Help improving my imaging

[Dean]

Hi i think my scope has survived the fall anyway i have been out tonight and have taken this image of M81 and M82. Can any one suggest how i can improve it?

I have a canon 350d and a Equinox 80

Image was taken at ISO 400 for 200 secs

Thanks Dean

[RobH]

Hello Dean.

A good capture there.

Your focus is fine, tracking good for this image scale also.

As you can see, there is an orange LP problem but this is easily overcome.

Open the image in photoshop, bring up the LEVELS box (CTRL L)

There are 3 boxes under the histogram. The left hand one of these is the black point.

Double click on this, another screen will appear, then set all of the bottom 3 left hand values ( the R,G,B ones) to something like 15 each.

Click OK.

Then, making sure the left hand ( black point)box is checked, click on an area of the image that is space (zoom in to make certain you're not clicking on a small star by mistake)

This will set your background colour to a very dark grey.

I've had a quick play with your image, and done this, plus boosted the saturation a bit to bring the colour out.

Cheers

Rob

[ngc2403]

looks nice, one little dusk node, which a set of flats will remove for you.

if that is as long as you can go then just take lots and stack them to see how that changes things?

other than that i think just processing and even more subs really, you seem to have a handle on everything else.

[Dean]

Thanks both posts have been very helpful.

Dean