My first attempt at M31

[Starwiz]

SW200p with Canon 1200D (modded for astro use) at ISO800.  

Lights 10 x 180s, 10 x 120s.  

Raw images captured, then stacked in DSS.  

There doesn't seem to be any colour - any thoughts?  

There's also a bit of coma.

John

[Yamez]

brilliant first m31. My images never had color after stacking in DSS and im not to sure either. Have you tried increasing satruration in DSS or in post?

[Owmuchonomy]

It's not unusual for the stacked image to look like that. You need to take the stacked TIF file and process it in a suitable package such as Photoshop. When I first started out I used Doug German's video tutorials on You Tube. Just search for him.

[Starwiz]

1 hour ago, Yamez said:

brilliant first m31. My images never had color after stacking in DSS and im not to sure either. Have you tried increasing satruration in DSS or in post?

Thanks Yamez.  

Yes, I increased the saturation in DSS, but I guess if each of the raw images contain little colour, the stacked image won't either.  I'm still on a steep learning curve.

John

[Starwiz]

1 hour ago, Owmuchonomy said:

It's not unusual for the stacked image to look like that. You need to take the stacked TIF file and process it in a suitable package such as Photoshop. When I first started out I used Doug German's video tutorials on You Tube. Just search for him.

Thanks for the feedback Chris.  I've tried post-processing the TIFF in Photoshop, but for some reason certain features can't be selected, such as curves.  I'll have a look at Doug German's videos.  

John

[Owmuchonomy]

2 minutes ago, Starwiz said:

Thanks for the feedback Chris.  I've tried post-processing the TIFF in Photoshop, but for some reason certain features can't be selected, such as curves.  I'll have a look at Doug German's videos.  

John

Make sure you are saving your staked output file as a 16 Bit TIFF, not something else. Photoshop needs 16 Bit for some features.

[Starwiz]

Just now, Owmuchonomy said:

Make sure you are saving your staked output file as a 16 Bit TIFF, not something else. Photoshop needs 16 Bit for some features.

I've checked and it does seem to be a 16 bit TIFF.  I checked the settings in DSS. 

I've noticed that I can do the curves if I open a bitmap image, but not with the TIFF output from DSS.

Thanks

John

[Owmuchonomy]

2 minutes ago, Starwiz said:

I've checked and it does seem to be a 16 bit TIFF.  I checked the settings in DSS. 

I've noticed that I can do the curves if I open a bitmap image, but not with the TIFF output from DSS.

Thanks

John

When you have opened the TIFF check Image>Mode>RGB

i urge you to follow Doug's tutorials.

[Starwiz]

3 minutes ago, Owmuchonomy said:

When you have opened the TIFF check Image>Mode>RGB

i urge you to follow Doug's tutorials.

Thanks again Chris.  I'll definitely have a look at Doug's tutorial when I get some quiet time.

I've just checked Image>Mode and it was set to RGB Colour.  Further down however, on the same menu, I could see 32 bits/channel was ticked.  I set this to 16 bit/channel and now the Curves function and other stuff that wasn't available before appears to be accessible now.

John

[wimvb]

5 hours ago, Starwiz said:

SW200p with Canon 1200D (modded for astro use) at ISO800.  

Lights 10 x 180s, 10 x 120s.  

Raw images captured, then stacked in DSS.  

There doesn't seem to be any colour - any thoughts?  

There's also a bit of coma.

John

Very nice first result.

As for the lack of colour, do you have the correct bayer mask setting in dss?

[drb1976]

awesome pic!

 

[cuivenion]

Excellent image!

[Starwiz]

On 9/11/2016 at 21:39, Owmuchonomy said:

When you have opened the TIFF check Image>Mode>RGB

i urge you to follow Doug's tutorials.

Just viewed the first two tutorials, excellent and presented at a nice pace.

John

[Starwiz]

On 9/12/2016 at 00:45, wimvb said:

Very nice first result.

As for the lack of colour, do you have the correct bayer mask setting in dss?

Thanks for the comments.  I tried setting the bayer mask, but I'm not sure it's made a difference.  I'll have another look when I can.

John

[wimvb]

7 minutes ago, Starwiz said:

Thanks for the comments.  I tried setting the bayer mask, but I'm not sure it's made a difference.  I'll have another look when I can.

John

I believe that Canon has an RGGB bayer mask. Your camera model should be in the drop down list of DSS debayer settings.

 

Good luck

[alacant]

15 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Your camera model should be in the drop down list of DSS debayer settings.

Hi. ?? The OP has a dslr producing raw files: this setting is not needed. HTH.

[mikeyj1]

Hi

Did you get any further with this?  i also ended up with a grey M31 over the weekend..

Nikon D5300 RAW files, Lights Darks and Bias only..

Only processed in DSS, but cant get any colour out of it..

have watched the first Doug video, but no avail

ty

Mike

Stacked and processed_grey.TIF

[Starwiz]

19 minutes ago, mikeyj1 said:

Hi

Did you get any further with this?  i also ended up with a grey M31 over the weekend..

Nikon D5300 RAW files, Lights Darks and Bias only..

Only processed in DSS, but cant get any colour out of it..

have watched the first Doug video, but no avail

ty

Mike

Stacked and processed_grey.TIF

Hi Mike,

No, unfortunately not.  I seem to be able to get plenty of colour if I point at nebulae but not galaxies for some reason?

Here's an image of M33 from the other night, I only got 4 frames in before the scope flipped and tracking wouldn't work so wasn't going to post.  The other's a single test shot of M42 taking afterward on the same night and although it's out of focus, the colour is there.

Anyone else know what the issue may be?

Thanks

John

 

[John78]

Andromeda is quite a mono target in RGB though right...  This was the best I could do with an un-modded Canon 1000D after stretching it to within an inch of its life.

 

Comparing M42 to M33 is a bit like comparing the 0-60 time of a skoda vs a ferrari its ~5x brighter so sure its more colourful - compare a single 60s frame of M42 vs a single 300s frame of M33 would be fair.

[John78]

Here's an RGB from Hubble...

 

[wimvb]

Andromeda appears less colourful than nebulae, but in reality it contains a lot of blue young stars in the outer parts, and older yellow stars near the core. If you add Ha, you will also see nebulae spread throughout the galaxy.

And the stars surrounding any target in an astro image should have a variety of colours, from blue to orange, independent from the target being imaged.

[alacant]

On 13/9/2016 at 21:00, Starwiz said:

 I tried setting the bayer mask, but I'm not sure it's made a difference.

Hi. It will make no difference. As your Canon produces raw files, any setting you make in the FITS tab will be ignored. No need to set anything in the FITS tab. Unless you're stacking FITS files of course. HTH.

[Starwiz]

53 minutes ago, John78 said:

Andromeda is quite a mono target in RGB though right...  This was the best I could do with an un-modded Canon 1000D after stretching it to within an inch of its life.

 

Comparing M42 to M33 is a bit like comparing the 0-60 time of a skoda vs a ferrari its ~5x brighter so sure its more colourful - compare a single 60s frame of M42 vs a single 300s frame of M33 would be fair.

Still a lot more colour than I got and my 1200D is modded for astro use.  What did you do to stretch it?  

John

[John78]

14 hours ago, Starwiz said:

Still a lot more colour than I got and my 1200D is modded for astro use.  What did you do to stretch it?  

John

I just wanged the sliders around in DSS until it looked as best I could get then loaded it into gimp and set the white, black and grey points...  My white balanced single frames pre-stretch, pre-stack looked like this...  I have to WB otherwise its orange fest from LP.