A kind of Double Cluster

[Yoddha]

Waiting Moon to get older and clouds to get away, I was playing with the data from my first (and only ) session with the new scope/mount. It is as bad framed as M42...

Total of 19x30s subs on ISO 1600 + 13x30s darks, stacked in DSS + first attempts in PS curves, some Noel and levels...

[assouptro]

Oooh Ivo, Soooo many stars!

There is some nice colours there.

Thanks for sharing

Bryan.

[Yoddha]

Thank you Bryan!

[ashenlight]

the framing might be a little off Yoddha, but your star colour is beautiful and it showcases the double cluster for what it is - a lovely box of jewels well done, looking forward to seeing your progress

[Yoddha]

Thank you Amanda!

I'll be very thankful to every one that points any errors in the processing. Being in the very beginning I still don't have knowledge when things are over-processed or under-processed... I'm reading and learning, but having feedback from experienced astro-photographers will help a lot.

[ollypenrice]

Hi Ivo,

That's looking good. You have nice round stars. I don't know how tight the focus is without knowing your setup but how did you focus? For a DSLR a Bahtinov Mask is a must have item, I think. When processing stars a really good idea is to select them (Noels Actions or Martin B's tutorial on this site) expand and feather the selection, then manipulate the curves. First pin the curve at the background sky level so you don't create artifacts around the stars. Then lower the curve just above this point and about half way up return the curve to its normal position. This gets rid of glow around stars so they don't run into each other in tight clusters.

Olly

[Yoddha]

Thank you Olly! I'll try it later this evening or tomorrow.

My telescope is WO ZenithStar 110 triplet and I use homemade Bahtinov mask. It is possible the focus to be off, because I focused around two hours or so before these subs. Here is a crop from the test shot:

[Yoddha]

Olly, I think that understood your notes. Maybe it is not perfect, but here is a new version which looks better IMHO

Do you make special handling for the very bright starts like the one in middle right? I extended the selection with 5 and feather with 5. It looks to be fine for most of the starts in this image.