The "No EQ" DSO Challenge!

[Nigel G]

Very nice Jon, 

I find the colour module in ST very difficult to use,  it takes a lot of practice.  And to be  honest I found M 31 to be the most difficult of all the DSO's I have imaged to draw the colours out,  so you have done well. 

I seem to get a lot of pale blue stars which I think should be white stars, reading the latest posts in this thread I might have some settings wrong in DSS. 

For a first attemp at alt-az imaging that's awesome. Better than any of my M31's 

[alacant]

9 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

it uses 'deflate'

...which ST tags as compression so will not work with it. You can fool ST into thinking it's not compressed by opening in gimp and saving with no compression then opening in ST. A lot of info is lost whatever; go with FITS. Just my €0.02.

[Nigel G]

12 hours ago, SteveNickolls said:

And as alacant says do BIN as the first process in StarTools to reduce the working file size down and quicken up the subsequent steps, then CROP :-) 

Cheers,
Steve

I bin first but then I don't crop until the wipe stage, I just crop out any artefacts after a auto dev then sort the gradient and vignette then crop to the size I want. It makes vignetting easier, I think.

Nige. 

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

...which ST tags as compression so will not work with it. You can fool ST into thinking it's not compressed by opening in gimp and saving with no compression then opening in ST. A lot of info is lost whatever; go with FITS. Just my €0.02.

The autosave uses a real number format for the TIFFS, unless you have the new 32-bit GIMP it will convert to 16-bit and that's where you lose data.

That's a really weird requirement of ST, it should be able to detect teh compression and only reject TIFFs that use something like JPEG.

You can save the original image as an uncompressed tiff in DSS by telling it to (1) use 32 bit TIFF, (2) no compression, and (3) embed adjustments but do not apply them.

[jimbo747]

12 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

Progress

OK so I selected standard stacking instead of mosaic which knocked 100MB off the FITs file, which then opened instantly in ST. Also set RGB background calibration and got colour! However, I then read an ST instruction which says to set for no colour calibration so trying without that setting now.

Anyhoo, a bit rough and noisy but there's colour

Now that was worth waiting for! Superb! You should post that in the imaging forum and ask people to guess the mount used.

[Filroden]

12 hours ago, parallaxerr said:

Progress

OK so I selected standard stacking instead of mosaic which knocked 100MB off the FITs file, which then opened instantly in ST. Also set RGB background calibration and got colour! However, I then read an ST instruction which says to set for no colour calibration so trying without that setting now.

Anyhoo, a bit rough and noisy but there's colour

I knew you had more data! Nice blue arms and  you can see the starts of the spiral quite close into the core, so well processed. And the beauty of astro-photography - you can keep revisiting the data, either by processing it again and again as you learn new techniques or by adding more data over time.

Can't wait for your next attempt.

[Stub Mandrel]

13 minutes ago, jimbo747 said:

Now that was worth waiting for! Superb! You should post that in the imaging forum and ask people to guess the mount used.

Getting much better!

I suggest shifting the colour balance, push it slightly from cyan towards red , the slightly move magenta towards green - great care as you don't want any actual green.

This seems to warm it up a bit and differentiate the outer blue a bit more, more effectively than just moving blue towards yellow.

[parallaxerr]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I'm pleased with the progress and "starting" to understand ST a little, the colour tool is definitely the one  I need to work most at.

Also, I don't think my subs were that great in hindsight, lots of thin cloud cover so really looking forward to some clear, crisp air and dark skies

[happy-kat]

But is it giving you the wow you had not thought possible with your mount :-)

[parallaxerr]

28 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

But is it giving you the wow you had not thought possible with your mount :-)

Definitely. My first attempts have exceeded my expectations by far

Until I saw the images in this thread I assumed AP was out of reach until funds became available for better equipment, but, all it required was a small investment in a few adaptors and a flattener.

There is so much to learn with post processing that I think any further investment in gear right now would be wasted and add complexity and confusion!

[The Admiral]

I came across this guide from Ivo (StarTools) about creating a multi exposure length HDR composite, but if you read through to the end it looks as though it needs the latest alpha release 1.4.324, which on the download page is shown as unstable. I've just downloaded it and we'll see how it runs. What are you guys on and have you found any instability?

Ian

Edited October 12, 2016 by The Admiral

[Nigel G]

2 hours ago, The Admiral said:

I came across this guide from Ivo (StarTools) about creating a multi exposure length HDR composite, but if you read through to the end it looks as though it needs the latest alpha release 1.4.324, which on the download page is shown as unstable. I've just downloaded it and we'll see how it runs. What are you guys on and have you found any instability?

Ian

Ian, I downloaded Alpha version but my PC blocks it, I haven't found a way past the block yet. tried disabling firewall and anti virus but PC will not let it run.

Shame as there's things I would like to try myself.

Nige.

[The Admiral]

5 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Ian, I downloaded Alpha version but my PC blocks it, I haven't found a way past the block yet. tried disabling firewall and anti virus but PC will not let it run.

Shame as there's things I would like to try myself.

Nige.

Hi Nige, that is odd, I haven't had any trouble downloading, opening, and applying the licence file. Considering it's a zipped file I find that even more strange. I'm running win 7. It might be worth dropping Ivo an email.

Ian

Edited October 12, 2016 by The Admiral

[Nigel G]

I tried a restack of M33 changing settings on DSS, I un checking the 16 bit Monochrome box which I have always had checked, ( ref page 52 of this thread )

I also had any colour balance to no.

The result was rather horrid to work on, I opened the file with both options in ST the first being better but still nowhere as good as before. also I had satellite streaking through the image which is a first for me.

So that didn't work unfortunately, unless I missed something out.

Nige.

[The Admiral]

7 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

I tried a restack of M33 changing settings on DSS, I un checking the 16 bit Monochrome box which I have always had checked, ( ref page 52 of this thread )

I also had any colour balance to no.

The result was rather horrid to work on, I opened the file with both options in ST the first being better but still nowhere as good as before. also I had satellite streaking through the image which is a first for me.

So that didn't work unfortunately, unless I missed something out.

Nige.

Are you using Kappa-Sigma clipping Nige? I was under the impression that should remove things like satellite trails, not that I can confirm or otherwise. What do you mean by "both options"?

Ian

[Stub Mandrel]

22 minutes ago, Nigel G said:

Ian, I downloaded Alpha version but my PC blocks it, I haven't found a way past the block yet. tried disabling firewall and anti virus but PC will not let it run.

Shame as there's things I would like to try myself.

Nige.

W10?

When it says 'blocked' click ''more information' and you should be offered the opportunity to allow it to run.

 

[Nigel G]

1 minute ago, The Admiral said:

Are you using Kappa-Sigma clipping Nige? I was under the impression that should remove things like satellite trails, not that I can confirm or otherwise. What do you mean by "both options"?

Ian

Yes I used kappa-sigma clipping, and file opening options on ST first and second options tried.

[Nigel G]

2 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

W10?

When it says 'blocked' click ''more information' and you should be offered the opportunity to allow it to run.

 

Yes W10.

I'll look into it  thanks.

[Nigel G]

This is the message that comes, I try to restore but it keeps sending it to Quarantine

[Nigel G]

I have deleted win32exe from the zip file and it has un zipped and started up on 64 bit .

Sorted

[The Admiral]

Where would we be without W10!

Ian

[alacant]

1 hour ago, Nigel G said:

my PC blocks it

Hi Windows? Try calling it as Administrator. 324 is OK here on both Linux and Windows 10, 64bit. HTH

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Nigel G said:

This is the message that comes, I try to restore but it keeps sending it to Quarantine

That's your helpful anti-virus blocking it, not W10.

[The Admiral]

Well I've been watching Ivo's long video on using ST, and made a few notes along the way. I thought I'd re-process my M33 image, the primary difference being the use of Auto-Develop rather than just Develop, and hopefully using the parameter controls a bit more intelligently . What do you guys think, better or worse? Certainly looks noisier. I'm not sure I'm getting it as I want it, if that's ever possible!

New version:

 

[alacant]

6 minutes ago, The Admiral said:

Auto-Develop rather than just Develop

Hi. I feel that you have less control over AutoDev than Dev. For me, the best way is to autodev first just to see what's there. Then after Wipe has done its gradient magic, use the Develop slider a bit at a time -a bit like seeing the print emerge in the old days of wet darkroom prints-. Just to the right of the slider there's a home-in- button which gets you a good approximatrion without overstretching. There's also dark anomaliy control and a chance to change rgb l values, something else you don't get with AutoDev. That way you have more control over the second stretch than by AutoDev without a mask. HTH.

**Î've a feeling we're gonna get thrown off this thread soon as I think we may have gone off topic. Me certainly.