The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

Not sure if the 5 was better than the 1 but hey ho

Good start! Keep going, the propeller is starting to emerge, stack 50 and it will be there.

[happy-kat]

I've been wanting to do a globular cluster for imaging challenge #18 but there isn't much choice when facing east for me. Your image is great, will be interesting to see what happens to it if you can add a lot more to it.

[Manners2020]

About 90 30 second exposures.  9.25 @6.3 . Stacked and stretched on the fly in astrotoaster.  I'm still not sure if the way I use astrotoaster qualifies for this thread or the eaa.  

Edited October 8, 2018 by Manners2020

[Manners2020]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Good start! Keep going, the propeller is starting to emerge, stack 50 and it will be there.

Thanks. Think I'll have another go tonight if weather permits.

[Manners2020]

May aswell  throw this one in. Same set up but had some stellarium  issues, it went wrong and sent the mount mental. Anyway will try this one again with way more than the 5 exposures I did here and better framing ect.

[Manners2020]

6 minutes ago, Manners2020 said:

Thanks. Think I'll have another go tonight if weather permits.

Also I was thrilled to see my first glob. It looked great through the eyepiece. 

[happy-kat]

Please could you add the equipment used for each photo when you share it. To know what you used I would need to wade through posts to find out.

Edited October 8, 2018 by happy-kat

[Manners2020]

Cropped and messed with in the free photoshop  app. 9.25 sct @ 6.3 . Nikon d5300 iso 2500 90 exposures of 30 . Stacked  and stretched in astrotoaster. 

[Manners2020]

12 hours ago, Manners2020 said:

Also I was thrilled to see my first glob. It looked great through the eyepiece. 

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Manners2020

[maw lod qan]

Fantastic thread. Thanks! This gives me hope being I consider myself a baby, not even rolling over yet compared to those with experience. Hopefully I'll start crawling soon.

[Peter77]

On 02/10/2018 at 13:19, Stub Mandrel said:

If you have photoshop the 'gradient exterminator' plugin is excellent for getting rid of any residual vignetting or light pollution gradients, but it has a second trick up it's sleeve. You select all the  bright areas such as the clusters or any patches of nebulosity and then invert the selection. If you have 'balance background' as well as a selection for getting rid of gradients, it will fix that sort of colour cast in one step. I've found it worth running it even when there isn't a visible gradient.

Hello there,

 

Unfortunately I don't have Photoshop. I've recently gone over from Linux back to Windows after 3-4 years of absence. I have Gimp, the Windows version which is not limited to 8bit with jpegs. Do you have any experience with Gimp and if so, do you know if there is a similar feature perhaps?

 

Quite new to image processing in general and astroimaging processing in particular.

[Peter77]

Nice to see the thread is still cookin'

 

Went out again last week to have another go at Andromeda.

 

This time 93 lights @ 1600 iso 30 secs each.

20 flats and 20 dark flats.

Processed final image a bit in Deep sky stacker and then processed it a little more in Gimp Windows version.

A little bit better than last pic with ~60 lights only.

 

I feel that I need either even more exposures on the object or longer exposures. But this is alt-az, so... (and I don't have any other mount anyway:P )

[Stub Mandrel]

55 minutes ago, Peter77 said:

Do you have any experience with Gimp

Only enough to feel I didn't get on with it, I'm afraid.

[Stub Mandrel]

48 minutes ago, Peter77 said:

I feel that I need either even more exposures on the object or longer exposures. But this is alt-az, so... (and I don't have any other mount anyway:P )

I think your data is OK, but IMHO you have overdone the stretching so the background it too dark (clipped) and the highlights are burnt out. A more subtle processing will look a lot less harsh and more 'natural'. Your stars are nice and round and the colour is good.

[happy-kat]

To get me started I watched Doug's videos on budgetastro.net and found most of what he did I could do in either GIMP or Paintshoppro.

[Stub Mandrel]

I find Paint Shop Pro knocks the spots of my old version of photoshop, except it has a few annoying quirks. The problem is I still ahven't got my plugins to work (they should) and also I can't use Noel's actions ?

[happy-kat]

Plugins are bit based. You can't mix bit versions. I've got all mine to work in the right flavour. Action scripts aren't cross compatible.

[Manners2020]

Hello all , I picked up a wo 72mm megrez  yesterday. It's a lovely looking thing but I'm a bit concerned.  Now it's too cloudy to test it on stars but I cant achieve focus on an object close to a mile away.  I've never played with a short tube refractor  before. Is this normal?

Edited October 11, 2018 by Manners2020

[Manners2020]

I've looked online but the only topic seems to be about observing, I'm more concerned  about sticking my camera on it which I haven't yet or cant but feel it's not going to be any different. Something almost a mile away surely is classed as infinity?

[happy-kat]

Nice

When observing you use a diagonal but for imaging you would remove it and instead might need a straight through extension.

[Manners2020]

Ah ok, there's always another accessory  with this game isn't there  thanks for that. 

[happy-kat]

M2 wide field. Lovely clear night for being outside last week, living in a bowl at the bottom of rising land all around often presents mist, and the 10th was no exception could see stars but they didn't pop out.

1100d with a old lens from the 80s Helios 135mm, mixture of f8 and f4 as I had forgotten on first setup to check the aperture on the lens. Heavy crop as M2 was in the light dome and close to street light to the South. Lights 21x 30 seconds ISO 1600. I couldn't use the flats I had as there was a new dust bunny and as I did not take a fresh set there wasn't any gain in using the ones in the library I have, there would have been dark flat frames too only I had miss remembered and didn't have any in my calibration library. Virtuoso powered by a Celstron liFePo4 battery and the camera was mounted on a dove bar and I used a long flocked tube to shield the lens. To control the camera I use DSLR Controller on a 7 inch android tablet as it makes things a lot easier. All was sat on a small wooden unit by the front door.

Processed in DSS and StarTools. I have checked in PaintShopPro and the black point isn't clipped but ooh so very close so I might try to process it again. I combined two different procesess using layers in StarTools and a mask so as to preserve the globular cluster which had been lost on using Wipe for the background.

 

[calli]

Two years and two months ago I imaged M31 Andromeda Galaxy with my Nikon D5100 anda Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm, 315mm (Crop factor!) @ f5.6 on my NexStar SLT Goto Mount. Approx 17 Minutes Lights.

Stacked in DSS and processed in GIMP 2.9.x

This was under the darkest Sky I had seen so far in the franconian Swiss (south germany).  The results were nice.

A few days ago I tested the same target with the same setup from Berlin in a heavy light polluted area (airport, highway, neighbors with bright LED lights...) just to test what is possible.

During the imaging I did a live stack with astrotoaster and the results seemed nice.

 

But stacking in DSS next day showed terrible red images. I tested much things but in the end I think it is the LP and I was only able to solve this by doing a whiteballance early in the stretching process which of course destroys some data.

After long Experiments I got this: (approx 160 lights@10s iso800, Darks, Flats, Bias)

Quite comparable to the old image:

[happy-kat]

That has come out pretty good. 

Were you unable to take longer than 10 second exposures?

[LOL221]

i just found this topic, and i love it already. 
Here are my efforts! All the images are made with an 200/1200 Skywatcher and an Unmodded Nikon D3400 at prime focus (no barlow) in a Bortle class 4-5 area. AltAz and No tracking at all. (If needed, i can give proof)

 

Messier 27 - The Dumbell Nebula.

114 lightframes 0.5sec exposure each at ISO25600
50 darkframes 
0 flatframes
0 biasframes

Stacked in Deepskystacker. Histogram streching, color correction, light pollution removal in Photoshop. Final Noise reduction in Lightroom. The edits are basically the same in every single image.
The grain in the images comes from the Histogram stretching.. im aware that it destroys detail, but i wanted to get as much "nebulosity" as possible.

 

Messier 31 - The Andromeda Galaxy.

130 lightframes 0.5sec exposure each at ISO25600
36 darkframes
0 flatframes
0 biasframes

Stacked in Deepskystacker. Histogram streching, color correction, light pollution removal in Photoshop. Final Noise reduction in Lightroom.

 

Messier 42 - The Orion Nebula

399 lightframes 0.25sec exposure each at ISO25600

92 darkframes

0 flatframes

0 biasframes

Stacked in Deepskystacker. Histogram streching, color correction, light pollution removal in Photoshop. Final Noise reduction in Lightroom. Some ampglow on the sides but i didnt want to crop it further.

 

M57 - The Ring Nebula.

143 lightframes 0.5sec exposure each at ISO25600

38 darkframes

0 flatframes

0 biasframes

Stacked in Deepskystacker. Histogram streching, color correction, light pollution removal in Photoshop. Final Noise reduction in Lightroom.

 

Messier 82 - The Cigar Galaxy. (one of my favorite DSO's)

136 lightframes 0.5sec exposure each at ISO25600

46 darkframes

0 flatframes

0 biasframes

Stacked in Deepskystacker. Histogram streching, color correction, light pollution removal in Photoshop. Final Noise reduction in Lightroom.

 

So yeah, those are my efforts. I read everywhere that "Deepsky Astrophotography with a Dobsonian is impossible" and that you are only able to capture planets with it. I didnt believe that and prove myself, and maybe others, that its possible.

Personally, im really happy with the images i got even if its kind of "hit n miss" and takes a long time to get the most out of your equiptment. 

You have maybe noticed that the colors, except for the Orion Nebula, are still way off... That is because Deepskystacker doesnt have a Debayer matrix for the Nikon D3400. I really want natural colors, but color correction in Photoshop removes too much nebulosity so im stuck with what i can do. Didnt i write "color correction in Photoshop"? Yes i did. The fake stretch image from Deepskystacker is way worse in color.

 

I Hope you like my 5 cents and if there is anything i can improve, please let me know! 

P.S: If anyone wants the raw .NEF files, i can upload them for you. It will probably take 2 weeks (no joke) because my internet is bad and uploading 31.7GB with 350kb/s isnt fun.