Antares Region with DSLR lens and Skytracker

[carastro]

I have long wanted to image this colourful region, but it's lowness and size presented multiple problems from the UK.  So I decided to take my holiday kit with me to Spain and at least get it with the camera lens.  Unfortunately my larger 78 - 200mm zoom lens proved to only come down to F5.6 and the quality of data in the Nifty 50 at f3.5 seemed to be much better.  

So this is a combination of 3 nights. 2 with zoom lens and 1 night with Nifty 50 trying to extract the best of the 3 sessions.  so this is a case of trying to make a "silk purse out of a sow's ear".   PA and tracking was better one night than the other.  

Would love to be able to get this with a telescope and CCD camera at some point in the future. 

Zoom lens at roughly 100mm f5.6 = 5 x 4mins + 32 x 3mins + 15 x 2mins
Zoom lens at roughly 120mm f5.6 = 24 x 4mins
Nifty 50 lens at f3.5 5 x 5mins + 22 x 4mins
If I have totted it all up correctly and not left anything out it should be a total of 4 hours 19 mins.  

Good old Registar.

 

[happy-kat]

That's a very pleasing image with very clear dark bits.

[Davey-T]

Caught all the different colours nicely Carole, shame we can't get it from here.

Did you ever try those old M42 Takumar lenses for wide field, was one a 28mm ?

Dave

[Mr Spock]

It's nice to be able to get this region. Impossible from here!

[carastro]

Quote

Did you ever try those old M42 Takumar lenses for wide field, was one a 28mm ?

No Dave, never manage to get them to fit the camera.

Thanks for the comments folks, still trying to find ways to improve the image.

Carole 

 

 

[ultranova]

Done well to capture it Carole,

would love to capture this one myself.

Nicely done.

Paul

[simmo39]

V nice!

[Uranium235]

Well done for having a go at it!

Although, I might suggest that it isnt an impossible target from the UK - you just need the right location and the right weather for it. You will more than likely get a gradient in the data, but that shouldnt present too much of a difficulty to sort out during processing.

[gnomus]

Very nice Carole. 

[carastro]

Thanks every-one.

Quote

 it isnt an impossible target from the UK - you just need the right location and the right weather for it. 

That's part of the problem though, I need to get to a dark site at the right time with the right weather.  I managed to get one pane (of about 8 needed!!!) of luminance in 2013 in a Dark area of kent and been waiting ever since for an opportunity to add to it.  I tried last month with the DSLR from a dark site but there must have been a layer of mucky skies at that low elevation as the data was awful (with the same camera) even though I could see scorpio quite clearly.   Now going to try to get my camera lens to fit a Mono CCD camera so I can do it in one hit in luminance at least.  

Carole 

 

 

[sharkmelley]

You've done a good job of processing that.  It's clear that light pollution was the main limitation.

Mark

[carastro]

Thanks Mark, I should have realised that myself seeing as I could not see the Milky Way etc.

Carole 

[Rodd]

Nice colors Carole.  This target is well suited to monster FOVs--or mosaics.  Nice job,

Rodd

[carastro]

Thanks Rodd

[toxic]

great image Carol and and very nice field of view 

[carastro]

Thanks Chris.  

Carole 

 

[Ouroboros]

That's a really lovely image, Carole. The colours are delightful, as are the wealth of stars and those dark lanes! 

I'm always intrigued about how people did things. You've used several different focal lengths so presumably have images of different sizes. Can you simply throw them all together into a registration and stacking application? Or do you have to pre-scale them first? Secondly, don't you end up with different regions looking different? How to you make them look seamless? 

[The Admiral]

I've not seen that before, Carole. Reminds me of a multi-coloured jelly fish! You may have had your problems with it, but it's worked out very nicely in the end.

Question: is this with a modified DSLR?

Ian

[carastro]

Quote

I'm always intrigued about how people did things. You've used several different focal lengths so presumably have images of different sizes. Can you simply throw them all together into a registration and stacking application? Or do you have to pre-scale them first? Secondly, don't you end up with different regions looking different? How to you make them look seamless? 

 Like this

 

I stack and partially process them separately in photoshop, and then take them into Registar which re-sizes and registers the images so they will sit on top of each other.  Then back into Photoshop and I then layer them on top of each other using 50% on the top layer of each combination.  It depends which one has comes out best as to which has the 100% and which the 50%.  Then once it is all combined  - as you say there will be some bits that don't fit size wise, so I then normally do a crop cutting of the bits that haven't combined.  Sometimes this might involve rotating the image so I don't have to crop too much off.

Thanks Chris and Ian.

Quote

is this with a modified DS

Yes it's a modified Canon 1100D - sorry I forgot to mention that.

Carole 

 

[appyaardvark]

Nice image Carole, I managed to get 34x5min lights, with a 450D and 200mm f/2.8 lens @ f4.0, a couple of weeks back. No opportunity to add to the frames, since. What's a sensible limit to the number of light frames that can be stacked, before there's no improvement on noise? I read somewhere that beyond 30 frames there is no more advantage gained by adding further frames.

[carastro]

There is a law of diminishing returns, but I am not sure where that point is.  I would have thought 34 x 5mins would be ample to stack and process.  

Carole 

 

[appyaardvark]

I've read conflicting opinions, some have advised that the limit is 30 subs, others have implied that there is no real limit and are talking in the 100s

I've stacked my frames in DSS, but I am stumped as to how to approach background netralisation and noise reduction in PI, with so much detail that I want to retain. It's a case of multiple runs until I find a solution that fits.

[carastro]

Can't help with Pixinsight I am afraid, I'm a Photoshop person.

Carole 

[Ouroboros]

On 28 June 2017 at 12:54, carastro said:

I stack and partially process them separately in photoshop, and then take them into Registar which re-sizes and registers the images so they will sit on top of each other.  Then back into Photoshop and I then layer them on top of each other using 50% on the top layer of each combination.  It depends which one has comes out best as to which has the 100% and which the 50%.  Then once it is all combined  - as you say there will be some bits that don't fit size wise, so I then normally do a crop cutting of the bits that haven't combined.  Sometimes this might involve rotating the image so I don't have to crop too much off.

Carole 

Interesting, thanks. Quite a rigmarole.  You stack in Photoshop? Wow! I tried that once or twice and it's quite a business with lots of frames. 

[carastro]

Sorry that was a bit ambiguous.  I stack in Astroart and then process in Photoshop.

Then after processing the different camera images I take them into Registar to register them.  

I then stack the different images in photoshop which in this case was about 3.

It is quite a palaver but if I can combine all the data for a better image it is worth it.

Carole