Astrophotography: A beginning.

[ravnostic]

Details, details! These are 60 second exposures, with two 120 second exposures that were very clear thrown in for added detail. The ISO was 1600, so I used a Master Flat field image generated for another shot (12 exposures, IIRC), and a Master Dark of 6. There were 28 ‘light’ frames of the subject, of which Deep Sky Stacker dropped nearly 1/2, biased toward the long exposures. I probably took 80 shots, but there was a light wind, which ruined way to many frames for use. I First 1/2-res’d everything and converted to TIFF, did the majority of processing with the DSS controls, and finished in PS Elements. Thanks, lokisbong and orionid

[chupathingie]

oh wow! That’s a target I always wanted to hit. The few clear nights we’ve had here on a weekend had so much wind that I haven’t been able to shoot at all last half of spring.

Man, that’s pretty!

[ravnostic]

Thanks, Chupa I had much higher hopes for this, but the wind killed them. Maybe in the Autumn, after the monsoons but…no. Light pollution will kill everything. I needed better skies.

[chupathingie]

I’d love to put together a small star party while I’m roadtripping next month. I could quite easily spend a couple nights in the 4 corners area or even farther west; as far as maybe Bryce/Zion. I’ll have a day or two on either side of Jul 19/20 if anyone wants to make a trip to some dark skies for a meet/greet/astroshoot…

[ravnostic]

Alas, I’m working both those days. :o(

[chupathingie]

I think I just tilted a couple days towards the east of four corners… linky. I don’t know if I can get access yet, but check out the terrain and satellite views. A campground in the southwest and a well-maintained road to the summit at ~12kft. No idea if I can get access, but satellite view shows no barricades anywhere. If that fails, there’s what looks like a public trailhead an hourish away that heads upstream to some waterfalls along a small river. I’m feeling the need to do some vertical aspect ratio landscapes if I can’t do sky (or if the wind makes it impossible)….

[CauseISaidSo]

chupa, in other circumstances, I’d be really tempted to take a few days off and join you, for both the astro lessons and just to get out in the wilderness (not the Mrs’ cup ‘o tea). But, we’re leaving the next day for Jamaica. Another time, perhaps.

[chupathingie]

LOL My “right half” is also averse to life without room service. She allows me to go do my runabouts, which I think is pretty cool. There’s no taking her along, tho, too many creepy-crawlies and pooping in the wild for her. 😆

Oh, and you ain’t gonna suffer much in Jamaica, I’m willing to bet! Try to make the best of it, eh? 😆

[chupathingie]

As an aside, my friends that I would prefer to road trip with are scattered; and they’d blow a week in transit to and fro. I chipped in to get one of my stepson’s HS buddies out to party with us, for instance. But he’s got a week and it’s staggered with the week I have with my stepson (that’s such a bullshit label…I met him when I was 25 and he was 11. He’s been my best friend ever since). The idea hit me tonight to plan my visits around roadtrippin; as opposed to getting to them being the roadtrip we’re gonna meet and do the roadtrip as the event. Next year’s trip is gonna be a whole different game.

[ravnostic]

I would love to do a star party sometime. I keep posting “I’m going astro-shooting” on G+ but nobody ever takes me up on it. I usually go Sunday nights since there’s fewer late night drunk bozos driving around getting lost to spoil my shots, so that might have something to do with it. Most people work Mondays.

[ravnostic]

I would love to do a star party sometime. I keep posting “I’m going astro-shooting” on G+ but nobody ever takes me up on it. I usually go Sunday nights since there’s fewer late night drunk bozos driving around getting lost to spoil my shots, so that might have something to do with it. Most people work Mondays.

[CauseISaidSo]

Oh, and you ain’t gonna suffer much in Jamaica, I’m willing to bet! Try to make the best of it, eh? 😆

LOL, yeah, I started to write that as “Unfortunately, we’re leaving for Jamaica…” and then I realized how silly that sounded. Will definitely be trading the lushness of wilderness for a different kind of “lush”-ness, if ya know what I mean. 😉

[Barracuda]

Must slowly back away from this thread before I get any ideas. What’s the forum equivalent to sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “LAA LAA LAA LAA LAA I’m not listening!”

Seriously fantastic work, the Eagle nebula shot is my fav so far in this thread, and knowing that I really won’t be able to stay away from watching for updates, look forward to seeing what you manage to produce next.

[ravnostic]

Thanks, Barracuda; it’s my ‘best’ so far, in terms of quality; I’m coming up to speed on the flat frames, etc. Wish I had more stackable images, but the will-o-the-wind is what it is.

[fluffybunny]

Hey chupa,

I’ve been circling astrophotography for a while now. My current plan is to start with my wide field 120mm f5 achromat and a guide scope (probably one of my manual Nikon telephotos with a DSI-I hanging off the back). I don’t have any serious cameras, the best “astro” camera being a DSI-II mono, so I’m thinking of using the Canon 7d. It should provide a wide field image, at high resolution and has live view for focusing. My thinking is that this should give me the least grief as a newb.

My question,…

Is there a software method for:

A) Separating RGB channels and realigning them to reduce chromatic abberation from the achromat.
B) Creating a virtual narrow band filter.

The purpose of this thought experiment is to test whether one can achieve a subset of the performance from a dedicated mono astro CCD while avoiding many hundreds if not thousands of $$ in cost.

Any thoughts, experience, advice or references gratefully accepted.

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