The next step to help improve images

[John1980]

Ok. I am relatively new to this however I beleive have a reasonable understanding of the concepts.

So far I am using a 127 mak with a canon 550d. I am currently using movie modes to capture avi's and stacking in registax as I believe I am getting better results this way than taking still images. I am using wavelets to no real method other than playing with them until I am happy with the final image. I have tried a few attempts at lunar features however am mainly imaging the full disk.

I have loved this whole process and am both happy and a little bit proud of some of the images I have taken. However now I would like to improve and wonder what the next step is. I have used photoshop a couple of times in the past for pther things but am a complete beginner and so have not looked at it yet.

Please could someone suggest alternative methods of capturing. Alternative techniques for post processing. Or point me in the direction of any good tutorials.

I have googled it but have only come across basic things I am already doing.

In the future I would love to upgrade my scope however I know I am not yet at the potential of the equipment I have.

Many Thanks

[JamesF]

Does this help at all?

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/184192-full-disc-lunar-imaging-with-a-dslr/

For what it's worth, I'm now down to using 1/200s exposures, but my experience is that you need to have a delay after the mirror lifts at that speed otherwise it's slow enough to get distortion in the image.  APT will handle that sort of thing for you.

James

[John1980]

Great help thanks.

Firstly I will give APT a try currently I am using backyard EOS will be interesting to see which is the most user friendly.

Currently for lunar I focus in a similar way pulling it in and out of focus in 5x live view. I have not got a bahtinov mask when focusing on stars currently I simply use the FWHM number in backyard eos. In your experience does a bahtinov mask make it easier or get better results than FWHM

Out of interest have you found still images better than video. From my FAR more limited experience I simply found it easier to get a larger number of high quality images when choosing from a few thousand rather than a few. However I may well give still images a try following your guide perhaps I dismissed still images without trying for long enough.

Thanks again it's good to know I am on the right track at least.

Don't suppose you have written any guide on colour processing / photoshop enhancements or mosaicing have you as it's these areas that I know nothing about at all.

[JamesF]

I find that I need to tweak the focus on my 127 Mak when switching between imaging the Moon and the Sun, so I've never bothered to use a bahtinov mask for focusing on solar system targets.  With the motorised focuser I can move the focus point by tiny amounts and I do it solely by eye from the live view on the laptop screen.

I use video for imaging small areas of the Moon such as craters, but for full disc images I've found still frames to be far less work.  At some point I may well use a dedicated astro camera with (say) a 1/2" CCD or CMOS sensor to create a mosaic of the full disc.  It's not something I've tried yet though.  I don't know what sort of images you're achieving at the moment , but this is indicative of what can be achieved with still frames:

James

[Astro Imp]

That's really impressive James.

[JamesF]

Thank you, Alan

James