First time imaging a DSO (lagoon) - Advice and tips please.

[AstroSamuel]

Recently upgraded to a skywatcher 150p on a EQM35 Pro mount. Also have a canon 1300D, this was my very first time ever seeing a nebula let along photographing one. Didn't honestly know what i was doing but i winged it and ended up getting 9 minutes worth of 20-30 second exposures of the Lagoon Nebula. Winged my way through deep sky stacker and lightroom, heres my final result.

 

Would love tips or any information as i would just love to learn everything there is to it... (probably not possible lol) from photographing to editing.

 

 

[Bignerdguy]

Well one thing i will mention is the DSLR cameras all have a weakness for Ha light.  The IR cut filter in them is very restrictive and will reduce significantly the amount of Ha light you can get from any length of imaging.  Many nebulas tend to emit or reflect Ha light and as such you wont get the full benefit of images for such object with a un-modded DSLR.  I have a Canon 60D which i modded to allow full spectrum and it does a lot better than the stock ever did.  there are drawbacks to doing a FS mod but i am happy with it.  That being said its not that you cant get Ha light its simply that you will get much less.  To get the same effect as an Ha or FS modded camera you will need a lot more integration time, but it is do-able. Second thing is Integration time.  9 minutes is very little time.  You are going to want a LOT more images to get any useable details from most objects.  Nice part about this hobby is that you can integrate multiple images from multiple nights into one final image so whatever you do, don't throw away or delete any integrations you have and always keep at least a copy of an unmodified version for later adding to with new images.  For my part i keep all of the original images so i can go back at a later date to try new ideas i learn as i go.  That dos take a lot of drive space to store all that data but to me its worth it.  Last polar alignment and guiding.  Your image above had some star trailing going on which means your scope was not properly polar aligned.  Guiding can also help with some issues like this especially for longer exposures.  Regardless check the accuracy of your polar alignment as it might be slightly off.  Otherwise this is a good first attempt, better by far than my first attempt.

[rotatux]

You may have cut too much in the shadows : "black point" set too high before stretching. You probably have captured more nebulosity than shown on your "final" image, but it has been clipped before showing. Advice : stretch somewhat *then* raise the black point a bit (never to the level where you get pure black), and repeat.

You will also need some color calibration / adjustement, but that will come 2nd or later, after a better image.

My 2 c.

[TiffsAndAstro]

On 21/09/2024 at 12:25, AstroSamuel said:

Recently upgraded to a skywatcher 150p on a EQM35 Pro mount. Also have a canon 1300D, this was my very first time ever seeing a nebula let along photographing one. Didn't honestly know what i was doing but i winged it and ended up getting 9 minutes worth of 20-30 second exposures of the Lagoon Nebula. Winged my way through deep sky stacker and lightroom, heres my final result.

 

Would love tips or any information as i would just love to learn everything there is to it... (probably not possible lol) from photographing to editing.

 

 

It's a good start lagoon nebula is fairly low and might be a tricky target.

I would watch tutorials on YouTube for your mount and connecting all your gear to Nina to control it.

Stacking and basic image processing tutorials on Siril may be helpful too.

9 minutes is unlikely to get you a good result on any target, I'd suggest at least a couple hours worth as a beginner

[AstroSamuel]

On 23/09/2024 at 21:54, Bignerdguy said:

Well one thing i will mention is the DSLR cameras all have a weakness for Ha light.  The IR cut filter in them is very restrictive and will reduce significantly the amount of Ha light you can get from any length of imaging.  Many nebulas tend to emit or reflect Ha light and as such you wont get the full benefit of images for such object with a un-modded DSLR.  I have a Canon 60D which i modded to allow full spectrum and it does a lot better than the stock ever did.  there are drawbacks to doing a FS mod but i am happy with it.  That being said its not that you cant get Ha light its simply that you will get much less.  To get the same effect as an Ha or FS modded camera you will need a lot more integration time, but it is do-able. Second thing is Integration time.  9 minutes is very little time.  You are going to want a LOT more images to get any useable details from most objects.  Nice part about this hobby is that you can integrate multiple images from multiple nights into one final image so whatever you do, don't throw away or delete any integrations you have and always keep at least a copy of an unmodified version for later adding to with new images.  For my part i keep all of the original images so i can go back at a later date to try new ideas i learn as i go.  That dos take a lot of drive space to store all that data but to me its worth it.  Last polar alignment and guiding.  Your image above had some star trailing going on which means your scope was not properly polar aligned.  Guiding can also help with some issues like this especially for longer exposures.  Regardless check the accuracy of your polar alignment as it might be slightly off.  Otherwise this is a good first attempt, better by far than my first attempt.

Really great advice, thank you. Totally aware thay 9 minutes isn't enough, don't have an intervelometer yet and was pressed for time but still had a lot of fun.

 

Helpful to know about the polar alignment causing the trailing, a few images came out quite bad prob because of this. One annoying thing about being in the southern hemisphere... this shooting session all I did was line it up south roughly then did my 3 star alignment, I didn't do the polar alignment adjustment with the synscan controller after the fact which probably was my problem.

[AstroSamuel]

On 24/09/2024 at 02:42, TiffsAndAstro said:

It's a good start lagoon nebula is fairly low and might be a tricky target.

I would watch tutorials on YouTube for your mount and connecting all your gear to Nina to control it.

Stacking and basic image processing tutorials on Siril may be helpful too.

9 minutes is unlikely to get you a good result on any target, I'd suggest at least a couple hours worth as a beginner

Do you have any other recommendations for nebula to start in? I'm in the southern hemisphere 

[AstroSamuel]

On 23/09/2024 at 22:34, rotatux said:

You may have cut too much in the shadows : "black point" set too high before stretching. You probably have captured more nebulosity than shown on your "final" image, but it has been clipped before showing. Advice : stretch somewhat *then* raise the black point a bit (never to the level where you get pure black), and repeat.

You will also need some color calibration / adjustement, but that will come 2nd or later, after a better image.

My 2 c.

Really helpful, thank you.  The processing is a big learning curve. Have been practising on other people's images which has been helpful. Here's before and after of Orion. Still lots to learn but really enjoying the process!

[TiffsAndAstro]

49 minutes ago, AstroSamuel said:

Do you have any other recommendations for nebula to start in? I'm in the southern hemisphere 

I'm in northern hem where it's low so tricky.

Can't really offer any advice for southern hem images except hold on tight

I'm sure knowledgeable people will give suggestions. If not, go on telescopius.com and see what's popular/brightest.

Greater magellanic cloud maybe? Really dunno, sorry

Edited Wednesday at 19:41 by TiffsAndAstro

[happy-kat]

Welcome

I don't often point to a YT but Cuiv recent processing using free software I thought was a good start and introduces you to complimentary software to help images like gradXpert.

I use DSS and some of the scripts from Siril, bit of mix it for me.

Have fun enjoying your imaging. Nice to see different targets from your hemisphere. I thought your Polaris equivalent was the southern cross.

Edited Wednesday at 20:28 by happy-kat

[Pompey Monkey]

You're off to a great start!

But you should polar align before your 3 star alignment.

The 3 star alignment will indeed get you on your target even if your polar alignment is a bit off.

However, a good (enough) polar alignment is essential for good tracking once you are there. 👍