M101 - Firsdt light of new scope

[dmahon]

Here's my first image with my Equinox 120. Unfortunately I don;t have a focal reducer/flattener yet as I'm waiting for the adapter to come back into stock at FLO.

M101, 25 x 300s, plus darks (no flats).

Canon 450D (unmodified)

[Cloudwatcher]

Can't help liking M101.......... it does look like a Catherine wheel firework.

It seems some of the outer detail has been lost from your posted image.............. it shows up when levels are increased....... use it as another layer, clean it up, play with the colour and you have the makings of a very nice image indeed.

(images attached by way of illustration.)

[dmahon]

Excellent.

I really wish I knew how you did that - and that's working with my already edited poor quality jpeg rather than the raw files.

[red dwalf]

wish i knew how to do it also, it`s black magic me thinks

[swag72]

That looks nice - And that edit looks promising, pulling out the detail really well. How is that done?

[svetimas]

No no no! Stop using JPEG's use only raw. Especially then Canon 450D model produces much much better raws then JPEGs.

[ollypenrice]

Yes, start with RAW and go into Ps with Tiffs, I'd say.

Martin B's tutorials show you how to do the levels and curves iterations in Ps which simultaneously cut out noise and stretch open all the data lurking in the image. This is the key technique to learn.

You don't seem to have any guiding issues so ten minute subs might give a better signal to noise strength. I don't know about your sky fog limit though.

Olly

[Cloudwatcher]

Got my copy of Astronomy Now today,don't know if you read it yourself,dmahon but if so have a look at page 97.

The published picture of M101,taken,as it happens, from Olly's place in France,could be a model for further tweaking of your image.

Although we don't have the benefit of Olly's sky some application of suitable colour filters and a bit of brightening could I think get you close to the same result.

[dmahon]

No no no! Stop using JPEG's use only raw. Especially then Canon 450D model produces much much better raws then JPEGs.

I think you got the wrong end of the stick. I meant that Cloudwatcher got good results despite working with the lossy compressed jpg image that I had posted here on the web (which I had already edited significantly, in RAW format, before conversion solely for posting).

[jgs001]

Well done, that's coming along nicely.

CW is amazing at this sort of stuff... even working from just the jpg... I wish I knew how he did it...

[Jannis]

Can't help liking M101.......... it does look like a Catherine wheel firework.

It seems some of the outer detail has been lost from your posted image.............. it shows up when levels are increased....... use it as another layer, clean it up, play with the colour and you have the makings of a very nice image indeed.

(images attached by way of illustration.)

got any link to a rought guide on what you've done here? i'm quite a noob at PS, but would like to improove my skills. Jusr not sure what next step to take is, but i think following in your footprints would do...

oh, and on topic, very nice pic!

[peter shah]

a super first light