First light for my Redcat51 and Canon 100d - Rosette

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

Hi all.

Pretty new here so thought I'd share my first go with the Redcat and Canon d100 (Baader mod), also my first proper planned attempt at deep sky imaging.  Lots of moonglow and battling clouds (also powerpack death) but 66mins of lights (180s), 25 darks, 25 flats and 30 bias frames.  Stacked in DSS and edited in GIMP.  Guiding on an AVX mount with ASIAIR Pro.

Thanks for looking, comments and tips welcome.

Jody

[Adreneline]

Excellent first light with the RedCat - you must be delighted. The tracking looks really good (no evidence of star trails) and you seem to have nailed the focus no doubt with the assistance of the excellent BM built into the RedCat.

Just a couple of comments I would make. On my screen (MacBook Pro) there is a slight green tint to the image - if that were removed I think the overall colour balance would be impoved. I note you battled with the Moon and clouds but there is quite a gradient top-to-bottom which again it might be good to remove if you can. I know that for the likes of PhotoShop there are gradient removal plugins but I really don't know enough about GIMP to know what to suggest. Similarly there are green removal plugins for PS but I'm not sure about GIMP. You might also like to try a little bit of noise reduction to reduce the mottled colour effect; I'm sure there must be a way of doing it in GIMP.

You might not want to be spending more money but you could try using Astro Pixel Processor on it's free months trial. APP is like DSS on steroids and has a very good gradient removal tool. I have a rental licence so it works out at about £1.50 a week to use. It is my programme of choice for all pre-processing. I then go on to use PixInsight and Affinity for post-processing.

Hope this helps.

I look forward to seeing more images with the RecCat and Canon.

Adrian

P.S. I got my new RedCat just before Christmas and although I've had little opportunity to use it so far I too have been delighted with the results so far.

[Adreneline]

2 hours ago, Zummerzet_Leveller said:

comments and tips welcome

I took the liberty of trying to remove the gradient and the green tint and doing a little noise reduction.

Hope you don't mind.

Adrian

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

8 hours ago, Adreneline said:

I took the liberty of trying to remove the gradient and the green tint and doing a little noise reduction.

Hope you don't mind.

Adrian

I don't mind at all!  What I really enjoy about astrophotography is that there is so much to learn and improve upon.  It's quite addictive, I do feel a little thankful that we have a fair bit of cloud about otherwise I would be a mess at work!

Thanks for the tips Adrian.  I will google some GIMP tutorials on gradient tools, I'm sure there is something available and will try it out.  What you have done looks great and makes some of the lighter nebulosity around the Rosette stand out more.  I played with the individual RGB channel curves but that green removal has worked wonders.  I am currently editing and stacking on a Chromebook (Linux running in a container and Crossover for Windows apps)...  Not the greatest tool for the job as it only has 4Gb of RAM so I need a lot of patience but am thinking of getting a dedicated Astro laptop to expand my tool set. 

Hmm might see if I can download some tools on to the work HP Elitebook.... I'm sure they won't mind!

Jody

[Chefgage]

12 minutes ago, Zummerzet_Leveller said:

I don't mind at all!  What I really enjoy about astrophotography is that there is so much to learn and improve upon.  It's quite addictive, I do feel a little thankful that we have a fair bit of cloud about otherwise I would be a mess at work!

Thanks for the tips Adrian.  I will google some GIMP tutorials on gradient tools, I'm sure there is something available and will try it out.  What you have done looks great and makes some of the lighter nebulosity around the Rosette stand out more.  I played with the individual RGB channel curves but that green removal has worked wonders.  I am currently editing and stacking on a Chromebook (Linux running in a container and Crossover for Windows apps)...  Not the greatest tool for the job as it only has 4Gb of RAM so I need a lot of patience but am thinking of getting a dedicated Astro laptop to expand my tool set. 

Hmm might see if I can download some tools on to the work HP Elitebook.... I'm sure they won't mind!

Jody

I have just done a gradient removal in GIMP using the despeckle tool. Have a look at my M42 post below yours to see a before and after.

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

9 hours ago, Adreneline said:

P.S. I got my new RedCat just before Christmas and although I've had little opportunity to use it so far I too have been delighted with the results so far.

It's a great bit of kit.  I have an un-modded Canon 6D too so want to try it at full frame next and see what the results are like but realise I will need more lights and exposure time to bring out details.  I had a couple of attempts at imaging with my SW 150p (I slightly shortened the tube to get focus and have the coma corrector) and the 6D but didn't manage to get enough subs to get anything of any quality.  The Redcat is a great weight for my AVX mount (I was getting around 1.2RMS showing in the ASIAIR) and built in BM works wonders.

[Adreneline]

10 minutes ago, Zummerzet_Leveller said:

I am currently editing and stacking on a Chromebook (Linux running in a container and Crossover for Windows apps)...  Not the greatest tool for the job as it only has 4Gb of RAM so I need a lot of patience but am thinking of getting a dedicated Astro laptop to expand my tool set.

I think you must like a challenge Jody!

11 minutes ago, Zummerzet_Leveller said:

Hmm might see if I can download some tools on to the work HP Elitebook.... I'm sure they won't mind!

 

I was always told to "seek forgiveness - not permission" where I used to work - just go ahead and do it and keep quiet!

AP can be a huge pit where you just keep throwing in money in the hope that magical pictures will appear. Often the cost of dedicated software is very little compared with the total expense associated with scopes, cameras, mounts, filters and numerous other additional but necessary bits and bobs. Give APP a try - on the work's laptop - and see how you get on. Live dangerously

Adrian

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

4 minutes ago, Chefgage said:

I have just done a gradient removal in GIMP using the despeckle tool. Have a look at my M42 post below yours to see a before and after.

Looks good! I shall check it out.

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

3 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

I think you must like a challenge Jody!

I definitely do!  It can be very frustrating at times but it's amazing what can be achieved with a little perseverance...

The Chromebook is not a bad bit of kit and if it had another 4Gb of memory I'm sure it would work well for the tools available.  Unfortunately my memory isn't expandable so I'm stuck with 4Gb which works fine for DSS and Siril but GIMP kills it!