first proper widefield that worked!

[garethmob]

hey guys my first proper widefield havent put it into photoshop (havent got it on my computer yet) all iv done is DSS it

it was taken with my 300d at 58mm lens with 20 X 30 second exposures

im guessing the halo like is the moon light??

i took it (couldnt really get any well known ( to me) objects as the moon was quite high and i was on my back yard (its a old police station carpark part of my house thas quite raised up)

it was at around 9oclock in the rough region of n - nw i guessing its around cepheus?

any advice or anything to improve would be greatly appreaceated!

[edit found my raw images and re stacked them!]

[russ]

I got that same effect this morning while trying to take a widefield image of M13.

[garethmob]

there is a fair amount of LP by me i tried to get the house to hide as much as i could.

what were you using for m31 russ?

[russ]

I was using a 300D as well with a 200mm M42 lens, no filter, iso 800 and 22 sec subs. 20 subs stacked in DSS as well.

[garethmob]

thas an amazing picture russ! im jealous!!!!

really need to get a more zoomed in len

i think i may be able to get a bit more out of my pics i just releised the photo program i imported my pictures to (apples aperture) has inadvertendly converted my RAW files to jpg i just DSS stacked again and it told me that all of them are jpgs an it cant do dark subtraction does any one know how i can get my RAW's back? i had to delete off my card as i took loads of jupitor an the moon n it used the space

[russ]

I still haven't taken any flats yet, would even the field. But not sure it would do anything about the ring effect.

[russ]

Are the RAW images still in the recycle bin?

You can use a data recovery program to recover files on the card.

[garethmob]

i think im gonna give it a go hopefully

i have to jump between a mac n windows last night (my laptops new power lead only came this morning) so for space i transfired to my base unit which is a older mac and it did tha aperature is fantastic program but a lot more "confusing" than iphoto!!

[russ]

Hope you can recover them.

[garethmob]

woooo i found them!!!! aperature was hiding them in a maze of subfolders

iv edited my first post theres 2 pics one with 2% star detection (3rd pic) and the other with 20% (2nd pic)

[Shibby]

Hi guys, flats would absolutely sort out those issues. The "ring" effect is probably caused by low bit depth of the images. Did you shoot in RAW or jpeg?

[garethmob]

mine was shot in RAW i didnt releise till after my first image was stacked as JPG's with no darks the second 2 have the darks in place and were stacked as RAW's

i know how to take darks just need to learn how to take flats and off bias's now

[Psychobilly]

Firstly congrats ... with Luna doing her worst this is a challenging time to capture anything including starfields as they will be "plagued" by gradients and bright backgrounds...

The gaps between the exposures are more important with the older generation cameras so thats a good thing... Also darks are a lot more important as well... what have you got the "in camera" noise reductions settings set to? (oops [billy goes off to download and read the 300D manual] Not much to tweak in the 300D that functionality came in in the 350D and later cams)

Looks like the 300D doesnt do any form of long exposure noise reduction so you will have to take your own darks...

Good star shapes in the center of the field the Coma can be tackled by stopping the lens down a bit possibly 1 - 2 stops. It can also be corrected a bit using the lens correction filter in Adobe CS...which can also help with the vignetting provided its fairly even in all four corners.

Got to work with RAWS only time I use jpegs is when shooting startrail or tiemlapse sequences (you can get both out of the same set of files) wehn your doing this you want as short a gap as possible between exposures...

Couple of useful pointers here...

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/dslr/EOS300Dastro.html

Billy...

[garethmob]

i'll try the stepping down tonight what do you mean the noise reduction? i didnt no my camera did them its a canon 300d iv got it on manual mode on everythin i think lol sorry if i seem a little dum lol

[Psychobilly]

Not dum at all... I hadnt ever read the manual for the 300D as my first canon was the 350D (apart from a brief daliance with a D30 which was horrendous - not to be confused with the 30D which was rather good)

Theres nothign for you to play with on the 300D "noise" reduction wise so its all goign to have to be done in the post processing by taking Darks (same exposure length and ISO as the lights) and Bias (Fastest possible shutter speed with the lens covered and at the same ISO as the lights) and using these with DSS...

What lens were you using...

Billy...

[garethmob]

its a old bomb proof helios 58mm m42 thread lens i think its the first model as it just says helios-44 where newer ones av numbers or letters after the 44.

i was wondering what a bias was how exactly do i do that is it just i thought the iso was the shutter speed

[Psychobilly]

no no.. exposure is basically determined by three things Shutter Speed, Aperture setting (F stop) and the ISO setting...

Understanding The Exposure Triangle: A Tutorial | Digital SLR Guru - Digital Photography Tips, Tutorials & Reviews Digital SLR Guru

Billy...

[garethmob]

thanks billy thas one of the things i love about this forum every ones so helpful