First time Imaging

[GATChris]

Hi Everybody,

Had a brilliant night tinkering with my gear and actually managed to take a series of images.

I have a 60mm Refractor on a GOTO EQ mount and a guidescope.

I have been getting used to polar aligning and using Sharpcap to get this nice and accurate. I hear this is important.

I have also been using CDC to communicate with my mount and Sharpcap and by platesolving i am now able to navigate around the sky and confirm that i am pointing at targets.

After checking my focusing with my new Bahtinov mask and setting up guiding with PHD2 i set off Live capturing in Sharpcap.

I chose the Iris Nebula as my target 51 frames of 2mins at gain 195 on my ASI294

I have absolutely no idea what to do with the image produced but i attach it below. I dont have photoshop.

 

Chris

Any advice appreciated.

Stack_16bits_51frames_5310s.fits

[Astro Noodles]

You could process it GIMP. It's a free phot-editing software.

[GATChris]

Thanks Astro noodles. I will take a look at that.

[Paul M]

I aint no processing guru but I just had a play with Siril which I downloaded the other day to try and learn (having given up with it previously)

It's free but, for me, counter-intuitive. I use Photoshop usually.

Anyway, I got this by using Siril to Auto colour balance (using astrometric solution option), cropped the vignetting and stacking artifact then just auto stretched the histogram. Then saved as a JPEG to post here.

I'd have been pleased to capture this

 

 

 

[alacant]

5 hours ago, GATChris said:

I dont have photoshop.

Hi

Neither do we.

Nice image. You maybe able to get more out of it by adding dark and flat frames to the mix. 

This is a few minutes in StarTools. You may like it. 

Anyway, HTH and keep up the good wortk:)

 

 

Edited April 22, 2021 by alacant

[GATChris]

Yes darks and flats are the next thing i need to work on.

I used sharpcap Capture Flat and Capture Dark before my session last night and applied both at the preprocessing stage.

Same target as last night this time 96 x 120sec.

Red dwarf - thnaks so much i will look at Star tools too.

Trailer Trash - Siril ok i will look at that too. To be honest photo processing looks like a mix of art and science and I need to learn an entire new language too

Stack_16bits_96frames_11520s.fits

[Paul M]

5 hours ago, GATChris said:

To be honest photo processing looks like a mix of art and science

Don't forget guesswork! Most of my processing is a mixture of luck and... guesswork!!

I liken it to walking round in a dark room and constantly bumping into things and not knowing what they are

[Jonny_H]

3 hours ago, Paul M said:

Don't forget guesswork! Most of my processing is a mixture of luck and... guesswork!!

I liken it to walking round in a dark room and constantly bumping into things and not knowing what they are

I am envious of people who actually know what they are doing in processing. I more often than not randomly click on things and hope for the best! 🙂

[barbulo]

42 minutes ago, Jonny_H said:

I am envious of people who actually know what they are doing in processing. I more often than not randomly click on things and hope for the best! 🙂

😂 I thought I was the only one, and was about to patent it as workflow. 

[GATChris]

final.tif

I have had a crack at processing my first image. I added in the extra 96 subs and used StarTools.

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by GATChris

[GATChris]

[GATChris]

Autosavefinal.tiff

[mackiedlm]

Hi @GATChris

 

I had a go at your last data set in Pixinsight to see what we could bring out. There is a lot of the dust in there and the reflection nebula is showing well. But I really struggled to get the colour right. Were you using a LP filter by any chance - Like a CLS or something? Also, Your stars are a bit dodgy but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say why, maybe tilt but I'm not sure.

Anyway - here is what I got  in PixInsight with some finishing touches in Photoshop. Unfortunately I made a bit of a mess of the dark (non dusty) areas of the background - probably did not take enough care with masking when I was doing stretches and colour adjustments. Also should have done some star masking to keep the stars small but I did not have that much time to put to it - sorry!

 

In terms of recommendations for processing software, for the point you are at, I would really push Astropixelprocessor because it  does a great job of stacking and also has great gradient removal and colour calibrations. For a few months I used that and Photoshop. I tried Startools but just could never get along with it - more my problem than the software as some people get great results with it. I started with Pixinsight late last year  having avoided it because of the cost and my impression that it was nearly impossible to learn. All I can say is I wish I had bitten the bullet on it much earlier. No,its not cheap, but personally I found it easier to learn and to get good consistent results with than anything else I had tried.

Anyway, I do hope this is of some value to you.

Good luck

David.

 

Edited May 12, 2021 by mackiedlm

[GATChris]

Thanks David,

Thanks for your processing efforts. and your advice.

Yes I am using a LPS filter, an IDAS LPS D1  2" filter which is screwed to my field flattener.

The star shapes do look odd. I know my focuser is backed nearly all the way out so with the filed flattener, spacers and the camera there may be some torquing going on????

Chris

[mackiedlm]

Hi Chris,

 

I've never used the IDAS LPSD1 but mu understanding it that it has pretty good colour balance.

Yes torquing or slump could be the cause of your star shapes.

 

Good luck

 

David

[ollypenrice]

Capture and processing are two parts of the game. The difficulties involved in capture are finite and, after a while, anyone who decides to stay in the game will reach a point at which further improvement will make little difference to their results. Processing, however, may have an equivalent point of little further improvement but, if it has, I have not yet got anywhere near it. I haven't altered my capture methods in seven years but my processing is constantly evolving.

Here are my thoughts on processing: thrash about experimenting, by all means, but, while you are thrashing about, think about the tools you are using.  Think about what they are doing to your data. Understand them. Work it out. Don't just 'click and look.' Click, look and think. Don't do anything by rote but, rather, understand what you are doing. That way you can teach yourself effectively.  There are some utterly ridiculous 'tutorials' on the web in which people hack away at their data with not a clue as to what they are doing. The moment you hear one of these people say, 'I just play around till I like what I see' switch off and don't go back.

For less thrashing and more structured learning you could try Steve Richards' book https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/dark-art-or-magic-bullet-steve-richards.html .  It's primarily Photoshop. One of the problems with the many alternatives is that there is not the same level of teaching available and, having been a teacher for a while by trade, I do believe in teaching and in structured learning.

Olly

 

[tomato]

Olly, I agree with you 100% on your observations regarding the open ended nature of learning process imaging, and your scientific approach is indeed the way to go, but it does require a degree of discipline. The software GUIs don’t help, with sliders to tweak and an instant visual response on screen.

However, I would not agree that the image capture is a closed, finite process, with no room for continuous improvement. Leaving aside the tremendous advances in the equipment, e.g. dual rigs, more accurate mounts, fast astrographs, camera sensitivity there are new techniques, eg dithering, ‘lucky imaging’ auto flats generation, new integrated control packages, that weren’t available until relatively recently. These techniques need to be understood and applied, and problems old and new need to be understood and solutions worked out and put into practice. Even robotic set ups need a tweak every now and then.
 

Contrary to your view, I also think there is a sort of plateau on image processing skills. For sure, there are many imagers, myself included, who aren’t there yet, and indeed may never get there, but for those at that level, they regularly and deservedly get comments like perfect, superb, sublime, the best I have seen, etc, so by definition any improvement  from there must be marginal?

[ollypenrice]

18 minutes ago, tomato said:

Olly, I agree with you 100% on your observations regarding the open ended nature of learning process imaging, and your scientific approach is indeed the way to go, but it does require a degree of discipline. The software GUIs don’t help, with sliders to tweak and an instant visual response on screen.

However, I would not agree that the image capture is a closed, finite process, with no room for continuous improvement. Leaving aside the tremendous advances in the equipment, e.g. dual rigs, more accurate mounts, fast astrographs, camera sensitivity there are new techniques, eg dithering, ‘lucky imaging’ auto flats generation, new integrated control packages, that weren’t available until relatively recently. These techniques need to be understood and applied, and problems old and new need to be understood and solutions worked out and put into practice. Even robotic set ups need a tweak every now and then.
 

Contrary to your view, I also think there is a sort of plateau on image processing skills. For sure, there are many imagers, myself included, who aren’t there yet, and indeed may never get there, but for those at that level, they regularly and deservedly get comments like perfect, superb, sublime, the best I have seen, etc, so by definition any improvement  from there must be marginal?

Yes, I was taking something of a shortcut on the capture side. With a certain setup you will, I think, be able to reach a point at which guiding, exposure time, focus, polar alignment, choice of filters etc for a given rig will not have much left to give. I won't say 'nothing to give,' because perfection is a tricky business! But new gear with potential for higher resolution, new techniques bringing lucky imaging in deep sky work, etc etc are all fields for development. You're quite right.

Olly

[tomato]

I suppose if I kept the same set up and resolved never to change it, I would get it running like a Swiss watch. The trouble is manufacturers and retailers keep dangling new kit in front of me...

[ollypenrice]

11 hours ago, tomato said:

I suppose if I kept the same set up and resolved never to change it, I would get it running like a Swiss watch. The trouble is manufacturers and retailers keep dangling new kit in front of me...

In truth I've subscribed to 'never change it and get it running like a Swiss watch' principle myself and it's worked for me for a long time. However, it will eventually be overtaken by new technology and, I suspect, already has been.

Maybe I need to move into 'Don't change it, Epoch Two!'

lly