Website for help with identifying/labelling stars in images?

[Starblazer]

After a really nice clear nite lastnight, but plenty of frustration in my abilities to get the polar alignment sorted.

I can hope merrily along the sky by eye, i'm not too bad identifying them in my finder either, that said,light pollution and the dimming of stars near area's i'm heading often confuse me.

Where I have a problem is remembering the orientation of the 250px and often find myself taking images of stars and hoping im in the right area.

Andromeda, Jupiter, Moon ... not an issue lol, anything else...often hard work, unless it's bright and obvious. (remind me again, if i take an image with my dslr through the 250px, in photoshop, how would i flip it? would i just rotate the image or would it require a flip?)

So I was wondering, is there such a website or program that you can upload an image you have taken and then that works out where you are and gives you the orientation? This would make things much easier for me, I would hope....unfortunately with the distinct lack of clear skys in my area, remembering the mag and close relative stars whilst using the finderscope is hard work lol.

Would appreciate any help,

Cheers.

[steppenwolf]

I use Cartes du Ciel and place a correctly sized reticule over the display and rotate it to get the best orientation for the shot depending on the target (this is a built in feature in C du C) - I always mount the telescope with the focus tube pointing towards the mount (good for balance, good for limiting counterbalance weight and good for consistency from session to session) then I use the image below to remind me of the correct camera orientation on the focus tube. You could also consider being an alpha tester for Astrometry.net and you can then submit your images for automatic astrometrical analysis.

[iamjulian]

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-discussion/93173-anyone-here-willing-help-me-test-my-project.html

I tried out the software discussed in this thread and it did exactly what you want - upload your image and it labels all the stars for you.

[Starblazer]

Thank you Steve.

I picked up your booked a few months back, brilliant read and well worth the money! Guess I best get reading it again as judging by that quick response, most of this info will be in there lol.

As said, lack of observing and imaging sessions really doesn't help the memory.

Just to clarify...

Focuser pointing inwards towards mount at all times to aid balancing,

Will check out C Du C

When taking images and processing them, in photoshop should i flip both horizontal and vertical or just the one and then rotate the image to suit?

Thanks again

[Starblazer]

Cheers for the link Julian, that looks brilliant, will have a nose and report back