Help needed processing my 1st Milky Way image .

[Ryan_86]

Hi guys, I am in desperate need of some help regarding my data. Thursday I went to a great dark site, I had my Canon 600D (unmodded) on a Star Adventurer. I gathered 18 x 2min lights & 7 x2min darks. The Milkyway looked amazing with the naked eye so am hoping I have some useful data. I've been trying to follow the book  'Every Photon Counts', using DSS 3.3.4 and processing in Photoshop CS3 with Gradient Xterminator plugged in. I have no idea where I am going wrong but the final image looks worse than a single frame on the camera screen. All settings on DSS are set to the recommended but not sure if I need to change anything.

I have attached the stacked base image, if any of you clever people feel you can process it, so at least I know I have some useful data (or not). This is my 1st attempt using my set up and processing, so am on edge to say the least.

Thanks

Ryan

Autosave.tif

TIFF 16 bit .tif

[tooth_dr]

I feel your pain. I find widefield images hard to process. I got help on here, and eventually got something decent out of it. Hope you get sorted ??

[Ryan_86]

Thanks pal, my dark site in South Wales is amazing so am sure I have good enough data. I don't know whether I need to tinker with the individual raws before stacking, select somthing in DSS before stacking. I stuck good and proper.

[tooth_dr]

Probably not much help but here's my thread on my problem which sounds similar to yours.

 

[Ryan_86]

Your image looks amazing pal!!! I will give it a read now. Thanks and very very much appreciated:)

[Ryan_86]

My stacked image has no colour, do I need to align RGB channels. Sorry to ask pal, am pulling my hair out haha.

[Ryan_86]

Just checked, am in Bilinear Interpolation.

[Red Dwarfer]

Just a quick run through Lightroom 5 - Presence up , contrast up , Orange saturation down , shadows up , etc and cropped a bit to reduce vignetting - colour still needs adjusted to your own preference 

[Ryan_86]

Thanks for your effort and help pal! Can I ask, why does it have no colour compare to other similar pics I've seen posted here. The individual RAW CR2's on the camera display show a nice amount of blue. I was hoping to pick up some faint nebula etc. 

Am I being to ambitious?

Thanks

[Red Dwarfer]

11 minutes ago, Ryan_86 said:

Thanks for your effort and help pal! Can I ask, why does it have no colour compare to other similar pics I've seen posted here. The individual RAW CR2's on the camera display show a nice amount of blue. I was hoping to pick up some faint nebula etc. 

Am I being to ambitious?

Thanks

When I adjusted the presence it took on an Orange colour , so I reduced that in Saturation . Here it is again with Blue added ( saturation and luminance adjusted )