M42: First light for 10d.

[RyanParle]

On Thursday night / Friday morning I had the chance to give my 10d a first light through a telescope. It was a Meade 14" RCX400 fitted with an Orion light pollution filter and guided with a SX Lodestar on a Revelation 80mm APO.

unfortunately as I had work the following day it was past my bedtime so I didn't have time for many frames, I only got two, one at 2.5 mins and one at 5 mins both at ISO 800. I didn't even have time to take any calibration frames. Also without a large screen to see images focus was a bit off.

For processing i used maxim dl to align and average combine, followed by a bit of DDP processing, I then saved to 32bit TIFF and used PS CS3 to adjust the levels, perform Hi pass masking before saving as a JPG. If I had more data to work with I would have spent a bit more time and effort on the processing.

Nothing special I know but I'm happy considering the circumstances.

[Shibby]

Nice close up. Not bad for 2 subs!!

Might I suggest a median filter to get rid of the hot pixels.

[RyanParle]

Nice close up. Not bad for 2 subs!!

Might I suggest a median filter to get rid of the hot pixels.

Thanks, as soon as my oag and baader mpcc arrive I'll give it another go and get a lot more data.

when you say a median filter, do you mean a median combine?

[Shibby]

It's a noise reduction filter you can apply from photoshop. It's particularly good at eliminating single pixel nose because it calculates the median of the surrounding pixels. Give it a go!

[cloudbuster]

Nice one Ryan...great close-up!

Come on Ryan....time to do an album on your homepage....I knows you got plenty of great pics!!!

[ollypenrice]

I think an OAG will be a must for that setup. While the Ps median will kill hot pixels it comes at a cost in terms of resolution. Don't you have the option of a hot pixel filter somewhere in the workflow? I apply mine from AstroArt before stacking and debayering my colour subs. OSC cameras seem very susceptible to hot pixels but I don't know why.

Anyway, pretty exciting to have all that focal length available and huge promise showing already.

Olly

[RyanParle]

Thanks Guys.

I tried out the median filter in photoshop on the jpeg, it worked pretty well, and didn't soften the image much, when I get time i'll process it properly, from the .tiff file

Olly, I did try the bad pixel function in maxim but i couldn get it right, maybe i'll have another go. Unfortunately the RCX isnt my telescope, it belongs to a friend. i'll be using the OAG with the 10" f/4 newt.

Bob. do you mean setting up an album on my SGL home page? i've been planning to do it for a while, just not got "a round tuit" yet... reminds me of a little poem written by an old engineering colleague about the rarity of a little thingy called a "round tuit"

[Quatermass]

Nice image I am busy working on m42 but havent got myself a shutter release cable yet so can do longer exspos but this has inspired me to keep trying heres my lates image.

[cloudbuster]

Hi Ryan....yes i do mean that its about time that you set up an album on your SGL homepage.....too much time spent on the mini i guess!!!

cheers

bob