Finally, an Orion....

[Meluhanz]

Hello Friends,

Thank you, this forum has been very educative and patient with me.  I finally have a setup that can click decent pictures. 

 

• SVBONY SV503 Telescope, 80ED F7 Telescope OTA with Focal Length 560mm
• SVBONY SV193 Focal Reducer 2 Inch 0.8X Field Flattener
• ZWO asi183mc-pro-color
• Star Adventurer 2i Pro

Images:

• Light - 50 images with 30 second exposure
• Dark - 10 images with 30 second exposure

 

Question : All I did with the image was stack the images with ASI deep sky staking software and did a few adjustments on the contract and brightness. Should I really explore photoshop softwares? Does it make a big difference?

And please feel free to critic the image, i'm learning and all inputs are welcome!

Thank you again for your time and patience!

 

Edited January 29 by Meluhanz

[900SL]

Look at using Siril for processing. There's some excellent online tutorials, and it's free.

Stars appear bloated. Your focus may be out. Do you use a bahtinov mask? You are not guiding so your mount may also have periodic error adding to star bloat

You have chromatic aberration on the brighter stars, this is probably the SV bony scope

 

[Albir phil]

3 hours ago, Meluhanz said:

Hello Friends,

Thank you, this forum has been very educative and patient with me.  I finally have a setup that can click decent pictures. 

 

• SVBONY SV503 Telescope, 80ED F7 Telescope OTA with Focal Length 560mm
• SVBONY SV193 Focal Reducer 2 Inch 0.8X Field Flattener
• ZWO asi183mc-pro-color
• Star Adventurer 2i Pro

Images:

• Light - 50 images with 30 second exposure
• Dark - 10 images with 30 second exposure

 

Question : All I did with the image was stack the images with ASI deep sky staking software and did a few adjustments on the contract and brightness. Should I really explore photoshop softwares? Does it make a big difference?

And please feel free to critic the image, i'm learning and all inputs are welcome!

Thank you again for your time and patience!

 

Most people only use DSS to stack then move subs to Photoshop as I do , it's very easy to use and lots of tutorial about.Try Trevor Jones on Astrobackyard👍

[PhilB61]

Looks like you have a good setup to start taking some great images. For this image it looks like you have overblown the core and not yet got all the detail out of the nebula, also agree that focusing is probably off, some of this could be optimised or corrected in post processing. I use SIRIL with the Starnet add in, for my stacking and most of my processing, lot's of info and tutorials online. Lot's of other free and paid software (with free trials) so worth giving a few different ones a try. 

[Mr Spock]

Looks like a good start and there's plenty of good advice from our members to help 👍

[900SL]

What gain did you have on the ASI 183 camera? Where are you taking images from (what Bortle class of light pollution?)

Orion can be a good target for a beginner but can also be challenging, as it has a very bright core which tends to overexpose in long exposures. With more experience you can take two sets of exposures, one short and one long, and combine after stacking. Guidance online of course

Be aware that your focal length and rig is pushing the capabilities of the Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i, I had one of these for a short time but sold it, as the periodic error (up to 50 arc sec) meant that exposures over 250mm focal length / 30s duration were poor, with egg shaped or trailing stars, blurred detail etc. Once you learn the ropes with your current set up  I would recommend going to a guided goto mount, like an AM3 or HEQ5 Pro.

You will see this repeated in astro: The Mount  is the most important component in astrophotography  

Edited January 29 by 900SL

[Clarkey]

37 minutes ago, 900SL said:

Orion can be a good target for a beginner but can also be challenging

This is very true. The massive range of brightness is a true challenge to get good results. Having said this, your initial data capture looks OK which is a great start.

[alacant]

7 hours ago, Meluhanz said:

critic the image

Very nice.

I've a feeling though that there's far more information in the image just begging to come through; go easy on where you think the black should be:

Go for something more like this perhaps:

 

Cheers and HTH

Edited January 29 by alacant

[Meluhanz]

3 hours ago, 900SL said:

What gain did you have on the ASI 183 camera? Where are you taking images from (what Bortle class of light pollution?)

Orion can be a good target for a beginner but can also be challenging, as it has a very bright core which tends to overexpose in long exposures. With more experience you can take two sets of exposures, one short and one long, and combine after stacking. Guidance online of course

Be aware that your focal length and rig is pushing the capabilities of the Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i, I had one of these for a short time but sold it, as the periodic error (up to 50 arc sec) meant that exposures over 250mm focal length / 30s duration were poor, with egg shaped or trailing stars, blurred detail etc. Once you learn the ropes with your current set up  I would recommend going to a guided goto mount, like an AM3 or HEQ5 Pro.

You will see this repeated in astro: The Mount  is the most important component in astrophotography  

The gain on ASI 183 was set to 270. Totally light polluted city backyard - Bortle class (8-9).

Interesting, i read some of the threads saying - "longer exposures produce better pictures than many short exposures". So, I was attempting to get the longest exposure on the current setup. As you mentioned, I couldn't not exceed 30s in the current setup. I will attempt smaller exposures and correct the focus.

Eventually when I want to have a mount that can support my Celestron 8se, but this has been a black hole for $.

 

Thank you!

 

[Meluhanz]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Very nice.

I've a feeling though that there's far more information in the image just begging to come through; go easy on where you think the black should be:

Go for something more like this perhaps:

 

Cheers and HTH

Whoa, that looks so nice!

I haven't figured out the imaging tool yet. So far, my journey has been trying to get the mount, focal and camera back focus.  My head is reeling as I see all the imaging software's folks are using for processing. It looks like an all-new skill set to acquire!

 

 

[ollypenrice]

There is an awful lot more to processing than contrast and brightness. 'Stretching' is the most important of all.

You could post your linear (unprocessed) stack for members to try in their various workflows.

Olly

[900SL]

1 hour ago, Meluhanz said:

The gain on ASI 183 was set to 270. Totally light polluted city backyard - Bortle class (8-9).

Interesting, i read some of the threads saying - "longer exposures produce better pictures than many short exposures". So, I was attempting to get the longest exposure on the current setup. As you mentioned, I couldn't not exceed 30s in the current setup. I will attempt smaller exposures and correct the focus.

Eventually when I want to have a mount that can support my Celestron 8se, but this has been a black hole for $.

 

Thank you!

 

Welcome to the money hole!

There is some truth in longer exposures produce less read noise than shorter exposures (read noise adds up with each shot).

However.. you are shooting in very light polluted conditions so only need short exposures, otherwise you will saturate stars and highlights, which is what I can see from your image.

Your gain may be too high as well.  The 183 has fairly shallow wells (the pixels can only capture a smallish number of photons before the 'bucket' is full), so you don't want too high a gain. I don't have this camera but I see 111 being quoted as a good gain to maintain some well depth

Are you using any filters? Do you have an ASI Air for control, or are you using a PC?

 

EDIT: I just looked up the 183 curves. Gain of 270 is almost maxed out, you have less than 1K full well depth and very low dynamic range. This is why your image has blown out stars and core, and little detail.

 

Lower the gain to say 110 and see what you get

 

Edited January 29 by 900SL

[Meluhanz]

8 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

There is an awful lot more to processing than contrast and brightness. 'Stretching' is the most important of all.

You could post your linear (unprocessed) stack for members to try in their various workflows.

Olly

That would be amazing if anyone can show what I can do with the images. Here you go..... 

Light_Stack_8.zip

[Elp]

I use 183s. After various changes in gain when I first got the camera I've stuck to gain 200. Changing it makes little difference with this camera, the full well depth graphs produced by ZWO are misleading as the Y scale is not linear, if you compare many cameras side by side you'll notice most of their FWDs are quite low once you get to unity gain and many cameras end up being quite similar with regard to this spec.

[ollypenrice]

9 hours ago, Meluhanz said:

That would be amazing if anyone can show what I can do with the images. Here you go..... 

Light_Stack_8.zip 178.29 MB · 0 downloads

Here we are...

The Trapezium region is saturated on the linear stack so no detail can be recovered. This is normal and we all have to shoot short subs to fill it in. I'd learn more about basic processing before learning how to do that, I think. Mine has a smaller saturated region in the final image because I stretched so as to minimize the problem.

I did a so-so cosmetic repair of dark patches which should be dealt with by using flats. You do need flats!

I put it the northern hemisphere way up!  

Nutshell: More subs. Flats. Tweak the guiding.

Olly

Edited January 30 by ollypenrice
typo

[Meluhanz]

17 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Here we are...

The Trapezium region is saturated on the linear stack so no detail can be recovered. This is normal and we all have to shoot short subs to fill it in. I'd learn more about basic processing before learning how to do that, I think. Mine has a smaller saturated region in the final image because I stretched so as to minimize the problem.

I did a so-so cosmetic repair of dark patches which should be dealt with by using flats. You do need flats!

I put it the northern hemisphere way up!  

Nutshell: More subs. Flats. Tweak the guiding.

Olly

Thank you!!