Leo Triplet 13/05/20, Altair 72ED-R, AZGTi, ZWO 178MC

[Bobby1970]

Decided to have another go at this target with my AZGTi in EQ mode.

ZWO 178MC, Altair ED72-R

I managed to get polar alignment using Sharpcap, and was in the "good" zone so decided that was good enough.

I tried a single 1 min frame at 200 gain and the stars seemed ok so used the livestacking feature to capture 30 frames, I also captured 15 dark frames and subtracted these using sharpcap.

Then used Startools, Paint.Net and windows photo editor.

The stars on the final stacked image where a bit egg shaped, not sure exactly what caused this, but I used some features in Startools to get them round again. My scope was balanced ok, slightly tail heavy maybe, but PA was good. 

Anyway, im pretty happy with the AZGTi in EQ mode at the moment. Framing could have been a bit better, maybe should have used reducer to fit them in better?

Thanks for looking. 🙂

 

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Bobby1970

[Adam J]

2 hours ago, Bobby1970 said:

Decided to have another go at this target with my AZGTi in EQ mode.

ZWO 178MC, Altair ED72-R

I managed to get polar alignment using Sharpcap, and was in the "good" zone so decided that was good enough.

I tried a single 1 min frame at 200 gain and the stars seemed ok so used the livestacking feature to capture 30 frames, I also captured 15 dark frames and subtracted these using sharpcap.

Then used Startools, Paint.Net and windows photo editor.

The stars on the final stacked image where a bit egg shaped, not sure exactly what caused this, but I used some features in Startools to get them round again. My scope was balanced ok, slightly tail heavy maybe, but PA was good. 

Anyway, im pretty happy with the AZGTi in EQ mode at the moment. Framind could have been a bit better, maybe should have used reducer to fit them in better?

Thanks for looking. 🙂

 

 

Looks like you got some good data, but i think you have clipped the black point quite badly so your probably missing out on additionally detail that is avaliable in the image.

[Bobby1970]

13 minutes ago, Adam J said:

Looks like you got some good data, but i think you have clipped the black point quite badly so your probably missing out on additionally detail that is avaliable in the image.

Tbh. I still can never get to grips with the processing side of things. Lol

I do a stretch in Startools using the Autodev option. Then crop, then wipe to get rid of any gradients. Fiddle with the colours. Then use HDR and Life modules. The only other thing I had a play around with was the Heal tool to remove some "blotchy" bits of the background. Oh and noise reduction.  

How would I clip the black point? 

Edited May 14, 2020 by Bobby1970

[Adam J]

3 minutes ago, Bobby1970 said:

Tbh. I still can never get to grips with the processing side of things. Lol

I do a stretch in Startools. Then crop, then wipe to get rid of any gradients. Fiddle with the colours. Then use HDR and Life modules. The only other thing I had a play around with was the Heal tool to remove some "blotchy" bits of the background. Oh and noise reduction.  

How would I clip the black point? 

by rasing the left hand adjustment on a levels stretch too far to the right in most cases, but I am not really familiar with star tools. Everyone finds processing difficult at first.

[Bobby1970]

Just now, Adam J said:

by rasing the left hand adjustment on a levels stretch too far to the right in most cases, but I am not really familiar with star tools. Everyone finds processing difficult at first.

I've been struggling for years. Lol. 

I don't even touch the histogram as such in Startools. Autodev and then regular Dev take care of it. I think the only place it shows the histogram as such is when you are adjusting the colours.  I have only  just figured out how to mask parts of the image I do not want processing or pick selective parts just to process them. Lol.