First ever attempt at astrophotography with basic equipment

[Skyballer]

13 hours ago, endlessky said:

If you open one single RAW file with Camera Raw or some other compatible file reader, it should tell you the exposure settings (ISO, shutter speed, f/, etc.). You can check there if it was 2s or 1/2s. If it is 1/2s, then the difference is quite significant: 600*2=1200s=20min total integration, 600*(1/2)=300s=5min.

Just checked with exif pilot and yep, 0.5 sec exposures! lol, silly mistake. So not terrible on a 5min exposure!!

[Skyballer]

11 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

it's unlikely that tutorials will cover the type of light pollution and severity of the same you have. Whilst they maybe a good place to start to get a hand for the basics, it's really down to you to get to grips with the software. That most likely means hands on. Even better if you can get along to an astro club and watch someone processing or if lock-down still prevents, zoom share with someone. It's much quicker to get started that way.

 In this case, I cropped it. 

Next time, find a site away from artificial light and make sure that the camera field of view is what you want and does include e.g. trees or buildings. you'll see that you missed the North America Nebula but hey, for only 5 minutes exposure, this is a fine start. @happy-kat's post here gives you some guidelines for exposure for your next attempt.

HTH and post back the stack with a longer exposure when you get the chance

Looks much better than my attempt! Can you explain if you have the time how you pulled the extra colour out? Also that overlay that marks the stars is very nice, where did you do that?

Thanks, appreciate the help. 

[Tenor Viol]

I'm not very good at this yet, but a quick look in Light Room got to this I've saved it as a PNG.

[Skyballer]

Again better than mine!! But I'm curious how alacant pulled out all that colour

[happy-kat]

If you  want an image plate solved you could use astrometry.net

[Skyballer]

19 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

If you  want an image plate solved you could use astrometry.net

Thanks, that did the trick!

[alacant]

1 hour ago, Skyballer said:

extra colour

You can use any photometric database. I think this was Simbad. That corrects the stars and the background close to the correct colour. Any stretch will then honour hue relative to this. Colour is I find the most challenging part of processing.

HTH

[alacant]

1 hour ago, Skyballer said:

overlay

astrometry.net

 

[Skyballer]

32 minutes ago, alacant said:

You can use any photometric database. I think this was Simbad. That corrects the stars and the background close to the correct colour. Any stretch will then honour hue relative to this. Colour is I find the most challenging part of processing.

HTH

How do you use this to fix the colour?

[alacant]

11 hours ago, Skyballer said:

fix the colour

The database contains information about star colours. Get this right to begin with and you then have a basis for the colour.

The best way to understand is to try it. The software is freely available and free of charge. Don't know what software you use....

Cheers

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by alacant