Editing help

[Kenboy]

Hey all, 

I just took this pic with a Canon 550d and a star tracker first pic.TIF

How do I bring out more details from it? would anyone be able to briefly edit this & show me what can be done? 

Also any suggestions on free/cheap AP editing software? 

thanks so much! 

[Kenboy]

the brightest star on the image is Deneb, but can't make out anything of the North American Nebula 

[Starwiz]

You can stretch the image using  Photoshop or, if you don't have that Gimp is a free bit of software that will also do the job.  In Gimp, use the Colors - Levels and Colors - Curves features.

Here's a quick stretch I did on your image.

The North America nebula is a tough target for an un-modded camera as much of it is Ha and it has a low surface brightness.

You seem to have some light leakage getting in somewhere in the bottom right corner.

John

[Starwiz]

Here's what Astronomy.net came back with on the stretched image.

[Aramcheck]

I had a go at (rough) processing the image in Pixinsight, using DBE to remove some of the light gradient. To me it looks like you had a light from a window or something in the frame?

As @Starwiz says an unmodified camera is not going to bring out much of the faint 'red' nebula objects, but one of our local soc members did have some success recently with a unmodified DLSR on a tracking mount. It was however necessary to take multiple exposures & to stack the results. (A lot of folk use Deep Sky Stacker (DSS) which is free).

GIMP is a good free program for image processing & Affinity Photo (which has just finished it's 50% off deal) is said to be good also.

What was your total exposure time & ISO used for the image?

Cheers
Ivor

[Kenboy]

Thanks all! Appreciate the help. 

Yeh this was from my back garden with a very bright road side lamp.

I stacked 10 light frames on 45 sec exposures.  ISO 800.  

Not planning to shell out on modding the camera or adding a Ha filter just yet 

Had a go with the Curves feature on GIMP but didn't get it as good as the above picture. 

But mainly I'm hoping to capture nebulas/galaxies without just with my dslr and star tracker mount

So it looks like I need find a darker place and maybe longer exposure?

What are the big impact changes I can make without spending more currently? 

 

[Aramcheck]

59 minutes ago, Kenboy said:

What are the big impact changes I can make without spending more currently?

Take many more light frames... pick targets that are high in the sky... Shield the road side lamp if you can. Brighter objects will be easier to catch...

If you can increase the exposure time without any trailing then that will help too.

You may also want to stop-down the camera. I only use my DLSR with a scope, but I've heard other folk say that the star shape can be improved by doing this.

Cheers
Ivor

PS: Have a look at http://dslr-astrophotography.com/iso-values-canon-cameras/

Edited June 23, 2020 by Aramcheck
PS Added

[alacant]

On 23/06/2020 at 02:39, Kenboy said:

bring out more details from it

Hi

Nice shot. There is loadsa detail in it.

I lost the artifact bottom right. Then a big hammer - AKA 'AutoDev'- in StarTools to find the hidden stars and fix the ones around the edge. Finally, DarkTable to find the colour and make it look nice. In fact any app without the awful nineteennineties-menus-along-the-top seems to get you there without needing to spend hours jumping through hoops!

+1 for @Aramcheck's advice; you could get more detail by taking more frames.

Cheers and HTH

Edited June 24, 2020 by alacant

[bottletopburly]

Give Startools a try , free trial no time lock 👍 easier to learn  than some others .

[Kenboy]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Hi

Nice shot. There is loadsa detail in it.

I lost the artifact bottom right. A big hammer in StarTools to find the hidden stars and fix the ones around the edge then DarkTable to find some nebulosity and colour. In fact any app without the awful nineteennineties-menus-along-the-top seems to get you there without needing to spend hours jumping through hoops!

+1 for @Aramcheck's advice; you could get more detail by taking more frames.

Cheers and HTH

 

Ah thanks! 

Can I ask what you do on Darktable to bring out the nebulosity? 

[alacant]

4 hours ago, Kenboy said:

bring out the nebulosity

Colour ->Velvia ->Parametric mask (choose the edge of Deneb or Sadr) -> Invert -> Increase 

Try Normal, Lighten and RGB-red modes.

But remember it needs to be there in the first place;)

There's only a certain amount you can do with data from a standard camera though. The €70 or so to modify it is really worthwhile if this is the sort of target you wish to shoot.

Cheers and HTH.

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by alacant
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[Starwiz]

23 hours ago, Kenboy said:

But mainly I'm hoping to capture nebulas/galaxies without just with my dslr and star tracker mount

Have a go at some of the brighter ones first.  M27 is a good planetary nebula to have a go at.  It's fairly bright and large enough that you will be able to see some detail.

John

[happy-kat]

On 23/06/2020 at 16:28, Kenboy said:

What are the big impact changes I can make without spending more currently? 

 

Taking more light frames. Expanding into taking calibration frames.

Taking the time to accept to bring out more it takes time to learn how to process. There are many tricks you can learn using GIMP to process your data. Look for YouTube videos including using similar software to process astrophotography images.

Fits Liberator is also a useful bit of free software.

Enjoy what you image and process it is amazing what you can capture.