North America Nebula. First stab with Star Adventurer.

[elliot]

Hi all, (whoa it's been ages since i've been here. 👋)

This is my first stab a tracking and stacking using a Star Adventurer, or anything in fact. I've never tracked and stacked before. I'm using a Fuji X-T2 mirrorless camera with an adapted vintage Pentax Super Takumar 200mm/f4 at f5.6. ISO 2500.  Happy enough with star shape (apart from the aperture blade spikes)  so I think my polar alignment is ok. Used a 5litre bottle of water to weigh down the tripod.

Bortle 4/5 back garden, Moon not yet risen. 15 lights at 165s, 10 darks and 10 flats. (Flats shot by holding the camera to a white screen on my phone). Stacked with DSS and processed in PS using Astronomy Tools Action set using AstroBackyard's methods here. Transparency wasn't the best, i think I was shooting through think cloud most of the time.

To be honest I'm not delighted with it:

• The nebula is a bit dim eh? Very low contrast on the nebulosity. I don't think I could go much longer untracked than 2'30" or 3' on the Star Adventurer.
• There's a red cast. Stars that should be bluer all seem to be a bit reddish. Not sure why. White balance? I think I probably had it on auto but I was shooting raw so would think I'd be able to deal with that.
• It's a bit noisy.
• Big pointy stars.

What I think I need to do to improve it:

• To increase nebula contrast, I'm thinking of getting myself an old 600d off fleebay and getting it modded. Maybe one day getting an h-alpha clip filter for it. It would leave my gorgeous Fuji X-T2 to have normal human being settings, and not weird astro settings.
• Redness? I don't know. It doesn't look very natural to me.
• Noisy? More subs I guess. I could drop the ISO but then I'd need have longer subs, and the SA won't be up for it. 
• Spiky big stars. I have a stop down ring that I forgot to use. Note: Don't forget to use it.

Does this make sense? Any further advice on improvements i could make would be hugely appreciated. (I'm a budget astrophotographer if you hadn't guessed)

 

Thanks all!

 

 

 

 

[Davey-T]

Looking good, for what its worth I try the lens wide open, may help with the pointy stars, guess you could spend a few hours in PS removing the starfield and processing them separate to the nebula but could do with a bit more data as always 15 is an odd number, 16 darks and flats is a good minimum as well.

There is an ongoing Imaging with the Star Adventurer thread if you could post it in there as well be good as a few folks have an interest in it.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/303949-imaging-with-a-star-adventurer/?tab=comments#comment-3324305

Dave

[elliot]

Thanks Dave, will do.