Eastern end of The Milky Way

[Aussie Dave]

The Eastern end of The Milky Way around 3:30am this morning taken with the Nikon D3100, 18mm, ISO 1600, f/5.6, 15 shots at 20 seconds. Brought to life with RegiStar, Astroart and PDN.

 

 

 

[happy-kat]

Your best yet. Great stars and Milly way.

I like bits of both processes could you merge both?

[Aussie Dave]

Thanks HK, I'm quite please with it although I did get some star trails with it being further away from the Southern pole star.

Astroart did a great job to bring out that dust too, much quicker and better than any other program I used.

HK I'll combine the first 2 images tomorrow. I thought this myself and tried a 3rd image edit.

Here it is, just before the sun rises *yawn*

 

[Aussie Dave]

Last edit for this one. This is the first 2 images combined plus I tried to get a nicer looking overall sky colour.

[happy-kat]

I would get some flats in that to see if it helps your sky background. There is lots more captured in these to your first goes. Great stuff. I can recall why you don't use DSS initially to create your base image before editing.

4th image for me the best, the first feels too brown but then I don't know what colour the milkyway would be.

[laudropb]

Very nice set of images.

[Aussie Dave]

4 hours ago, happy-kat said:

I would get some flats in that to see if it helps your sky background. There is lots more captured in these to your first goes. Great stuff. I can recall why you don't use DSS initially to create your base image before editing.

4th image for me the best, the first feels too brown but then I don't know what colour the milkyway would be.

I remember asking what colour it should look like HK, brown apparently from the photo link you posted a while ago but that was with a modded DSLR. That's fine'n all but I do like the more natural looking shots.

Looking at that area in the sky with the naked eye it's just some light smudgy patches, quite noticeable now this time of year, I did leave a little brown colour in the edited image. I can bring out more dust from it but it blows out the clustered star areas and thicker dust areas. I haven't worked out how not to blow these out. I think I can work with that issue in RawTherapee. I seem to have lost at least a couple of small (emission?) nebs with these edits too.

I updated the firmware on the Nikon and another file it used that we and a couple of other members where talking about (edge sharpness problems) and also cleaned the camera sensor, the problem is the stock lens. It could be sharper at 10 second exposure times and eliminate star trails but that would mean 3-4 times as many shots. I'm looking for quick, easy and simple processes with acceptable results atm with the gear I have.

No bias yet, haven't looked in to that. I did take 3 darks which are not combined in these images, just for the noisy sensor. The end results are not too bad.  I'm happy with it and will image this area again when it's higher.

I've tried DSS a few times HK, I don't use it for some reason or another, can't remember why now.

Last night I imaged 2 areas. The left hand side/end of the Milky Way pointing down towards the east, then across from that to the Coal Sack, the same exposure times etc.

I won't be going any further with the image below, it's as is I prefer the other area.

[happy-kat]

They are so great and for you to take it from your yard, amazing. Have a look in near by second hand shops you might find a suitable lens. Though old m42 lenses apparently won't reach focus even with an adaptor on a Nikon.

[Aussie Dave]

Yep I always look in the second hand shops in their cabinets HK. I'd like a shorter smaller lens to capture more sky plus a better quality standard lens, it doesn't need to be a zoom lens either. I'm not sure what to look out for though, but.... I've been looking at buying a Canon

[happy-kat]

Another approach is keep going with your kit lens but do a mosaic to get the bigger image. Microsoft ice is free mosaic tool.

[Aussie Dave]

I've downloaded MSIce HK but there was something I needed to update for it to run. I have Autostich and it worked fine on a couple of lunar tests. I'm not sure if it could handle starfields, I've yet to test that. Mosaics are on the cards.

[happy-kat]

With what your back yard reveals it could be very worth a go even with the kit lens.

[Aussie Dave]

But it's more noise than stars lol. Light pollution is also affecting results.

I'll still have another crack at it next week when I get a day off work.