First attempt at Dumbbell Nebula

[meryck]

Had great skies last night - first decent clear night of the Autumn season, so made the most of it with a first try at the Dumbbell Nebula:

 

(Skywatcher 200p, EQ5 GoTo unguided, Canon 450D @ISO 800, 16 x 120s subs, 8 darks, 8 bias, processed in DeepSkyStacker + GIMP)

Taking the subs went smoothly enough, but I struggled with the post processing. The stacking went fine, but  I was finding it very hard to get the colours to look right in GIMP. I was messing around with levels, contrast, colour enhance. In the end the only thing that gave half decent results was doing a colour enhance, then adjusting 'colour temperature'. That seemed to restore some sanity.

I feel like there's a lot of decent data in there, but it's hard to coax it out. Any tips for bringing out decent colours for the Dumbbell Nebula? I'll have another crack in GIMP tonight!  

[Demonperformer]

Very nice for a first go.

[D Wright]

Nice image, well done. I am at the same stage as you, just starting out. I also use a Canon 450D. Does your mount have goto?, if not how did you frame the image in the centre of the camera. I do not have goto and this is one of the problems I am having. Is the image guided as if not this is very good for 2 minutes unguided subs.

[alacant]

Hi. Great snap. Of all the processing I think colour is the most difficult. Dunno. Stretch less, less contrast? I'm at a similar stage in the learning process. Once you have a balance you like, make it a preset and use that as a starting point. Here's my attempt with a 700d using these curves from this preset. HTH

[meryck]

56 minutes ago, D Wright said:

Nice image, well done. I am at the same stage as you, just starting out. I also use a Canon 450D. Does your mount have goto?, if not how did you frame the image in the centre of the camera. I do not have goto and this is one of the problems I am having. Is the image guided as if not this is very good for 2 minutes unguided subs.

Thanks for the comments!

I have goto but don't use it much. Old fashioned i guess.. Just lined up with finderscope and took a series of 30 sec shots to fine tune the position.

No guiding in this case and no drift alignment either. Just got lucky to be very well aligned. Can't normally do 2 minutes without trailing. 

[meryck]

37 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi. Great snap. Of all the processing I think colour is the most difficult. Dunno. Stretch less, less contrast? I'm at a similar stage in the learning process. Once you have a balance you like, make it a preset and use that as a starting point. Here's my attempt with a 700d using these curves from this preset. HTH

Thanks for the tips. That dreaded curves screen... I'll have to grapple with it eventually ha ha.... I'll try your settings and see how it goes. 

[Thalestris24]

46 minutes ago, meryck said:

Thanks for the comments!

I have goto but don't use it much. Old fashioned i guess.. Just lined up with finderscope and took a series of 30 sec shots to fine tune the position.

No guiding in this case and no drift alignment either. Just got lucky to be very well aligned. Can't normally do 2 minutes without trailing. 

Hi

Platesolving is one way to find and centre targets - it's a great time saver once it's set up. I use Astrotortilla with APT though APT itself supports platesolving via PointCraft/Platesolve2  

Louise

[Mr Spock]

Looks really good

[D Wright]

18 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

Platesolving is one way to find and centre targets - it's a great time saver once it's set up. I use Astrotortilla with APT

Do you not need GOTO for this to work? The other problem is that I don't use a laptop when imaging yet.

[John78]

15 minutes ago, D Wright said:

Do you not need GOTO for this to work? The other problem is that I don't use a laptop when imaging yet.

You need an ascom enabled telescope mount, and a laptop for astrotortilla, APT etc....  

AstroEQ I think is the best value way of achieving that, a synscan handset is expensive, but even the stock motors AstroEQ can deal with - just slow to slew.

[alacant]

1 hour ago, Thalestris24 said:

Platesolving is one way to find and centre targets

+1. But no, you don't need goto. If you can connect your mount to APT, it will provide the goto for you. HTH.

[wimvb]

You say you have goto, so a star alignment should be the easiest way to get a target in field of view. On the other hand, the method you use now obviously works. If you're happy with it, why change?

You've got a great first image: round tight stars, colour in the stars and colour in the nebula. The only issue you might want to address in the future is the vignetting. To get rid of this, you will need flats. It's the best way to get rid of vignetting. They're more important than dark frames.

Best noise reduction: more subs, WAY more subs. If you have an intervalometer, use that. If you don't have one, the synscan hand controller has a camera controller built in. It works great, but if your mount doesn't have a snap port, you may have to make your own cable between the synscan and the camera.

[meryck]

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

You say you have goto, so a star alignment should be the easiest way to get a target in field of view. On the other hand, the method you use now obviously works. If you're happy with it, why change?

You've got a great first image: round tight stars, colour in the stars and colour in the nebula. The only issue you might want to address in the future is the vignetting. To get rid of this, you will need flats. It's the best way to get rid of vignetting. They're more important than dark frames.

Best noise reduction: more subs, WAY more subs. If you have an intervalometer, use that. If you don't have one, the synscan hand controller has a camera controller built in. It works great, but if your mount doesn't have a snap port, you may have to make your own cable between the synscan and the camera.

Thanks so much for the advice. I had no idea flats were so important. Thought the darks mattered most! I have a phone app with I.r. timer remote so i have no issues getting lots of subs on technical side. Time is my big limitation though. Can't spend more than a couple of hours a night except for the weekend, and weather windows are few and far between round here! 

[al-alami]

very nice  well done on the first go