result of two nights combined

[Vroobel]

3 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

vaguely related question, if i got an uncooled osc (im thinking an imx585 based sensor) would this data i already have, taken by my dslr, still be of use in an ongoing project, or would i likely need to start from scratch? 

I don't know how other programs deal with it, PixInsight can do it.

25 minutes ago, Elp said:

I always say something like AP is around 20pc image acquisition, and the remainder is post processing skill. You can have the best data in the world but you won't see much with poor PP skills, average data can look pretty good with good PP skills.

I would say that the remainder contains the software and the skills components. I know that talented imagers can use Siril and GIMP only to reach outstanding results, but modern and sophisticated software may help in the progress curve.

[Elp]

Certainly software helps a lot. I'm in the primarily manual camp as you learn skills you can apply to any image creation, not just astro. Sirils PP tools however are a godsend in what is a free package, and I'm sure RC tools will help greatly too though I'm not a PI user as I don't feel it's an absolute requirement.

Edited April 22 by Elp

[alacant]

@TiffsAndAstro I really think you're doing great. Your data is fine. Keep it simple. With processing, perhaps don't overthink it.

5 minutes in StarTools gave me this. Rough around the edges? Yes. But if you have the patience (I haven't!) , there's the basis to make a good image. Just keep adding frames.

Cheers and HTH

 

[TiffsAndAstro]

16 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Well, indeed, I was focused on the noise reduction too much. I agree that the main object is blurred. I used a GeneralizedHiperbolicStretch which I still learn. 

BTW, I operate on the layers, process mostly the starless and use masks. I have to look deeper into the noise related to the stars layer.

i only use histrogram to stretch, the couple videos i watched on GHS didn't really make much sense to me, but then i've never really done much in the way of image processing (anything) in the past. 

Also i need to use 'curves' to stretch apparently, so i need to google some videos on curves now. 

i still really like your image Vroobel, and it was very interesting and useful for me to see it, so many thanks again

[TiffsAndAstro]

2 minutes ago, Elp said:

Certainly software helps a lot. I'm in the primarily manual camp as you learn skills you can apply to any image creation, not just astro. Sirils PP tools however are a godsend in what is a free package, and I'm sure RC tools will help greatly too though I'm not a PI user as I don't feel it's an absolute requirement.

pp is post process right? what's RC, sorry?

[Elp]

Russell Croman tools, very popular for good reason.

[TiffsAndAstro]

16 minutes ago, alacant said:

@TiffsAndAstro I really think you're doing great. Your data is fine. Keep it simple. With processing, perhaps don't overthink it.

5 minutes in StarTools gave me this. Rough around the edges? Yes. But if you have the patience (I haven't!) , there's the basis to make a good image. Just keep adding frames.

Cheers and HTH

 

wow ok you're image is really impressive too. 

im a little uneasy that 3 different people can get 3 very different results from the same starting data. Hopefully, this will turn into a sense of excitement that there is a lot of freedom in how to do it, once i get better skills. More in-depth siril tutorials for me i think

ty for your kind words though. i need more time under clear skies, still probably only have maybe 5 nights and 30 hours total doing stuff with my complete rig, but i think its 'dialed in' maybe a touch of back focus and not completely flat field in corners.

but then its not a 'premium telescope' as someone put it to me

Edited April 22 by TiffsAndAstro

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 minutes ago, Elp said:

Russell Croman tools, very popular for good reason.

blurxterminator and noise reduction tools and likely more from him i guess. i don't have PI but even i recognise his name. 

even if i had £400 for PI and blurx, there's no way at this stage im going to pay more for software than my telescope cost. which i assume is a sentiment at lot of noobs have.

in a perfect world, i'd get PI and the most useful RC tools, and learn it from scratch rather than siril. PI + RC is definately something ill get in future, im sure. 

[Elp]

The thing with image processing there's no real set rule other than the default pre processing you apply in the beginning. The same person can have the same data set and post process it multiple times and get slightly different results. If you're familiar with the tools you can get them close each time, but usually you'll end up doing something slightly different the latter times and end up with an even better result than previous.

[Vroobel]

12 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

wow ok you're image is really impressive too. 

im a little uneasy that 3 different people can get 3 very different results from the same starting data. Hopefully, this will turn into a sense of excitement that there is a lot of freedom in how to do it, once i get better skills. More in-depth siril tutorials for me i think

Try to think about the astro-imaging as about an art: it's as good as you like it. You can observe others' work on AstroBin, save some pics matching your FoV, etc. and try to do your best. 

 

8 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

blurxterminator and noise reduction tools and likely more from him i guess. i don't have PI but even i recognise his name. 

even if i had £400 for PI and blurx, there's no way at this stage im going to pay more for software than my telescope cost. which i assume is a sentiment at lot of noobs have.

in a perfect world, i'd get PI and the most useful RC tools, and learn it from scratch rather than siril. PI + RC is definately something ill get in future, im sure. 

Of course, the PI isn't the requirement, the main product and the BlurX may become a game-changer if you really want them. You can remove stars and noise using free components, not necessarily StarX and NoiseX. 

Edited April 22 by Vroobel

[TiffsAndAstro]

28 minutes ago, Vroobel said:

Try to think about the astro-imaging as about an art: it's as good as you like it. You can observe others' work on AstroBin, save some pics matching your FoV, etc. and try to do your best. 

 

Of course, the PI isn't the requirement, the main product and the BlurX may become a game-changer if you really want them. You can remove stars and noise using free components, not necessarily StarX and NoiseX. 

i have been trying to use AstroSharp-DualPSF but it either doesn't work atm, or does work but has no progress bar and takes a long time. i was trying it with drizzled images which may be too big/slow for it so ill have another go with a downsampled drizzle - as that seems to make drizzled images work with starnet++ in siril for me.

astrobin is a very useful tool. i even put a couple of my images up (crap as they are) in case people found them helpful. 

[alacant]

FWIW, we gladly allowed our PI trial to expire.

[TiffsAndAstro]

Just now, alacant said:

FWIW, we gladly allowed our PI trial to expire.

what do you use instead of PI now then?

[alacant]

It depends on the data. For your image, I used StarTools. 

[TiffsAndAstro]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

It depends on the data. For your image, I used StarTools. 

Now I need to watch some Star tools videos. It looks promising and is reasonably priced. Ty

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 hours ago, alacant said:

@TiffsAndAstro I really think you're doing great. Your data is fine. Keep it simple. With processing, perhaps don't overthink it.

5 minutes in StarTools gave me this. Rough around the edges? Yes. But if you have the patience (I haven't!) , there's the basis to make a good image. Just keep adding frames.

Cheers and HTH

 

I just noticed you somehow extracted *some* (not a lot, but still wow) detail in the satellite galaxy to the right of m101, NGC 5474?

Wikipedia says (approx I'm on mobile) m101 is 30' x 30' (I assume it means arc seconds) about same as the moon, though

Wikipedia says NGC 5474 is 5x4'. My image scale is 3 x 2 arc seconds. How is NGC 5474 more than 2 pixels in size, or maybe 4 with my drizzle shizzle?

My telescopes Dawes limit is 1.6 so I don't understand how it's possible to resolve detail less than that. Admittedly it's a long, long time since I thought about this stuff. 

It does make me think an imx585 sensor would maybe not be totally  wasted on my humble (non premium lol) 72ed

Edited April 22 by TiffsAndAstro

[AstroMuni]

56 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

It does make me think an imx585 sensor would maybe not be totally  wasted on my humble (non premium lol) 72ed

I firmly believe that you dont need a 'premium' scope to get good images. As an example the 130PDS costs less than £250 but if you see the images that folk have managed to get out of it, its amazing. Capturing good images is only 30-40% of the challenge IMO, the rest is the skill in processing it.

Edited April 22 by AstroMuni

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 minutes ago, AstroMuni said:

I firmly believe that you dont need a 'premium' scope to get good images. As an example the 130PDS costs less than £250 but if you see the images that folk have managed to get out of it, its amazing. Capturing good images is only 30-40% of the challenge IMO, the rest is the skill in processing it.

I would have gone for that over the 72ed but was concerned about weight collimation and didn't like the image train hanging off the side.

For a future grown up rig, a F5+ newton on a decent mount is really attractive.

[AstroMuni]

10 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

I would have gone for that over the 72ed but was concerned about weight collimation and didn't like the image train hanging off the side.

For a future grown up rig, a F5+ newton on a decent mount is really attractive.

I think you have a great scope. Just enjoy and keep clicking pictures 🙂 

[alacant]

1 hour ago, AstroMuni said:

you dont need a 'premium' scope to get good images.

+1. 

To which I would add that clear, stable (good seeing) skies also help enormously. The mount I would also place of higher importance than the optics. Probably the camera too.

Edited April 22 by alacant

[Elp]

As well as dark skies. I struggle to do RGB in bortle 7 without filters unless the target is high in the sky.

[TiffsAndAstro]

I'm bortle 6 and maybe have a relatively shielded back garden.

I will hear hubble scream in trepidation.

[TiffsAndAstro]

Seeing is a bit nebulous me, pardon the pun.

At the moment I'm going by hfr, # of stars and median.

I seem to be able to keep hfr under 3, but not by much. Is this decent? For comparison I can focus my guider to maybe under 4 before I lose the will to live

No idea what the median references but I think higher is better? I think 3000 to 5000 is what I usually get.

More stars = better I assume.

Edited April 22 by TiffsAndAstro

[alacant]

1 hour ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

More stars = better I assume

Not really. You can have a sky which looks amazing. Diamonds on velvet I once saw as a description. But, if they're bouncing around all over the place... Nada.

With your 72ed/dslr though, you should be able to go with most conditions. Here for example, it's rare to get more than say two nights per month good enough to hold up 1000mm focal length at decent resolution with any camera. Otherwise, we recommend something shorter. Enlarge it if you have to. The shorter the fl, the less fussy (and easier) it becomes. There are arc second per pixel  types of stuff to describe all this if you like, but we prefer just to go out and do it. Hands on and experiment.

 

Edited April 22 by alacant
position of the word 'though' in a sentence

[TiffsAndAstro]

3 hours ago, alacant said:

Not really. You can have a sky which looks amazing. Diamonds on velvet I once saw as a description. But, if they're bouncing around all over the place... Nada.

With your 72ed/dslr though, you should be able to go with most conditions. Here for example, it's rare to get more than say two nights per month good enough to hold up 1000mm focal length at decent resolution with any camera. Otherwise, we recommend something shorter. Enlarge it if you have to. The shorter the fl, the less fussy (and easier) it becomes. There are arc second per pixel  types of stuff to describe all this if you like, but we prefer just to go out and do it. Hands on and experiment.

 

All I can go by is results, really and I'm pretty happy with my subs, and very happy with the result alacant created from them.

I can merrily carry on and hope, one day, my processing skills get good enough.

I have a [removed word] load of reading and videos to do