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By MalVeauX
Hey all,
I made an acquisition and processing tutorial a while back (3 years ago? Yikes!) and it is fairly dated in terms of what I'm doing these days. I've been asked for a long time to make a new one showing what I'm doing these days. Specifically how I'm processing a single shot image for both the surface and prominences and how to process them together to show prominences and the surface at once. I've abandoned doing split images and composites and strictly work from one image using layers. Acquisition does not use gamma at all anymore. Nothing terribly fancy, but it's not exactly intuitive so hopefully this new video will illustrate most of the fundamentals to get you started. Instead of an hour, this time it's only 18 minutes. It's real time from start to finish. I'm sorry for the long "waiting periods" where I'm just waiting for the software to finish its routine, it lasts 1.5 minutes and 30 seconds tops typically at first. The first 4 minutes is literally just stacking & alignment in AS!3. I typically will go faster than this, but wanted to slow down enough to try to talk through what I'm doing as I do it. Hopefully you can see each action on the screen. I may have made a few mistakes or said a few incorrect things or terms, forgive me for that, this is not my day job. I really hope it helps folk get more into processing as its not difficult or intimidating when you see a simple process with only a few things that are used. The key is good data to begin with and a good exposure value. Today's data came from a 100mm F10 achromatic refractor and an ASI290MM camera with an HA filter. I used FireCapture to acquire the data with a defocused flat frame. No gamma is used. I target anywhere from 65% to 72% histogram fill. That's it! The processing is fast and simple. I have a few presets that I use, but they are all defaults in Photoshop. A lot of the numbers I use for parameters are based on image scale, so keep that in mind, experiment with your own values. The only preset I use that is not a default is my coloring scheme. I color with levels in Photoshop, and my values are Red: 1.6, Green 0.8, Blue 0.2 (these are mid-point values).
Processing Tutorial Video (18 minutes):
https://youtu.be/RJvJEoVS0oU
RAW (.TIF) files available here to practice on (the same images you will see below as RAW TIFs):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zjeoux7YPZpGjlRGtX6fH7CH2PhB-dzv
Video for Acquisition, Focus, Flat Calibration and Exposure (20 minutes):
(Please let me know if any links do not work)
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Results from today using this work flow method.
Colored:
B&W:
SSM data (sampled during 1.5~2 arc-second seeing conditions):
Equipment for today:
100mm F10 Frac (Omni XLT 120mm F8.3 masked to 4")
Baader Red CCD-IR Block Filter (ERF)
PST etalon + BF10mm
ASI290MM
SSM (for fun, no automation)
Very best,
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By beka
Hi All,
Having had to move to an apartment where I could not use my CPC 1100, I decided that I have to see what I could do with my NexStar SLT 102 (alt-az achromatic 102mm f6.47 refractor). Setting up on my narrow balcony was challenging and the altitude bearing was so loose that it almost moved from the weight of the Canon 700D. I could not see M31 in the estimated 3.5 magnitude sky so I did a two star alignment and used the live-view to focus on a bright star. I then took a 15 second exposure after slewing to M31 which allowed me to see that I had it in the field of view. After a few more 15 second exposures and playing with the motion controls I managed to get it centered. The resulting picture is from 39 subs of 30 seconds at ISO 1600, 9 flats. The images were stacked and stretched with Siril and then I played with the curves on Gimp, cropped and scaled. Not too unhappy.
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By astrosathya
Just thought i'll bring this up as a point of discussion. Today, cooled CMOS Astro Cameras are available in plenty. QHY, ZWO and other variants of the same camera are selling for very reasonable prices. However, there was a point of time when astrophotographers used to cool down their DSLR's as a cheap OSC alternative to CCD cameras. Give a choice, I would've purchased a dedicated CMOS OSC which can cool to 40 C below ambient, but since I had a Canon 500D which I had self modded, I requested a friend Kaustav Chatterjee (an avid model railroader) to cold mod my 500D (he had cold modded his 1000D long back). This newly modded camera has a TEC12703 single peltier and cools to approximately 20 below ambient.What do you guys think?
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By merlin100
I'm tempted to go down the route of getting myself a brand new reflector... My friend's old Meade 114/900 is a good telescope, but I want something of my own and with a bit more light gathering power. To this end, I've been looking at a couple of different models and manufactures.
https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-explorer-130.html
https://www.firstlightoptics.com/beginner-telescopes/skywatcher-explorer-130p.html
https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130m.html
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Meade-Instruments-Polaris-Reflector-Telescope/dp/B01FG8JEGG
I must admit, the Skywatcher Explorer 130M floats my boat, as it's motorised with a speed controller.
Any thoughts or observations?🤔
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By paulobao
Hello everyone,
QHY5-II (MONO) - as new with original box and acessories.
Great guiding camera!
Check some photos at Astrobin or Stargazers Lounge under "paulobao".
I just quit the hobby and sold all my gear (FS102, G11, QSI532, etc...).
Price 70 GBP shipping included.
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