-astrophotography-tutorials/

Thank you for the link Christopher ... will be sure to give it a look. I won't be guiding for a while. From what I have seen, its seems common to have to rack up hours worth of data on a single image  . So my intention is to archive these files and improve them on a later date.

[wxsatuser]

Thanks for the link ... I'll have a look. I also noticed that the colour range in my image is quite low compared to some of the colours seen in some of the popular andromeda images ... is this a product of light polluted skies or the use of a DSLR? Bear in mind the image above was converted over to monochrome, given that there was no colour in it anyway (not that I could see).

Thats a reasonable first Andromeda, well done.

There is some colour in there you just have to tease it out.