Sky at Night Magazine

[tich]

This is a work in process really as I will be adding more data which I'm hoping to do tonight at a dark site where I go to image as it's hopeless trying to do anything apart from planetary imaging at home.

So far I've managed to get 33 unguided subs at 90 seconds using my 200P & unmodified Canon DSLR I combined the lights with 20 darks in Deep Sky Stacker & tweaked in Photoshop.

[smerral1]

Very nice! I like the wide field.

[tich]

Thanks Brian, I did go out on Saturday & added some more data to it so I'm up to 2 hours 43 minutes exposure time. I still might go out again & add some more data as I've only got a standard DSLR so it's not showing up much of the reds. My only downfall is the processing part as I seem to clip the blacks then the stars loose all their colour. processing is definitely a dark art....

[smerral1]

Well I'm by no means an expert on deep sky. The stars seem a little overcooked maybe. There is a way of processing whereby you can create a star mask so this doesn't happen but I forget the details. In the past I've created a copy and used layer masking to try to avoid it. And when you adjust levels, use the middle slider, not the one at the end.

[tich]

Thanks Brian I'm guessing the star mask is made in DSS as there seems to be a function for that in there, making up a layer mask is another thing altogether though so I need to go back into it some more & try learning it as I'm finding processing a real struggle.