First DSO M13

[MarkF]

Hi All,

Finally got things working together last night with EQmod, nice thing is I only had to go outside to change the filters, once I was all focused up etc. So it was cup of tea in the study scratching my head as to what PHD was doing and watching images coming in.

Captured with Artemis on an Atik 16ic mono, equinox 80ED, NEQ6.

Guided ST80, QHY5, PHD guiding.

Stacked in DSS and processed as 8-bit Tiff in PS7 as it doesn't support 16bit. Lots of reading of Steve's book and tutorials on SGL. Its not perfect by a long shot but I was, as ever, impatient to get the procedure sorted and under my belt.

10X120sec Lum subs

10X60sec 2x2bin RGB subs

Just guessed at exposure times, as ever all advice very much welcomed - long way to go yet loving the challenge, tried sharpening it but that introduced too much noise so its the soft look for now.

[Coco]

Good effort Mark...

I missed this one mate... worthy of a pat on the back if ever i saw one..

Am starting out on the LRGB road too so I know how pleased you must be.. ..

Guy..

[adamsp123]

Good Start Mark

[msinclairinork]

Well done Mark you must be happy with that!

I am just waiting impationtly for the clouds to clear so I can start my imaging career....come on clouds!!!!

Thanks for sharing,

Michael

[MarkF]

Thanks, this really was a learning curve to get the captured data and I think I got the binned RGB wrong, should have been 5 X 120secs rather than 10 X 60 secs. have had a rework although the Red channel hasn't aligned properly in stacking, but learning new processes all the time has brought a bit more colour out.

[MikeD]

A very nice result (2nd edit) and you have the propeller showing nicely too.

Looking forward to many more.

Mike.

[JonH]

You don't say what method of sharpening you tried but here's a screen grab of an attempt using High Pass, found in Other under the Filters tab. Run it on a background copy.

I tried a radius of 6 but your posted file is quite small so I can't see if the noise has been increased excessively. Try experimenting with different radius values and Soft Light and Overlay blending modes. Soft Light is more subtle than Overlay.

Great shot BTW!

[MarkF]

Thanks guys, Jon, I haven't a clue what I am doing with PS lol, each time I process I get a different result and don't know why.

However had a rego at stacking the RGB trying to get them more aligned in DSS. But TBH I think I hadn't quite nailed the focus or the guiding when I captured these. It was only last week and forgotten already. Tried your High pass method looks better, here is an 800x600 version, my camera only produces 659 x 494 images. So I use drizzle X2 in DSS to up the image size.

[JonH]

I'm glad High Pass helped.

I know it's a PITA but you really have to stick with PS and once you get the hang of it you'll be flying!

I've only just mastered polar aligning and I'm still faffing about over what camera to get, let alone actually producing any DSO images.

[p1taylor]

that is a very good start keep going you will get there.

peter