First Post

[Somerled7]

Hi all,

First post on Stargazers Lounge, though I've been looking at this site for quite a while.

I made an aborted attempt at astro-photography a couple of years ago, got a certain distance with it, but then gave up.  Under lock-down, all the clear nights recently have tempted me to have another go.  A couple of attempts in, and here's the first decent picture I've managed - The North American Nebula which is just starting to rise in the West.

This is taken with a Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens at 190mm mounted on an HEQ5 mount, and using a Skywatcher finder scope with a QHY5LII colour camera mounted on a side-bar for guiding.  The standard Sigma lens foot is far too flexible for astro work, so I've clamped up the lens barrel with another lens collar to mount it to rigidly to the dovetail bar.  At just 190mm, this arrangement seems rigid enough for tracking., and I managed 20*300s exposures before giving up at 3am.

Any comments/feedback or suggestions for improvement welcome.   

[Skipper Billy]

Well done - neat solution and 10/10 for perseverance!

Lovely image and I hope you are encouraged to keep at it despite the lack of darkness - another 6  weeks and the nights will be drawing in again! 😉 

[ollypenrice]

I agree, that's very good indeed. Sharp focus, good tracking, sympathetic processing. 

Processing advice can be very software-specific so what are you using?

Olly

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Looking good, the pillar structure in the head of the Pelican is starting to show so you're capturing some true detail on your target.

[Somerled7]

Thanks Olly,

I used Deep Sky Stacker with everything on default settings, then processed in Photoshop.  I'm quite familiar with Photoshop as I do a fair bit of photography, but using it for astro images is something new for me.

[Xsubmariner]

Love the can do attitude and ingenuity. Nice image, now watch your wallet closely  otherwise the AP bug will take all your money.

[barkis]

No looking back now then, that is the Image of a veteran AP.  
If it passed muster with Olly, then you're now in the premiere league 😀.
Well done on your come back.👍.
Ron.

[ollypenrice]

5 hours ago, Somerled7 said:

Thanks Olly,

I used Deep Sky Stacker with everything on default settings, then processed in Photoshop.  I'm quite familiar with Photoshop as I do a fair bit of photography, but using it for astro images is something new for me.

OK so a really simple tweak in Ps would be to go to Image-Adjustments-Selective Colour and it will open by default in the reds. Try moving the top slider to the left to lower the cyans in the reds. This usually makes Ha signal pop, but no promises!

Olly

[rickwayne]

NOICE. So nice I'll forgive you for not having gone uphill both ways in the snow for several years with nothing but poo images to show for it, like some of us 🙂

If you'd care for a somewhat less simple tweak...see if you can obtain a standalone version of starnet++ and get that running. It's a neural-net processor that yanks the stars from your image so that you can process that gorgeous nebulosity independently. Then, when that's looking quite spectacular, you can blend the stars back in.

The idea is that when you stretch an image to map the dim tones onto most of the available tonal range, you inevitably lose saturation in the higher end. So by taking the stars away from that stretching process, you preserve their color, and also avoid enlarging them unduly. No criticism implied of your fine image, but you'll note that there's very little color in the stars. I bet you have plenty in the original data.

[Somerled7]

17 hours ago, rickwayne said:

NOICE. So nice I'll forgive you for not having gone uphill both ways in the snow for several years with nothing but poo images to show for it, like some of us 🙂

If you'd care for a somewhat less simple tweak...see if you can obtain a standalone version of starnet++ and get that running. It's a neural-net processor that yanks the stars from your image so that you can process that gorgeous nebulosity independently. Then, when that's looking quite spectacular, you can blend the stars back in.

The idea is that when you stretch an image to map the dim tones onto most of the available tonal range, you inevitably lose saturation in the higher end. So by taking the stars away from that stretching process, you preserve their color, and also avoid enlarging them unduly. No criticism implied of your fine image, but you'll note that there's very little color in the stars. I bet you have plenty in the original data.

Thanks Rick, I'll look into it.  In stretching out the image, I did try masking off the stars in Photoshop at various stages,  but maybe not enough to preserve the colour.  

[Somerled7]

Thanks Olly, I tried that adjustment and it enhances the reds a bit, so one to remember.

[AstroInvestigator]

Absolutely amazing!  

[Jezphil]

Great picture. Please can you tell me what lens collar you used for your Sigma lens?

 

[RobST]

Fantastic Picture 😁 and brilliant idea, i plan to get a heq5 first and use my camera and lenses i already own to do some beginning astro, this post has given me much encouragement 😁

[Somerled7]

1 hour ago, Jezphil said:

Great picture. Please can you tell me what lens collar you used for your Sigma lens?

 

It's the Canon B(W) mount ring, but needs to be a third party version that hinges open - I think the proper Canon version doesn't have a hinge, so wouldn't work.  It's slightly large, so needs a bit of padding to clamp the lens barrel tightly.  

[Jezphil]

Thank you!

 

[Jezphil]

What's the screw you are using there to fix the canon mount in place please?

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Jezphil