Starting off in Astrophotography...

Iancar29 · 08-08-2014 2:35pm

My first DSO of the season

M31 Andromeda from the Sugar Load car park tuesday night.

Nikon D610
500mm F4
ISO 3200
30x30" ( with auto darks after each ) stacked in DSS and edited in Photoshop .

Happy enough

Nerro · 08-08-2014 3:16pm

Nice one. But I recon you should have got a bit more detail out of 15min exposure? Or the moon was in the way?

Iancar29 · 08-08-2014 3:28pm

Yeah the moon was up till 2 am Nerro , though it was on the other side of the sky.

ZeRoY · 08-08-2014 4:09pm

Very good result for 30s exposures! This is getting me back into it!!

ZeRoY · 10-08-2014 11:55pm

Obligatory Moon shot tonight as its a "SuperMoon"

26X exposure stacked 1/500 ISO100 Canon 1100D + Skywatcher ST80 (400mm)

ZeRoY · 23-08-2014 3:27pm

Comet C/2014 E2 Jacques, my North skies far too polluted and probably would have needed longer exposure at lower ISO.

Single Exposure as too noisy to even stack the 20 shots I did...

1X 15" ISO1600 @ 1000mm F/5 (SW 200PDS + Canon 1100D)

FlipperThePriest · 10-09-2014 3:35pm

First attempt of Andromeda last night..

Not bad for a 2 second single image with a kit lens, considering the harvest moon was in the same part of the sky..

250mm (cropped)
f5.6
2 Sec
ISO 6400

ZeRoY · 10-09-2014 3:51pm

zippy84 wrote: »

First attempt of Andromeda last night..

Not bad for a 2 second single image with a kit lens, considering the harvest moon was in the same part of the sky..

250mm (cropped)
f5.6
2 Sec
ISO 6400

Indeed this is a very good result for the exposure time and lens used. You were at a very dark site?

FlipperThePriest · 10-09-2014 4:21pm

ZeRoY wrote: »

Indeed this is a very good result for the exposure time and lens used. You were at a very dark site?

Not really, 8 mile from Dundalk, not far from a good few street lights.. again supermoon also on show.

I did a good bit of noise reduction using Nik Dfine 2.0.. it's a handy tool.

This is the original no crop, no level adjustment, no noise reduction..

Not sure which I prefer actually, now seeing them together, there are a lot of artifacts in the processed version.

ZeRoY · 10-09-2014 4:28pm

zippy84 wrote: »

Not really, 8 mile from Dundalk, not far from a good few street lights.. again supermoon also on show.

Even better then

- Im based in Dundalk, have to use Light Pollution Filter and even then its hard to not be affected by Light Pollution!

FlipperThePriest · 10-09-2014 4:37pm

ZeRoY wrote: »

Even better then - Im based in Dundalk, have to use Light Pollution Filter and even then its hard to not be affected by Light Pollution!

I was thinking of doing a stack of a a few hundred using that lens in a few weeks (lights, darks and biases) when the moon is out of sky... wonder would I be wasting my time with the kit lens? Too noisy? I've no experience with dss but having been looking at tutorials of other people that have done it using dslr between 200mm and 300mm. Tracking manually after say 20-30 shots.

ZeRoY · 10-09-2014 4:44pm

zippy84 wrote: »

I was thinking of doing a stack of a a few hundred using that lens in a few weeks (lights, darks and biases) when the moon is out of sky... wonder would I be wasting my time with the kit lens? Too noisy? I've no experience with dss but having been looking at tutorials of other people that have done it using dslr between 200mm and 300mm. Tracking manually after say 20-30 shots.

Go for it! I would advise trying out longer exposure just to see what you can get away with no tracking, the longer the better. dont use auto darks but rather takes darks yourself and plug all in DSS which should do its magic!

FlipperThePriest · 10-09-2014 4:47pm

ZeRoY wrote: »

Go for it! I would advise trying out longer exposure just to see what you can get away with no tracking, the longer the better. dont use auto darks but rather takes darks yourself and plug all in DSS which should do its magic!

Yeah about 200 lights, 20 dark and 20 bias. If I leave it open much longer than 2 secs at 250mm there'll be serious trails, no?

ZeRoY · 10-09-2014 5:08pm

zippy84 wrote: »

Yeah about 200 lights, 20 dark and 20 bias. If I leave it open much longer than 2 secs at 250mm there'll be serious trails, no?

Probably yes but judging by the shot you posted you might be able to go 2.5" which can adds a fair bit overall! If your camera offers a Liveview/preview screen try and zoom in to check if stars are oval.

FlipperThePriest · 10-09-2014 5:15pm

ZeRoY wrote: »

Probably yes but judging by the shot you posted you might be able to go 2.5" which can adds a fair bit overall! If your camera offers a Liveview/preview screen try and zoom in to check if stars are oval.

It's a 550d, it does have liveview I can try that.

Here's a good reference calculator: http://www.sceneplanner.com/tool3.php

According to it, at 250mm, if the subject is above 70 degrees, I can open the shutter up to 7 secs.. but anything under 70 degrees in the frame will trail, fairly useful tool! 6 seconds eliminates trail for everything in the frame at 70 degrees.

ZeRoY · 10-09-2014 5:32pm

zippy84 wrote: »

It's a 550d, it does have liveview I can try that.

Invest in APT, you wont regret it!

FlipperThePriest · 10-09-2014 5:56pm

Looks great, haven't heard of it. Any tutorials I've read/seen have been all talking about registax or dss.. this looks extremely comprehensive though! Much of a learning curve? Think I'll defo be going for it for 12eu!

FlipperThePriest · 13-09-2014 1:38pm

No Aurora but plenty of star trails in these pics!

Second attempt of Andromeda, stack of 100, shutter obviously open too long

ZeRoY · 13-09-2014 4:04pm

zippy84 wrote: »

No Aurora but plenty of star trails in these pics!

Often wanted to go up there myself for widefield, is it much dark up there?

FlipperThePriest · 13-09-2014 4:37pm

ZeRoY wrote: »

Often wanted to go up there myself for widefield, is it much dark up there?

A lot of light pollution from the Newry and Warrenpoint sides.. but the opposite side behind the mast isn't as bad.

FlipperThePriest · 17-09-2014 12:52pm

Bit of an improvement over the last effort!

Stack of 480, 20 dark & bias
2.5 Sec f5
iso 6400

A satellite was visible passing through the shot, but level adjustments and noise reduction have caused it to vanish.

Noise reduction using Nic Dfine.. great plugin for Photoshop, I used Lightroom first but it wasn't nearly as effective.

mickmackey1 · 17-09-2014 5:27pm

^^ wow that's seriously good, you sure you're not Damian Peach in disguise? :P

Kersh · 18-09-2014 9:25am

ZeRoY wrote: »

Invest in APT, you wont regret it!

+1 for APT, its great.

Great improvement FlipperThePriest

FlipperThePriest · 18-09-2014 9:50am

Kersh wrote: »

+1 for APT, its great.

Great improvement FlipperThePriest

Cheers. I must give it another go, I hooked it up to the camera with liveview last week and couldn't find/see anything darker than the moon. Also, I'm a little worried about condensation on the laptop.. I guess in an ideal scenario your setup is outside, you're inside?

Kersh · 18-09-2014 8:06pm

Ye, Im setup in the house, cables go out the window, to the mount and cameras, and Im lovely and warm!

If you have a driven eq mount that supports EqMod and Ascom, you can control the mount from the laptop too, using those 2 programs plus Carte de Ciel, so its not often I have to venture outside

FlipperThePriest · 19-09-2014 10:41am

Kersh wrote: »

Ye, Im setup in the house, cables go out the window, to the mount and cameras, and Im lovely and warm!

If you have a driven eq mount that supports EqMod and Ascom, you can control the mount from the laptop too, using those 2 programs plus Carte de Ciel, so its not often I have to venture outside

I have a dslr and a sturdy tripod.... some day :pac:

FlipperThePriest · 27-09-2014 4:28pm

First shot at the Milky Way last night.. very clear night.

29 sec f3.5
18 mm
iso 6400

FlipperThePriest · 08-10-2014 1:23pm

Stack of 20.. taken last night.
Processed in Registax 6 & CS4

ZeRoY · 09-10-2014 12:04am

Nice!

I would say it is over exposed, what ISO / exposure time did you use?

FlipperThePriest · 09-10-2014 9:22am

Hmm, maybe. I would say there is probably more of a chance of it being washed out from being over processed (trying to bring out detail).
250mm
f/5.6
1/500
iso 200

Hard to gauge what an overexposed moon is given that in comparison to the natural optics every photo is underexposed. I suppose a photo that flatly brings out darks and whites evenly, although being an unrealistic shot, probably has the best chance of bringing out detail so would be more suitable as opposed to accurate?

I guess it's possible I am overexposing this detail as I'm so used to seeing a brighter moon, and not used to shooting it. I don't want to clog up the thread, but I'll attach a link here (unprocessed) to 1 original of stack of 20.. if anyone wants to take a look.. there might be something to be learned for me or anyone else taking/processing moon photos.

Here is an additional link to a more realistic version.. more subtly processed in LR. Since being pointed out, this does probably look better, but when I was processing in photoshop originally.. I think I was going after a certain effect to bring out detail, contrast etc.. maybe a little overdone.

Starting off in Astrophotography...

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