Upgraded Camera

[smutly]

Hi all

I have been on that dreaded website that always ends up with me parting with a pocketful of cash.

You all know the one..........Ebay.

Well i have upgraded my Sony Cyber-shot DSC H2 camera to a Canon 350d Rebel XT.

I Managed to get the Canon with a 18-55mm lens, 75-300mm lens (separate purchase), 2GB memory card, 2 batteries, macro lens and macro led flash ring kit all for a shade over £200.

So now to try and recoup some cash i have the Sony on ebay at the moment.

Alot of playtime ahead to get used to the camera controls then i shall post some piccys.

jeff.................

[russ]

350D is a great camera for astro use, you should really notice the difference over the H2. Sounds like an excellent deal for approx £200.

You could really put that to good use from a dark sky site.....i know this good one at Turf Hill Sure Rob won't mind bringing you up

[smutly]

Yeah i shall have to give him a ring to see when he is going.

I shall probably continue with taking photo's by piggybacking the scope because i have heard of the problems with focusing on the 130p but i do have a deluxe barlow with the t thread which may help.

Is it best to take photo's in raw rather than jpeg?

[Demonperformer]

Is it best to take photo's in raw rather than jpeg?

Definitely, although if you are storing them on a card, you will get far fewer on there than jpegs

[shaunster]

Im in gosport if you ever need a lift up to turf hill

[smutly]

Thanks for offer shaunster, but i have got transport, it is more the shifts i work that can mess arrangements up.

I work on the motorway and my shifts are either 04.00 - 12.00 or 12.00 - 20.00, 4 on 2 off, but if all is ok a car share would be a good idea.

[smutly]

Definitely, although if you are storing them on a card, you will get far fewer on there than jpegs

That's not a problem, i shall try and get a few memory cards to keep by.

I suppose that the raw file would be more flexible to play around with in photoshop?

[Demonperformer]

Generally it is a matter of taking a set of iimages (subs or lights) of an object and then combining them using a program like DeepSkyStacker (DSS) to reduce the noise and increase the quality. This then produces a TIFF file that is tweeked in Photoshop or GIMP.

[smutly]

Generally it is a matter of taking a set of iimages (subs or lights) of an object and then combining them using a program like DeepSkyStacker (DSS) to reduce the noise and increase the quality. This then produces a TIFF file that is tweeked in Photoshop or GIMP.

Without sounding too dumb but in DSS you have dark, flat, dark flat and offset bias files and also you mentioned subs or lights. What does this mean in images?

I checked out Gimp and it seems quite good for a free piece of software.

[Demonperformer]

Without sounding too dumb but in DSS you have dark, flat, dark flat and offset bias files and also you mentioned subs or lights. What does this mean in images?

I checked out Gimp and it seems quite good for a free piece of software.

Subs: all the different individual pictures you take

Lights: the subs that contain the image data (normal picture)

Darks: subs that are taken at the same time using the same duration and camera settings as the lights, but with the telescope cover on so no light gets in - records the 'noise' produced by the chip, electronics during the shot

Flats: subs taken with a diffuse light source over the front of the telescope to record the imperfections in the optical system

Dark flats: Darks that are taken with the same duration and camera settings as the flats

Offset/Bias: Shots taken at the same ISO, minumum exposure with the lens cap on the camera (no telescope required), which measure the noise created by transferring the data from the camera to the storage device (card/computer)

* A master bias frame can be created at any time for a particular ISO, and can be used for all sets at that ISO

* Take about 20 darks to ensure you are removing noise, not adding it (I tend to take 10 before my lights and 10 after to produce an average temperature, but that's probably just my OCD talking!)

* Lots and lots and lots of lights

This is the process I use (currently have not got into flats/dark flats) and should produce a reasonable starting point for you.

GIMP: It is nice (I use it), the only problem being it works on 8-bit rather than 16-bit images (the colours are split into 256 groups rather than 65536 groups). However, your result from DSS can be stored and when you decide it is worth investing in Photoshop (which is 16-bit) you can re-postprocess them again in that.

[smutly]

Thanks for the info demonperformer, i have heard about the noise/hot spots that the ccd can create and wondered how to eliminate them instead of deleting stars which are supposed to be there.

Thanks to you i know now:happy7:.

jeff................