Season finale

[Guest Tuomo]

Hi!

 

Stargazing/Ap season is soon over here in Finland -for me-. Days are getting longer and ofc nights are getting shorter. Last weekend I managed to find polaris with my Polemaster at round 21:00. It is just so bright. Around december I could see polaris at around 16:00.

Setting everything up and IF everything goes as planned I can gather photons just for few ours, before I need to pack everything and go to bed. Hate to say it, but season is soon over....so what to do next? I think I really need to learn one important thing in AP......

I really like setting everything up and fiddle around with aligments and stuff. I find it fun. Everything works well and I think Im getting somewhat good at it. After polar aligment I can go inside and do rest there. I have managed to shoot some good images too, but exposure times and somewhat bad guiding are slowing my progress. I really need to upgrade my scope(SW 102/500) too. Blue bloated stars and heavily curved field is ruining my photos even if I manage to do 10 min subs....

What I dont like is the rest of what is SO important with AP. That is image/data manipulation with your favourite image editing software. I'm quite bad at it. I hate the idea to do something tutorial tells me to do without knowing what the button really does...Im getting there, but it is not rewarding thing to do. 

At the moment Im trying to learn to use StarTools. They say it is fairly simple, but still deep enough and you can get good results with it. Problem is that I dont really know what I can pull out from my images. For bad images I mostly I blame for my scope. It is really not suitable for AP, but it still is something. Next one is to blame my modded 500D.  In near future I will but Modern CMOS sensor astrophotography camera....near future...

Can you guys help me out and do your magic with PI/ST? Show me what you can do with my raw stacked image and post it here as JPEG. After I see what can come out of it I can do thing differently. and ultimately find good reason to buy Star tools. Print screening final image is somewhat lame thing to do in the long run.

This is the Image I was able to wizard out with StarTools:

(Iris Nebula, Canon 500D(Full spectrum), ISO1600, 5 Min guided, IDASLPS2)
(Stacked in DSS, 20 Lights, 30 Flats, 200 Bias)

Here is link to my stacked image.

(Link)

[Nova2000]

Nice image! 

The astronomy season end here cause of the 6month monsoons and clouds. I think you have made the background little too black? 

[Guest Tuomo]

Just now, Nova2000 said:

Nice image! 

The astronomy season end here cause of the 6month monsoons and clouds. I think you have made the background little too black? 

Yes, I think I did. For some reason I was not able to edit it out with ST. Ended up with noisy blackishgrey. I clipped it with contrast tool

[spillage]

try using the lens feature in st. It will remove some of your coma. I also find when adjusting the color if you click on the roi it should after a few click mask out the galaxy/nebula fairly well. You can then adjust only this and then invert the mask to adjust the image outside the roi.

I an not sure how you do things but I always bin my images from my 500d by 50% then use lens then autodev and wipe...etc.

I am still learning but maybe one day I will get there. I also find it hard to know if its rubbish data or just my processing skills but I am sure over time both will improve.

 

Cheers

Spill.

[Guest Tuomo]

1 hour ago, spillage said:

try using the lens feature in st. It will remove some of your coma. I also find when adjusting the color if you click on the roi it should after a few click mask out the galaxy/nebula fairly well. You can then adjust only this and then invert the mask to adjust the image outside the roi.

I an not sure how you do things but I always bin my images from my 500d by 50% then use lens then autodev and wipe...etc.

I am still learning but maybe one day I will get there. I also find it hard to know if its rubbish data or just my processing skills but I am sure over time both will improve.

 

Cheers

Spill.

I need to try this. At the moment i really dont do things in any particular way. I just fidle around and try to manage..Do you feel your 500d is good enough for Ap? Sometimes I do, sometimes not...

[spillage]

I think you have to accept that the 500d is not £1000 ccd camera so it will not ever beat those ccd images. But with enough data I get good results (for now). It's just a case of being happy with the kit you have and the results it gives you.

At the moment I am sure other things are effecting my results ie mount balance, PA, PHD settings. All of this even before I sit down and try to process the data. All in good time and some of the guys/gals on here have been at this game for a long time so do not get too disheartened if your not up to their standards.

I have had startools for a while but only now am I realizing the little extra things in it and the power of using the mask. I know pixinsight has more followers but I think that it is very linear in its use. I really like the way you can choose your own route that suites you in st.