Need some help with processing in photoshop

[Lotinsh]

So today was a really nice night, though I did take my pictures from my city they still have decent amount of detail. I took pictures of andromeda and stacked them, but while following this tutorial my image just turns out gray after stretching the data, what do I do? I cant just have a gray result picture? It's also my first time actually editing astro photos, so please go easy on me.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Lotinsh

[scitmon]

There are lots of helpful tutorials on you tube, I would recommend to seek some out.  This  for example.

EDIT: sorry I just realised you have been following a guide.  Without knowing what you did it's hard to say, perhaps post your stacked image for others to look at.  Have you tried stretching the image more by bringing the mid tones to the left.  You could probably clip  more from the left of the histogram too without clipping much signal.

Edited September 1, 2021 by scitmon

[irtuk]

Looking at your layers you don't appear to have any curves, try adding some adjustment layers for curves and stretching the data by very gently dragging the curve upwards and slightly to the left.

Stacking multiple adjustment layers is better than making big changes in one layer.

Post the file up if you like, there are plenty folks on here happy to play about with it and let you know what they did.

Ed.

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by irtuk

[carastro]

I wonder whether you have selected your DSLR in the DSS settings.  If it's true B&W you may have the debayering wrong. 

However I have found Andromeda quite lacking in colour whenever I have processed it in the past.

I have some You tube videos on Post Processing in Photoshop, quite a few are designed for mono imaging with filters, but this one might help:

 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by carastro

[Lotinsh]

Thanks for the tips, I will try the editing things you have told me, for now here's the source file after stacking: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pddiy9lirapyh1p/1.TIF?dl=0

Edit: I did stretch my image, unless I'm doing it wrong it still looks gray, I followed carastro's tutorial but still got a gray result, even with using a curve, I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong or the image is just bad by itself, I thought it should have looked good with 700 stacked frames, though I may be wrong.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Lotinsh

[happy-kat]

Over how long was the period you took your 700 frames? It might be better to break the lights frames into four piles of frames using the same reference frame in each stack even if you have it ticked for inclusion in one stack.

Then stack the four stacks with the same reference frame. Does that gain a better output.

[Lotinsh]

I'm not sure how long the total exposure was, each frame was iso 3200, 1/2.5th second and taken from my 130p telescope, no tracking.

[happy-kat]

The sky will have been moving fast through the FOV so I wouldn't stack all 700 in one go

[happy-kat]

M31 is also huge and your fov would be pretty small using your telescope, m31 fills the view using a 135mm camera lens. 

[Lotinsh]

So how should I stack them? Do I stack like 7 100 image photos and then combine them?

[alacant]

Hi

The stack is 12032 x 8033 and over 500Mb. How did you arrive at that?

You lost a lot of the galaxy. Maybe guide the camera to avoid overlap and try longer exposures with the galaxy centred in the frame?

Cheers and HTH

    

 

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by alacant

[happy-kat]

From memory you're using a 130p f5 with 1100d and a x2 barlow and static mount, if so this is the FOV captured on that target.

Edited September 1, 2021 by happy-kat

[Lotinsh]

I have no clue how I achieved 500mb, I thought that was normal? Also sorry I can't make any longer exposures, this was already too much and a tiny bit of star trailing was visible in original photos. I will try the method of stacking multiple times with 100 frames each, I will post the results tomorrow. Also after looking at some tutorials I think with just my camera lens with wide fov I could get a better result possibly? The lens are nikon 18-55mm, not really fast but it might be better than very short telescope photos, thoughts on this idea? Also thanks for the tips

@happy-kat I'm not sure what you mean by that but I was using a nikon 3300D, no barlow lens, just the telescope, I did crop the image because of stacking non guided photos creates weird stuff.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Lotinsh

[happy-kat]

It's pleasing to see the process above matches the fov calculator, even if rotation is different

[happy-kat]

Plenty possible with a static mount and camera lens, this was 24mm lens.

For the details they are on this post

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/340692-summer-triangle-lite

The weird edges on your image that you cropped was likely due to field rotation. 

[alacant]

17 minutes ago, Lotinsh said:

just my camera lens

Yes, absolutely. Much better. 

For Andromeda, it's unfortunate you can't fit older Zeiss or Takamar lenses to a Nikon.

Maybe you could look around for a Nikon fit 135 or 200 though.

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by alacant

[Lotinsh]

@alacant Yeah, I wish, money's a bit tight now, especially that school has now started for me, thanks for the advice though, I'm keeping my eyes open on used lens market, maybe something good for 50 bucks will pop up some time.

@happy-kat That image looks good, I have taken some shots of milky way myself, turned out amazing, though what I am worried is that andromeda will be too small, hopefully it will be large enough to capture some details 

[happy-kat]

This is the FOV with the kit lens at 55mm, I'd go for it have a go, try 7 seconds as a start see if the trails are ok.

[Lotinsh]

Doesn't look as small as I thought it would be, I'll give it a try, now I just need a clear night