Heart Nebula

[Daf1983]

Been working on this image of the Heart Nebula over the last couple of weeks. For some reason, the banding on my 600d was really bad, maybe because of the warm(ish) weather, so processing with my very limited skills was a challenge. 

The image consist of about 5 hours of 3 minutes subs. Calibrated with flats, bias and darks (which I don't usually use, but did this time to try to control the banding). 

Any constructive criticism welcome! Also any tips on how to handle the banding with the 600d would be appreciated!

[smashing]

Nice shot.

5 hours is quite a bit of data to work with, how have you processed it?

For the 600d what iso are you using? Don't bother with the ddark. Are you dithering between shots?

This is about 4 hours of data using the same camera.

[Daf1983]

46 minutes ago, smashing said:

Nice shot.

5 hours is quite a bit of data to work with, how have you processed it?

For the 600d what iso are you using? Don't bother with the ddark. Are you dithering between shots?

This is about 4 hours of data using the same camera.

Hi,

Yes, I dithered between each frame, and shot at ISO 800. I haven't bothered with darks before, but gave them a go this time to try to reduce the banding. I think there's something in my setup which is causing this which I can't pinpoint at the minute. 

Processing - I stacked in DSS, and all the post processing done in Photoshop. My basic workflow is: Curves stretch, colour balancing/background processing with Astroflat pro, and some tweaks in Camera raw filter to reduce noise etc. Yours looks much better than mine

[smashing]

13 minutes ago, Daf1983 said:

Hi,

Yes, I dithered between each frame, and shot at ISO 800. I haven't bothered with darks before, but gave them a go this time to try to reduce the banding. I think there's something in my setup which is causing this which I can't pinpoint at the minute. 

Processing - I stacked in DSS, and all the post processing done in Photoshop. My basic workflow is: Curves stretch, colour balancing/background processing with Astroflat pro, and some tweaks in Camera raw filter to reduce noise etc. Yours looks much better than mine

Yes banding can be an issue...it's also been pretty warm recently which won't be helping.

I know it's a bit old now but I followed the video from Astrobackyard

 

[alacant]

12 hours ago, Daf1983 said:

constructive criticism

Hi

Nice shot.

You've thrown away a lot of the nice darker bits. Leave room for them. There's almost certainly a lot more to be had:)

12 hours ago, Daf1983 said:

banding

Most astro software will shift it. The cleanest I've seen is StarTools' Wipe. Siril also does a good job and has the advantage of removing the banding on each frame before stacking using its sequence thingy.

To minimise it, lose the dark frames and give a bigger dither between each frame.

Cheers and HTH

[Daf1983]

2 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

Nice shot.

You've thrown away a lot of the nice darker bits. Leave room for them. There's almost certainly a lot more to be had:)

Most astro software will shift it. The cleanest I've seen is StarTools' Wipe. Siril also does a good job and has the advantage of removing the banding on each frame before stacking using its sequence thingy.

To minimise it, lose the dark frames and give a bigger dither between each frame.

Cheers and HTH

Hi, I think I've lost a lot of detail trying to control the banding!! I'm dithering about 10 pixels (on the guidescope) between each frame at the minute, I'm assuming that should be enough?

Thanks for the tips regarding software, I might try stacking in Siril to see if that helps

[Daf1983]

3 hours ago, smashing said:

Yes banding can be an issue...it's also been pretty warm recently which won't be helping.

I know it's a bit old now but I followed the video from Astrobackyard

 

Thanks for this, I will give this a go later on. Out of interest, did you use a filter for your image? 

I have recently started using an 1.25inch UHC filter which I clip on the front of the camera via an adapter. I'm not sure how much (if at all), this has improved my imaging. 

[smashing]

39 minutes ago, Daf1983 said:

Thanks for this, I will give this a go later on. Out of interest, did you use a filter for your image? 

I have recently started using an 1.25inch UHC filter which I clip on the front of the camera via an adapter. I'm not sure how much (if at all), this has improved my imaging. 

I think this was taken with my general light pollution filter... interesting that you're only using 1.25 doesn't that restrict the FOV? I guess it depends where in the imaging train it is.

[Daf1983]

52 minutes ago, smashing said:

I think this was taken with my general light pollution filter... interesting that you're only using 1.25 doesn't that restrict the FOV? I guess it depends where in the imaging train it is.

To be honest, it does cause some vignetting on the corners and sides, but some flats seems to deal with this quite well. But I'm not sure if the troubles I'm having with the processing is partly due to this filter and the vignetting not being corrected properly. I didn't have this many issues with processing before, but other factors might also have a part to play(warm weather).

I am tempted to invest in a 2ich L-enhance though!

[Daf1983]

On 20/09/2021 at 09:06, smashing said:

Yes banding can be an issue...it's also been pretty warm recently which won't be helping.

I know it's a bit old now but I followed the video from Astrobackyard

 

Thanks for the link! Had another go at processing the data using this tutorial.  Still far from perfect, seems much better than my original

[iantaylor2uk]

Nice image - as it happens I also took an image of this the other night also with 3 min subs using a ZWO 071MC Pro camera on a William Optics 81 GT IV, and I used an Optolong L-enhance filter. Only managed 30 images though (about 1.5 hours in total). This was stacked in DSS and further processed in Nebulosity 4.

[smashing]

6 hours ago, Daf1983 said:

Thanks for the link! Had another go at processing the data using this tutorial.  Still far from perfect, seems much better than my original

That is a nice improvement well done!