T thread for a camera to a 1.25

[gamermole]

Thank you so much for the awesome edit. im new to all of this, not just photo but telescopes in general. ive always wanted one and just bit the bullet. the night sky is so fascinating.

[Mandy D]

Just now, gamermole said:

Thank you so much for the awesome edit. im new to all of this, not just photo but telescopes in general. ive always wanted one and just bit the bullet. the night sky is so fascinating.

Yes, it certainly is fascinating. Arm yourself with some free software, now, as it will make a huge difference to the final result. My recommended list for starters is:

PIPP: This software basically crops all images to size and centres the target, as well as grading the images form best (100%) to worst.

Autostakkert: Stacks a set of images taken in a single session and spits out a sharper, better result than any sub.

GIMP: General photo editing and not too hard to learn.

All of the above software is free!

There are many tutorials on the web for all of the above. Others will have their own preferences and routines. I basically shove a set of images of the target through PIPP to crop and grade. You have to feed some basic info in and tell it what size to crop to, then it does the hard work. Next, I take that set of prepared images and feed them into Autostakkert (AS3!) and it analyses and stacks them. You can select what percentage or quantity of the set to work on. Then, I do my final editing in GIMP. For the Moon, I often convert to B&W first, then I adjust the curves for contrast and brightness and try a bit of sharpening to see if it improves the result or just adds noise.

Personally, I would practice acquiring good images, first. Learn to use the tools on your camera, especially the exposure graphs. You don't want any completely dark blacks or blown-out whites, so exposure is important. Use low ISO for best results, as you get less noise in the images.

[gamermole]

On 27/09/2023 at 13:31, Mandy D said:

Yes, it certainly is fascinating. Arm yourself with some free software, now, as it will make a huge difference to the final result. My recommended list for starters is:

PIPP: This software basically crops all images to size and centres the target, as well as grading the images form best (100%) to worst.

Autostakkert: Stacks a set of images taken in a single session and spits out a sharper, better result than any sub.

GIMP: General photo editing and not too hard to learn.

All of the above software is free!

There are many tutorials on the web for all of the above. Others will have their own preferences and routines. I basically shove a set of images of the target through PIPP to crop and grade. You have to feed some basic info in and tell it what size to crop to, then it does the hard work. Next, I take that set of prepared images and feed them into Autostakkert (AS3!) and it analyses and stacks them. You can select what percentage or quantity of the set to work on. Then, I do my final editing in GIMP. For the Moon, I often convert to B&W first, then I adjust the curves for contrast and brightness and try a bit of sharpening to see if it improves the result or just adds noise.

Personally, I would practice acquiring good images, first. Learn to use the tools on your camera, especially the exposure graphs. You don't want any completely dark blacks or blown-out whites, so exposure is important. Use low ISO for best results, as you get less noise in the images.

i already use gimp for image editing and its a fantastic piece of software, although i havent updated it to the most recent version, (im still using 2.0 as im familiar with the layout) i downloaded autostakkert and pipp lastnight and have watched a few tutorials on those and had a little play around. thank you so much and im sorry to be a pest 😛

[Gfamily]

On 30/08/2023 at 07:21, Cornelius Varley said:

Needs nothing else, just the t adapter for your camera.

Just to be clear, (and apologies if this is obvious), the t adapter has two parts - one is a ring with the internal t-thread, the other will be specific to your camera mount. You buy them both together

If you do an ebay search for " t mount for <insert camera make and model here>" you will get the one you want.

[gamermole]

On 27/09/2023 at 13:31, Mandy D said:

Yes, it certainly is fascinating. Arm yourself with some free software, now, as it will make a huge difference to the final result. My recommended list for starters is:

PIPP: This software basically crops all images to size and centres the target, as well as grading the images form best (100%) to worst.

Autostakkert: Stacks a set of images taken in a single session and spits out a sharper, better result than any sub.

GIMP: General photo editing and not too hard to learn.

All of the above software is free!

There are many tutorials on the web for all of the above. Others will have their own preferences and routines. I basically shove a set of images of the target through PIPP to crop and grade. You have to feed some basic info in and tell it what size to crop to, then it does the hard work. Next, I take that set of prepared images and feed them into Autostakkert (AS3!) and it analyses and stacks them. You can select what percentage or quantity of the set to work on. Then, I do my final editing in GIMP. For the Moon, I often convert to B&W first, then I adjust the curves for contrast and brightness and try a bit of sharpening to see if it improves the result or just adds noise.

Personally, I would practice acquiring good images, first. Learn to use the tools on your camera, especially the exposure graphs. You don't want any completely dark blacks or blown-out whites, so exposure is important. Use low ISO for best results, as you get less noise in the images.

I went out again tonight although. It's very cloudy, I managed to catch a video  before it started to rain and I ran it through the apps you recommended 👌 although not perfect, I'm very pleased with the result

Edited October 3, 2023 by gamermole

[AstroNebulee]

11 hours ago, gamermole said:

I went out again tonight although. It's very cloudy, I managed to catch a video  before it started to rain and I ran it through the apps you recommended 👌 although not perfect, I'm very pleased with the result

Great result! You coukd put the output image from autostakkert into a free piece of software called registax. 

This will enable you to sharpen and tease more definition out. Check the linear and gaussian boxes and moved the top (number 1)slider all the way to the right. Then tweak the sharpen and denoise values by moving up on the sharpen to increase sharpness or if to much noise and over sharpening you can put the de noise up a bit. It's a fine balance. Just don't overdo it else it looks over sharpened. Sometimes just moving the slider all the way to the right is enough. Then click do all and save. Took from the August sky at night magazine. I know this is on Saturn but I'm sure this workflow will work on lunar images too. 

Or just slide the slider 1 up as far as you think you need to sharpen. 

Lee 

Edited October 4, 2023 by AstroNebulee

[Mandy D]

On 28/09/2023 at 15:24, gamermole said:

i already use gimp for image editing and its a fantastic piece of software, although i havent updated it to the most recent version, (im still using 2.0 as im familiar with the layout) i downloaded autostakkert and pipp lastnight and have watched a few tutorials on those and had a little play around. thank you so much and im sorry to be a pest 😛

You really must upgrade GIMP. I'm on the latest stable version, 2.10.34, but it is so much better than 2.0. The new layout is easy to get your head around and everything works a lot better. They have finally given us a rule of thirds grid!

[gamermole]

1 hour ago, Mandy D said:

You really must upgrade GIMP. I'm on the latest stable version, 2.10.34, but it is so much better than 2.0. The new layout is easy to get your head around and everything works a lot better. They have finally given us a rule of thirds grid!

I caved in and upgraded it last week, it's great  👍