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First go

hitmanh

By hitmanh
in Getting Started With Imaging

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hitmanh

hitmanh

Posted
Posted

Hi all,

First go at some astro-imaging this evening. Fuji X-pro1 with an old canon 85mm FD lens. Sadly DSS doesn't support fuji raw, so ended up processing the hell out of jpegs in the end (will redo with tiffs when I find the time to convert the raws).

So, Orions belt, shoulders of Orion, and a random bright star down close to the horizon.

Cheers

Matt

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hitmanh

hitmanh

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Nice first shots! I'll be experimenting with a similar kit like you have. I need to invest in a tracking mount though. That'll make everything so much easier.

Yes, the lack of tracking does impose some serious limitations in exposure, I'm currently researching options here as well. And any success in these images comes from all the great info on this forum, which prevented many possible errors on my part.

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cjdawson

cjdawson

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You might want to try taking darks, flats and bias if you are not doing so already.  Those images are great.

Some ideas for improvements..

1. Intervalometer - get one of these if you don't already have one.

2. Barn door tracker - take a look into making of these as it'll let you take longer exposures without noticeable trailing.

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hitmanh

hitmanh

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Had another go with Photoshop after running tiffs through DSS. Still getting used to the process and the colour still isn't quite right, but it's all good practice.

This is based off 30 2sec exposures, with 10 dark and 10 bias, but no flats.

Cheers

Matt

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hitmanh

hitmanh

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Hi,

It looks like you have the Flame, Horsehead, and Orion nebulas...I'm hoping to image Orion this month, as its rising at a much more convenient time now!

John

Pretty much pushed the processing to the limit to get them to show. Yeah, orion in a really nice part of the sky at the moment, especially considering the restricted view from my garden. Just need another clear night!

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balzer

balzer

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How do you get the canon lens to focus. Isn't the lens manual? Looks quite sharp the image. I have troubles with normal daylight picture focusing on a 50mm manual lens on my Fiji xm1.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

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hitmanh

hitmanh

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How do you get the canon lens to focus. Isn't the lens manual? Looks quite sharp the image. I have troubles with normal daylight picture focusing on a 50mm manual lens on my Fiji xm1.

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

Yes it's a manual lens. I centre on the brightest star I can find and use the 10x digital zoom focusing aid to manually focus on the star using live view, it's actually pretty easy as long as there is a bright enough star to work with. Stick the lens to infinity and it's really a case of getting the fine focus tuned in then (technically just setting the focus to infinity should be enough, but the cheap chinese lenses adapters will often focus past infinity so you do need to check the fine focus or buy a decent adapter to beging with).

Once the focus is sorted, you can pan around to what ever your target is, you won't need to refocus.

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The Admiral

The Admiral

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Well done Matt, that's a good start. I'm inclined to think the Fuji's are good for astro, because they produce very clean images at reasonably high ISOs, but the sensor doesn't conform to the Bayer pattern, and therein lies the rub. As you say, even the latest DSS appears not to process them, despite the fact that the internal raw converter (DCRaw) claims to. I'm in the process of trying to sort the best way of processing so that they can be passed on to Star Tools with the least amount of image manipulation. One approach I've adopted is to convert the RAFs to Adobe DNGs, using the free Adobe DNG converter, and import the DNGs into DSS. If you go that route though, make sure that you set the DNG converter compatibility to "6.6 or later" rather than the default 7.1. There are threads on that here and here. Personally, though, I would be inclined not to use jpegs because they are compressed and you could lose a lot of image information.

The trouble with RAW converters is that they do a lot of behind the scenes processing that you might not want. For example, they will stretch the file so as to give it certain characteristics, like the new Fuji converter is designed to simulate film. They will also perform noise reduction, which you might not want to do until the end of your processing. The Fuji converter looks not to be compatible with the X-Pro1 at launch.

As I'm more of a casual rather than a committed astrophotographer, I don't want to get into the wormhole of tracking mounts etc. I'll try with my Alt-Az. It might not be regarded as the "proper" way, but one can get some decent results by stacking short subs. There are threads on here about that; see for example http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/228101-the-no-eq-dso-challenge/

Good luck

Ian

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  • 2 weeks later...
happy-kat

happy-kat

Posted
Posted

I'd be pleased with those.

If you focus on the thirds line intersection from the edge it balances the focus. Center focus on a lens could cost the edges from being in focus. I can't find the post I read with the diagram in it, I must book mark it when I do next find it.

What aperature did you use?

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