My First Image IC1396

[nephilim]

I've been a member of SGL for over 12 years now, with an interest in astronomy going back to when I was around 10 years old (39yrs ago), I've always looked at astronomy images with a mixture of awe & envy, always thinking taking them myself would be not only out of my skill set but also my pocket.
As time went on & prices went down for telescopes I finally bought my first scope only 12yrs ago (Skywatcher 130m) a year later I bought a Skywatcher 200p on EQ5 mount. Still I wanted to try AP. After a lot of research I realised that the equipment I needed was still very expensive & the equipment I had was totally unsuited. To cut a long story short, I tried AP with my observing set up & understandably got nowhere with it. I pretty much gave up on astronomy after that (sulking) until March 2020.
During the first lockdown I realised if I scrimped & saved (I never get anything on credit) I could probably buy a fairly mid range set up, but it wasn't until Sept/ Oct that I finally decided to do it. It took me until March of this year to finally have what I wanted all these years & last Sunday I finally took my first image.
Its by no means the best but I think its a good start, my processing skills need a lot of practice as there's much more detail to be brought out of this image (a fellow SGL member who has helped a lot over the last few months took my data & showed me just how much more is in there. Unfortunately I'm at work until Thursday & I've only got Photoshop on this laptop, I'll be having another go with PixInsight when I get home to my desktop PC).
I now intend to spend the next couple of months concentrating on this object to collect more data (IF the weather plays ball 🙄) as its very well positioned for me for a while.
I never thought I'd be able to achieve something like this so to say I'm over the Moon would be a massive understatement. I'm now well & truly hooked & cant wait for Winter & those longer nights.

IC1396 The Elephants Trunk Nebula in Cepheus

ZWO ASI 533MC-Pro @101 Gain -15c Unguided
Samyang 135ED f2 @f2.8
ASIair Pro
Explore Scientific EXOS II PMC8
Optolong L-eXtreme Filter
50x180sec
20x Darks (No lights as I'm still trying to get my head around those & time wasn't on my side)
Processed in PS
Thanks for looking

Steve

Edited August 5, 2021 by nephilim
Lost Image

[Adreneline]

Great result Steve. Patience and perseverance has won the day.

It will be great to see what you achieve with your Samyang 135mm + ASI533MC-Pro using the L-Extreme filter.

Enjoy!

Adrian

[nephilim]

37 minutes ago, Adreneline said:

Great result Steve. Patience and perseverance has won the day.

It will be great to see what you achieve with your Samyang 135mm + ASI533MC-Pro using the L-Extreme filter.

Enjoy!

Adrian

@Adreneline Thanks Adrian (and for your help) I'm very much looking forward to processing this in PixInsight once I get home.

I'll also be getting the new Baader 3.5nm Ha filter in a couple of weeks to add another level detail to this image. I also want to start using my guiding set up to increase exposures from 180 to 300 sec. Exciting times ahead 🙂.

Edited August 1, 2021 by nephilim

[Lee_P]

That's a great picture, and interesting to hear your journey up to this point too. 

If you want to play about with your processing your image some more, I highly recommend this tutorial from SLG member @Luke Newbould about making Hubble-style pictures from L-eXtreme data. 

 

[nephilim]

3 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

That's a great picture, and interesting to hear your journey up to this point too. 

If you want to play about with your processing your image some more, I highly recommend this tutorial from SLG member @Luke Newbould about making Hubble-style pictures from L-eXtreme data. 

 

@Lee_P Thanks. I'll definitely have a look at that later today 🙂

[Mike73]

Brilliant first image Steve!

I'm in a similar position to you I think, new to imaging but with a background of observing. PixInsight looks pretty daunting to me right now, I've been using Photoshop for the last 20 years and I'm comfortable with that but no expert. There just seems to be so much to get your head around starting off with AP that I can't even face even more you tube videos on PI yet! 😀

Looking forward to seeing your imaging progress.

[Grant93]

Such a nice first image 😃 Jealous of some of that set up! I'm the same with credit, never use it.. All my upgrades come from buying and selling, don't even like to fund this hobby with my day job 😅

[Sunshine]

A first image to be proud of!

[nephilim]

4 hours ago, Mike73 said:

Brilliant first image Steve!

I'm in a similar position to you I think, new to imaging but with a background of observing. PixInsight looks pretty daunting to me right now, I've been using Photoshop for the last 20 years and I'm comfortable with that but no expert. There just seems to be so much to get your head around starting off with AP that I can't even face even more you tube videos on PI yet! 😀

Looking forward to seeing your imaging progress.

@Mike73Thanks mate. It's been a very long journey to get here both money wise (horrifically expensive 😬😂) and the massive amount of learning that has to be done with absolutely no shortcuts with any of it. I'm really pleased with the image though, I thought I'd have far more issues than I had (Pure luck I think 😂)

But now I've got the main setting up routine to a point where I can do it without having to refer to a thousand notes I can start with the finer details such as guiding (I have the guidescope & camera but wanted to get the easier stuff sorted first) and taking flats which I find a pretty daunting prospect 😂

As for the post processing, that's just as hard if not even harder than taking the actual images 🙄 I'm a total novice I've no great experience with Photoshop (My image has only had the colour balanced & a few stretches in levels & curves, there's far more detail to be had which I'll attempt to get once I'm back home with PI   I've heard from quite a few people that PixInsight is better suited for AP processing (I should hope it is as it was developed by Astrophotographs 😂) Ive been getting used to some of the Processes & Scripts such as Dynamic Background Extraction (Which is unbelievably good)  & there's so much to get your head round and like you say, so many YouTube tutorials you can waste your entire life watching but I think it'll be worthwhile in the end. At the moment I'm half way through the 45 day free trial (I highly recommend giving it a go) but I'll buying it in a couple of weeks time.

Good luck with your own images mate, I look forward to seeing your own progress.

Steve

[nephilim]

3 hours ago, Grant93 said:

Such a nice first image 😃 Jealous of some of that set up! I'm the same with credit, never use it.. All my upgrades come from buying and selling, don't even like to fund this hobby with my day job 😅

@Grant93 Thanks mate, it was overtime that funded the build....a LOT of overtime 😂. I was buying a piece each month (Camera one month, Guidescope/Guidecam the next etc) In a way it was a good thing as I chopped & changed my mind constantly about how I wanted to go about it & gave me plenty of time to research & get it right first time.

I'm very pleased with the whole thing though & on cloudy nights I'm quite happy just putting it in the corner of the room & staring at it.....It will come as no surprise that I'm fairly recently single 😂😂😂😂 I've no time for anyone or anything else in my life now. Here's the setup in all its shiny glory 🤗

Steve

Edited August 1, 2021 by nephilim

[nephilim]

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

A first image to be proud of!

@Sunshine Thanks Mate.

[Grant93]

12 hours ago, nephilim said:

@Grant93 Thanks mate, it was overtime that funded the build....a LOT of overtime 😂. I was buying a piece each month (Camera one month, Guidescope/Guidecam the next etc) In a way it was a good thing as I chopped & changed my mind constantly about how I wanted to go about it & gave me plenty of time to research & get it right first time.

I'm very pleased with the whole thing though & on cloudy nights I'm quite happy just putting it in the corner of the room & staring at it.....It will come as no surprise that I'm fairly recently single 😂😂😂😂 I've no time for anyone or anything else in my life now. Here's the setup in all its shiny glory 🤗

Steve

Seeing it makes me even more jealous! 😊