First DSO Pic

[MChandaue]

Here is my first attempt at a DSO, M31 in this case. There is a massive amount wrong with this as it was my first time at a dark site and it was not even close to level and I was working against the clock (moonrise). My polar alignment wasn’t good and so the best I could get was 1 minute subs and even then the stars were starting to egg. I didn’t bother checking the subs and there were a couple with shooting stars and satellites in there. I should have restacked without them but really just wanted to play with the data for my own education on processing as DSO processing is still a bit of a mystery to me. I ended up quite pleased with the result even though it isn’t even close to what most of you guys are producing. I’m happy with it first time out although I have had to use a bit of artistic license with dodging and burning in lightroom well technically mosty dodging.

I have cheated a bit by touching up  a little bit around the base of the galaxy to make up for the lack of data so this added data {technically not added just using masks to selectively brighten the existing data) would qualify this as an artistic representation of M31. Looking forward to a nice clear moonless night so I can get some good data to do this properly. Whilst some may consider my creative use of masks and filters cheating the output is enough to excite me about what will be possible when I have enough good data.

This was around 23 minutes worth but around 4 of those minutes have bad data. Also used about 10 darks and no flats or bias. Camera was an unmoved Canon 80D Orion ED80 CF Triplet on an EQ6 pro.

[DougM43]

Nice, it’s a lot better than my first dso capture

[MChandaue]

2 minutes ago, DougM43 said:

Nice, it’s a lot better than my first dso capture

Thanks it looks good if you don’t zoom in or look too closely or view it on a big screen lol.

[Stargazer33]

Much better than my first M31! Some of the dust lanes are showing up nicely. Sounds like you know your way around your processing software. Look forward to seeing what you can do with better data.

[MChandaue]

To be honest I had no clue what I was doing in the software other than what I’ve picked up about stretching from a few youtube videos. There was a lot more luck than judgement involved here. I know lightroom fairly well from doing landscapes but the photoshop side involved a lot of playing and seeing what happened and without having a clue how, I started to end up with something that started looking half way reasonable.

[MarsG76]

Comparing to my first DSO, this rocks...

 

[MarsG76]

1 hour ago, MChandaue said:

To be honest I had no clue what I was doing in the software other than what I’ve picked up about stretching from a few youtube videos. There was a lot more luck than judgement involved here. I know lightroom fairly well from doing landscapes but the photoshop side involved a lot of playing and seeing what happened and without having a clue how, I started to end up with something that started looking half way reasonable.

We all had no clue about this hobby in the beginning.. After a few years of imaging we still only have a marginal clue, mostly based on luck.

[MChandaue]

It will be Sod’s law that when I finally get good data I won’t be able to make it look as good as this one turned out. I think half the fun of this hobby is seeing a little grey splurg that comes out of the stacking software slowly transform into something beautiful.

[carastro]

Great work, much better than my first DSO