Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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All taken with my Canon Powershot SX100.
Widefield Orion. No telescope optics, camera only. JPEGs stacked with Deep Sky Stacker, no other processing or editing. Except for resizing to post here, image is the way it came out of DSS:
The Seven Sisters. No telescope optics, camera only. JPEGs stacked with Deep Sky Stacker, no other processing or editing. Except for resizing to post here, image is the way it came out of DSS:
This Moon picture was taken afocal through my ETX80, the camera handheld to the eyepiece. Stacked with Registax, no other processing or editing. Except for resizing to post here, image is the way it came out of Registax (as a side note, I find the Registax program results somewhat unpredictable, running the same files through it twice in a row doesn't always produce the same results - I wish DSS could stack Moon pictures):
I believe with practice, and more time to spend on each subject, I can improve further. Equipment upgrades will probably never be an option, but that's ok. I am happy with the results I get and the harder I have to work at it the more rewarding it is!
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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Stardaug
professor emeritus
Reged: 08/03/08
Posts: 531
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Pretty cool. Nice work considering point and shoot. How many jpg's were stacked to get the orion shot?
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"Keep looking up!"
Shawn / Ontario, Canada
Celestron CPC800 SCT w/XLT & GPS // Skywatcher Equinox 80ED F6.25 500mm APO // Canon Rebel 350XT unmodded // Milburn EQ Wedge (a Meade model modified to fit my CPC)
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ki_cz
super member
Reged: 02/05/08
Posts: 114
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Really like the moon shot. I can't even imagine what you go through to get those star shots!
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maverickf
member
Reged: 02/26/09
Posts: 18
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Good job! I didn't know P&S can take such good images. 
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Celestron C11 XLT
Orion ED 80
Orion Short Tube 80
Celestron CG5 Mount
PHD guiding with Meade DSI
Canon EOS 40D (Unmodified) with Astronomik CLS CFS filter
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MrKrink
sage
Reged: 02/20/09
Posts: 227
Loc: NC, USA
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What is your process on the Deep Sky Stacker for stacking??
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Stuart McD.
My Sky - Lawndale, NC near(SLAB)
CGEM Mount (Still Looking for OTA)
Nikon D90
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Thanks for the kind words!
Quote:
Pretty cool. Nice work considering point and shoot. How many jpg's were stacked to get the orion shot?
The Orion shot was done over the course of three nights. It's 95 JPGs, 15 seconds each. Some were ISO 400, 800, and 1600. I was doing a comparison of each ISO, then combined them all to make this image.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Quote:
What is your process on the Deep Sky Stacker for stacking??
I first look over each individual image and throw out any that have something obviously wrong with them. Then I load them all in DSS, tell it to stack 100% of them, and I think everything else is the default settings. "Align RGB channel in final image" is checked, "Median" stacking method, and "Median noise reduction". I stack only the lights and do not use flats or bias frames, and the camera does it's own dark frames. From my experimenting with JPGs and darks/flats/bias frames I have come to the conclusion that it's not really worth the effort and in fact sometimes the final result is worse. Which agrees with what others have posted here about stacking JPGs.
The biggest single thing that helped me is I save the image from DSS as a 16bit TIFF with the option "embed adjustments in the saved image but do not apply them". Any other way and it either seemed too washed out or too bright. I don't do any post processing because I don't know how and have had mostly unsatisfactory results! For now I let DSS do it's thing and I'm happy with what comes out of it.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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MrKrink
sage
Reged: 02/20/09
Posts: 227
Loc: NC, USA
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So you are using jpg instead of RAW??
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Stuart McD.
My Sky - Lawndale, NC near(SLAB)
CGEM Mount (Still Looking for OTA)
Nikon D90
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Quote:
So you are using jpg instead of RAW??
Yes. My inexpensive camera only takes JPG.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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MrKrink
sage
Reged: 02/20/09
Posts: 227
Loc: NC, USA
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What size images are you using also?? I have ben taking mine on the "Fine" setting(10 mp and 3200x2500) but DSS is running "out of memory" before they get processed. I resize them to 1024x and they work fine.
Should I be using a lower MP setting like "normal or small"??
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Stuart McD.
My Sky - Lawndale, NC near(SLAB)
CGEM Mount (Still Looking for OTA)
Nikon D90
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maverickf
member
Reged: 02/26/09
Posts: 18
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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How about closing some application to free up some memory in your computer before you do big size files stacking. It may allow you to work on 10MP image, but in slow speed.
Just my 2 cents
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Celestron C11 XLT
Orion ED 80
Orion Short Tube 80
Celestron CG5 Mount
PHD guiding with Meade DSI
Canon EOS 40D (Unmodified) with Astronomik CLS CFS filter
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Quote:
What size images are you using also?? I have ben taking mine on the "Fine" setting(10 mp and 3200x2500) but DSS is running "out of memory" before they get processed. I resize them to 1024x and they work fine.
Should I be using a lower MP setting like "normal or small"??
I take 1600x1200 pictures (M3 setting on my Canon SX100) and I always use the least compression (Superfine "S" setting) no matter what size picture I take. The less compression the better the quality of the JPG.
But, like Maverick suggests above, first try closing some applications when running DSS. Then if you still run out of memory, go to smaller size pictures with the least amount of compression applied. If you are using RAW, then compression settings don't apply.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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MrKrink
sage
Reged: 02/20/09
Posts: 227
Loc: NC, USA
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I tried that and no go. I didn't have anything open but DSS. The fine or superfine determines what size your picture is. The finer you go the bigger the picture. But it depends on the mega-pixels of the camera too. Fine is as high as my Nikon D60 will go and that is 3200x2500 (10mp)
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Stuart McD.
My Sky - Lawndale, NC near(SLAB)
CGEM Mount (Still Looking for OTA)
Nikon D90
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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The Superfine setting on my SX100 determines the amount of compression (quality) applied to the JPG image and it affects the file size (MB). The M3 setting determines the dimensions of the picture (1600x1200) and also affects the file size (MB).
Try changing whichever menu setting determines the dimensions of your pictures (but keeping the quality setting at the highest), until you find a size that you can work with.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Orion Nebula. Same as above, no telescope optics, camera only. JPEGs stacked with Deep Sky Stacker, no other processing or editing. Except for resizing to post here, image is the way it came out of DSS:
Cropped from full size:
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
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MrKrink
sage
Reged: 02/20/09
Posts: 227
Loc: NC, USA
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WOW..........what were your settings and how many did you stack?? Did you auto focus or manual??
I also have a Fuji 5500(similar camera) and it took very good pix also.
What is the zoom power?
Edited by MrKrink (03/20/09 05:51 PM)
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Tek465
super member
Reged: 06/18/07
Posts: 128
Loc: Show Low, Az
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Quote:
Quote:
So you are using jpg instead of RAW??
Yes. My inexpensive camera only takes JPG.
If you would like to take RAW images there is a way. The SX100 is covered in CHDK ( http://chdk.wikia.com ).
It is a simple firmware mod that will let you shoot in raw plus lets you increase exposures up to 65s.
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Z10 Dob w/ Telrad
Celestron 15x70 binoc
SkyScout
FirstScope
Meade ETX-60AT
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Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Quote:
WOW..........what were your settings and how many did you stack?? Did you auto focus or manual??
I also have a Fuji 5500(similar camera) and it took very good pix also.
What is the zoom power?
Some were 10 seconds, some were 15 seconds, some ISO 800, 400, and 1600. (I was just messing around) The final stack was 70 lights. I used manual focus, set all the way to the end, infinity. Zoom power was 10x optical.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
|
Quads
sage
Reged: 09/07/08
Posts: 296
Loc: Central Sands, Wisconsin
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Quote:
If you would like to take RAW images there is a way. The SX100 is covered in CHDK ( http://chdk.wikia.com ).
It is a simple firmware mod that will let you shoot in raw plus lets you increase exposures up to 65s.
I would like to try RAW, and I have read about the CHDK thing, but I haven't read about anyone that's done it successfully to an SX100. I'm too chicken to try it. I would hate for something to go wrong and end up with a doorstop.
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I'm a "just for fun" photographer that also takes nighttime sky pictures.
Meade ETX-80AT-TC-BB
Canon PowerShot SX100 IS
Affordable Astrophotography
Powered by Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries
|
MrKrink
sage
Reged: 02/20/09
Posts: 227
Loc: NC, USA
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I can't get anything past 5 seconds that don't blur unless I got to 24mm wide angle. 55mm up to 300mm all blur past 5 second exposures.
Quote:
Quote:
WOW..........what were your settings and how many did you stack?? Did you auto focus or manual??
I also have a Fuji 5500(similar camera) and it took very good pix also.
What is the zoom power?
Some were 10 seconds, some were 15 seconds, some ISO 800, 400, and 1600. (I was just messing around) The final stack was 70 lights. I used manual focus, set all the way to the end, infinity. Zoom power was 10x optical.
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Stuart McD.
My Sky - Lawndale, NC near(SLAB)
CGEM Mount (Still Looking for OTA)
Nikon D90
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