Old M42 Data w/StarTools ☆

[JohnSadlerAstro]

Hi,

Some old data from last November; before my camera was modded. The original image was processed with DSS and GIMP, the new version with DSS and StarTools. I'm still quite noobish when processing with StarTools. but its a really fun program to learn. On this image I forgot to desaturate the sky background to remove the LP colour glow--when I do a reprocess I will do that. I'm hoping that there will be some clear skies around November-December this year to get some better quality data. The streaky noise is caused by the rather noisy CMOS and no dithering--I didn't start using APT until the New Year. The gradient is caused by the secondary being not quite centred under the camera up/down the tube.

Around 1 hour of 2-3 min subs, ISO 800 

EQ5 and 130P-DS, guided with PHD2 & 50mm finder/guider

EOS 1000d and MPCC Mk 4 + Cheap LP filter

 

Old: (GIMP)

 

New: (StarTools--Still a lot of work needed)

John

[tomato]

That’s a nice M42 John. 

Although a lot of the top guns seem to use PI, I really like StarTools, particularly from a value for money standpoint. The final noise reduction routine is great, with my semi-rural sky and limited integration times, I’d be lost without it.