My Leo Triplet from 05/05/19

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Here is my first attempt at the Leo Triplet from 5th May 2019. I suppose rather sad compared to what is on this forum, but a start for me, Lol !
Image composed of: 
60 x 70 second Lights, 10 x 50 second Lights, 10 x 70 second Darks, 1 x 50 second Dark, x 30 Bias  and x 30 Flats.
Orion ED80 Telescope, NEQ6 Pro,
Canon 600D, using APT no guiding.
Processed in APP, tweaked in GIMP and Arcsoft Photostudio 5.5

Regards,
Steve

 

[Demonperformer]

Great start there, Steve.

Just one thought ... using a single (50s) dark will not achieve very much, except possibly adding noise. You really do need to take a batch (10 is ok) to average out the noise and remove it from the final image.

[ollypenrice]

Not sad at all! There are two simple processing mods which would greatly enhance it. The image is clearly black clipped, meaning the black point has been brought in too far and has nibbled into your precious data. The example I use on my courses is of this very target, the first image being black clipped:

If you leave more space at the left hand edge of the histogram pedestal you'll get a much healthier result:

The other thing is colour balance, which strikes me as being very colour-cold or blue.

I would try to get the histograms of each channel aligned so that they are lined up at the top left of each peak.

Great stars for unguided imaging. Well done.

Olly

 

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Many thanks DP concerning the Darks advice.
Thanks also to Olly, I will spend some time doing a re-process, and see what I can come up with!
Not sure if my 1st initial stretch that I do in APP, prior to saving my FITS image as a Tiff is causing me to clip the black point.
Again thanks,
Steve

[Paul73]

Looks to be a pretty tidy 1st go at the triplet. Why choose 70second subs? I’m new to the dark side so thoroughly confused by how to choose sub lengths for different targets.

Paul

[david_taurus83]

18 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

 

I would try to get the histograms of each channel aligned so that they are lined up at the top left of each peak.

 

 

Thanks for this tip Olly. I've always just tried to align them as central as possible as the foot of each channel is rarely the same width in my images. I will have a go with this next time round.