M13 in Hercules

[Jarvo]

Hi All. It seems like ages since I've had the telescope out but the skies cleared on Tuesday night so I decided to have a ago a my first Deep Sky Oject.

Attached is my first attempt at a Deep Sky Object - M13 in Hercules. I chose this because its easy to locate in the finder.

(click to enlarge)

Details are:

Scope: 6" Mak-Cass

Camara: Olympus E410 DSLR

ISO: 400

Exposure: 60"

It's a single exposure, processed in Coral Draw.

Hope you like it.

Jarvo

p.s. took some other photos which I'll post seperately......

[blinky]

Very nice, well done on getting the first image under your belt :hello1:

[Cloudwatcher]

I have Coral Draw on my computer but to my shame I have to confess I have never used it. :oops:

Does it have a desaturate facility? If so,give it a go,then brighten the image a bit and you will find loads more stars are there to be seen.

Must say that if that is your first attempt at a DSO I can't wait to see the umtyforth!

Heres a quick job along the lines mentioned but done in photoshop.

Cheers

CW

[narrowbandpaul]

thats a great start

lets hope you get lots more clear skies and you'll be amazed at what an SLR will show you

Best Wishes

[Paxo]

Excellent start Jarvo, and a single exposure too. M13 is a good object to start on for the reasons you have given. The downside to M13 is that it is easy to oversaturate the core when trying to bring out the finer detail in its outreaches. Well done, looking forward to seeing more.

Steve..

[steppenwolf]

Good first attempt, Jarvo - you are on the road ....

[Jarvo]

Thanks for the comments Guys.

CW - the programme is Coral Paint shop Pro - not Coral Draw - apologies for any confusion (Brain was getting addled at that point!!!)

There are Saturation adjustments you can make,,,,I've had a quick tweak but nothing close to what you've achieved - nice work by the way!!!

All - I used ISO 400 on this shot, Is this enough or should I crank it up???

Jarvo

[Paxo]

You could certainly crank it up to iso800, but this will introduce a little more noise to the image. You can overcome this however by taking multiple images and stacking them (Deep Sky Stacker is an excellent free piece of software for doing this). Stacking is probably the next logical step. There is no right and wrong way in this imaging game, I personally have to take fairly short subs as I have local light pollution, so I compensate for this by taking more images and stacking. The beauty of digital imaging is give it a try and find whats best for you.

Steve

[Doc]

Not bad at all.

Remember this is only one exposure. Try taking a few more and stack them. or even incllude a few darks as well.

Keep it up it's looking promising.

[centroid]

A promising start indeed.

Hope to see many more images from you.

Dave

[Jarvo]

Thanks Guys- I've got Registax but I'm still trying to get my head around its finer points - might try Deep Sky Stacker - thanks for the Pointer Paxo !

Jarvo

[Paxo]

Jarvo,

A general rule of thumb is use Deep Sky Stacker for DSO's and registax for lunar and planetary work. Seems to work fine. DSS is very simple to use. Good luck and can't wait to see the results.

Steve..

[Viking]

Jarvo,

Try this tutorial by Jamie

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,7871.0.html

John