M44, The Beehive in Cancer

[skywatcher1701]

Hi all

Here is just 5mins worth of data taken from from Sunday night.

Taken with my Nikon D40, ISO 1600 and 30 SEC exposers, stacked in DSS and then processed in CS3.

Hope to get more data soon, but any advice or comments are welcome.

Neil

[Shibby]

Hi Neil, nice capture - you've got great star shapes but seem to have lost star colour somewhere along the process. Sorry I can't offer many helpful suggestions, but I do know that clipping the white point can have that effect...

[MikeWilson]

Hi Neil,

Nice round stars - any chance you could share your original files so I could have a play with processing?

(If you need a way to share your image files, try DropBox for 2.25 GB of free storage [i get +250mb if you use this link]: http://db.tt/cWCPKi3).

Best,

Mike

[MikeWilson]

Hi Neil,

I've reprocessed your image for you according to the best of my abilities using DeepSkyStacker, Photoshop CS5 (inc. Noels Actions) and PixInsight LE.

Reprocessed

Cropped centre

Stacking:

1. Average stack of 10 x 30 second lights @ ISO 1600. Single master dark (temperature matched?)

2. Checked levels - the histograms are flat up against the left so signal will be lost within the noise. Longer exposures should resolve this.

3. Adjusted levels

4. Adjusted curves

5. Used Dynamic Background Extraction in leiu of flats

6. Used Noels Actions: Light Pollution Removal to assist in noise reduction

7. Increased star colour manually (via Noels actions 'select brighter stars', copied to a new layer above background layer, increased saturation and merged down).

8. Used Noels Actions: Increase star colour (takes the newly hue'd edges and applies the colour across the entire star.

9. Reduced star size using Noel's actions.

10. Final adjustment to levels (as RGB got misaligned along the way somehow)

11. Used NeatImage to reduce noise in the jpeg output.

I hope that this helps.

Mike

[AlexB]

I've been struggling to capture this one myself, couldn't polar align properly on my EQ1 and my wide field images lost colour in addition to just plain not having much impact!! Ho-hum.

[skywatcher1701]

Thanks mike, looks good, i think if i can get more data, it may impove, what do you think?

[MikeWilson]

Thanks mike, looks good, i think if i can get more data, it may impove, what do you think?

Make sure that you take flats.

This particular image should be put to bed as there are no flats or bias compensation frames. The dark didn't appear to do much with the noise - how many dark images did you use and do you happen to know if they were taken at the same temperature as the lights?

Make sure that you take flats.

What I would do is start over - use ISO 800 as it's getting warmer in the evenings and go for 60 second (at a minimum really) subs.

Make sure that you take flats.

Once you've gotten at least ten lights, ten darks and ten flats (aim for twenty) with an integration time of at least thirty minutes (this stack is currently five minutes), you'll have a good stack for processing.

Did I mention that you need flats?

All the best,

Mike

[AlexB]

I think yours came out better than mine!

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-widefield-special-events-comets/138378-m44-beehive-crescent-moon-plus-more.html

[skywatcher1701]

Thanks AlexB, you have some nice shots in that set.