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nickatnight
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/14/08
Posts: 1751
Loc: Santa Clarita, CA (LA Suburbs)
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Hi bedowinn. Nice top see someone local on the board! I use DeepSky Stacker, PixInsight and Photoshop, with a few plug-ins. One day I hope to pick up Image Plus or similar, but the above is doing a pretty good job for me so far.
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nickatnight
Celestron CPC 9.25" GPS
Lumicon 2" LumiBrite Diagonal
Meade s5000 18mm UWA, Meade 6.7mm UWA,
Parks G.S-5 10mm, Celestrom 40mm Plossl
Parks 2x Barlow, Meade Tele-Extender
Celestron f6.3 Focal Reducer
Lumicon UHC Filter and Deep Sky Filter
Canon Rebel XTi (prime)
Canon Powershot G9 (afocal)
Canon EOS T-Ring and Parks T-Adapter
Lumicon Univ DigiCam Adapter
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bedowinn
member
Reged: 07/17/09
Posts: 20
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Nick,
I am a noob. What little I have learned basically comes from these forums, and a local camera shop. I have a CG-5 swinging an Orion 80mm ED/Canon. Orion 80mm shorty autoguide scope with an Orion autoguider CCD.
I finaly got PhD to lock on a guide star last week. I spent the next 3 hours shooting M31. I shot 17 5 min exp at ISO 800 and 10 darks (which I screwed up by leaving live view on).
I stack with Nebulosity. I just picked up PS CS-4.
So now I am trying to learn what to do next. Right now my post processing skills suck. But at least I have some data to play with.
BTW, Valencia creamed Saugus last night 49-0. Valencia will be fun to watch in the playoffs.
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Tonk
Post Laureate
Reged: 08/19/04
Posts: 4349
Loc: Leeds, UK, 54N
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Hey thats a very very nice image indeed.
Its even captured two dark matter satellite galaxies. Did you use flats? 
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Televue 85, GM-8/Gemini, Canon 40D (unmodded), Canon 450D (modded w/Astronomiks clip-ins - UV/IR, OWB)
Coronado SM60/BF10, Baader Herschel Wedge
Leeds Sky Clock Ripon Sky Clock
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David Rosenthal
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 06/23/06
Posts: 1645
Loc: NJ
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Awesome M31 Nick!!! You preserved some real nice details in the core and have overall done a great jbo with the processing. ( Flats will help out as Tony mentioned  )
Color balance is a personal thing...do what looks good to you and makes you happy !!!
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David Rosenthal | Midland Park, NJ
My Image Gallery
http://www.EastCoastAstro.com
Atlas EQ-G EQMOD USBDIR [Self-Hypertuned]
8" Meade SCT | Borg 76ED | Takahashi FS-60C
Self Modded 400D | SX MX716 | DSI Pro | SPC900NC
Series 5000 26mm, Hyperion 17mm, TV 11mm Plossl
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nickatnight
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/14/08
Posts: 1751
Loc: Santa Clarita, CA (LA Suburbs)
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Thanks again. I did shoot flats, twice, but there was a lot of stuff floating in the air that weekend. My original flats had a giant fuzz right on top of the galaxy. I wound up cleaning off the scope and reshooting flats, which was much improved, but not perfect. When I play with the color a bit more, I'll fix up those spots.
Bedowinn - After stacking, your primary tools will be curves and the histogram. I use PixInsight and Photoshop for this, but Nebulosity I think has many tools for this people swear by. You're going to gently use the curves, in the form of gentle "S" to bring out the signal over the background. You may look into Gradient Exterminator (PS plug-in), as I've yet to shoot anything that didn't have a sky gradient negatively effecting the image. You'll see this gradient appear as your stretching, and it's best to take care of it early. Processing skills take time, like an eternity. I spend many evenings calling myself a processing hack, and often I know there's better data captured than I can pull out properly. Just keep at it and it will develop.
Sounds like Saugus had an off night last night. 49-0! Ouch. Well deserved play-off run for Valencia though. I just want the season to end, 'cause they shine their searchlights across my sky on game nights. 
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nickatnight
Celestron CPC 9.25" GPS
Lumicon 2" LumiBrite Diagonal
Meade s5000 18mm UWA, Meade 6.7mm UWA,
Parks G.S-5 10mm, Celestrom 40mm Plossl
Parks 2x Barlow, Meade Tele-Extender
Celestron f6.3 Focal Reducer
Lumicon UHC Filter and Deep Sky Filter
Canon Rebel XTi (prime)
Canon Powershot G9 (afocal)
Canon EOS T-Ring and Parks T-Adapter
Lumicon Univ DigiCam Adapter
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bedowinn
member
Reged: 07/17/09
Posts: 20
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Nick,
I aim to get better at the processing. Woodland hills Camera is supposed to put on a seminar in a couple of months. I will look into downloading Exterminator.
I snapped some shots of M33 and M13 last night at Aguora Hills (It got real lonely and dark there after awhile).
Debating whether to freeze my keester up on Mt. Pinos next weekend. Are you going??
Mike
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telecasterguru
member
Reged: 02/02/09
Posts: 67
Loc: Sydney Australia
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Nick,
I think you have done a great job on the Galaxy.
Frank
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bbgobie
newbie
Reged: 11/12/09
Posts: 4
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Great Image! I love it!
I've got some questions, hope you don't mind. As I think I'm really getting an insight into astrophotography through your thread.
I've downloaded your tiff and have rotated + resized to match up perfectly with the image you posted. WOW!
Am I to understand to get from the tiff to your final output you only pretty much play with curves/levels/saturation? I don't seem to be able to manipulate it anywhere close to what you have. I'm a total newb to this whole thing and think I totally misunderstood my previous attempts.
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Please visit my photoblog
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bbgobie
newbie
Reged: 11/12/09
Posts: 4
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Hey Nickatnight
Thanks so much for posting the raw file. I've learned a lot since I found your post yesterday. I spend the afternoon learning pixinsight through their tutorials and WOW! Still so much to learn but I'm making huge progress.
I have another stupid question though. In your original stack do you upsize the resolution? It seems like M31 has filled your frame? I always thought M31 was a tiny dot and smudge in most scopes nevermind a 72mm refractor(with wide field adapter?). Or is it all we can see visually is a dot and a smudge but actually if we just keep our scope aimed their and shoot we can pull out the type of details you have?
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Please visit my photoblog
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nickatnight
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 04/14/08
Posts: 1751
Loc: Santa Clarita, CA (LA Suburbs)
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Hi bbgobie. Sorry I missed the questions you posted. I'm glad your learning a lot playing with the stack. First, M31 is a large target. I would have been better off rotating the camera a bit, but to answer your question, thae stack is the full frame, original capture size. Visually it's quite large too, but that's primarily the core you see with binos or a scope. The outer spiral arms take some stretching even in long photographic exposures.
Sounds like what you're doing is the right thing. PixInsight has some great tutorials, and apart from stretching, getting rid of gradients and noise is important, and i do a lot of sharpening and layer masking in Photoshop to get the different parts of the image to stand out but blend with the rest. I'd love to see what you end up with after your work on the stack...
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nickatnight
Celestron CPC 9.25" GPS
Lumicon 2" LumiBrite Diagonal
Meade s5000 18mm UWA, Meade 6.7mm UWA,
Parks G.S-5 10mm, Celestrom 40mm Plossl
Parks 2x Barlow, Meade Tele-Extender
Celestron f6.3 Focal Reducer
Lumicon UHC Filter and Deep Sky Filter
Canon Rebel XTi (prime)
Canon Powershot G9 (afocal)
Canon EOS T-Ring and Parks T-Adapter
Lumicon Univ DigiCam Adapter
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bbgobie
newbie
Reged: 11/12/09
Posts: 4
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Hey Nick, 3am here, I'll find the image I processed based on your raw tomorrow some time. No where near as good as yours but definatitely learning.
Thanks so much!
I seem to learn more every day and get new questions everyday
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Please visit my photoblog
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wrather1
AstroBear
Reged: 10/25/05
Posts: 3880
Loc: Dallas, Texas
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Hey Nick - could you please take a look at my attempt at M31 with a bigger scope and tell me how I could improve it? I have gone around and around and around with the processing and I just can't seem to get the color balance the way I think it should look. I'm new at shooting galaxies!
M31 Linky
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"Don't worry about what telescope you own, or its quality. Just get out under the night sky, and enjoy God's wondrous universe." - T. M. Back
Meade RCX400-12 "Ursa Major"
TMB 130SS + EQ6-PRO "Ursus Polaris"
Orion ED80 "Ursa Minor", WO ZS66ED "grab-'n'-go"
EOS 30D (Hutech), ToUcam Pro, Star Shoot Autoguider, Meade DSI
North Texas Clear Sky Chart
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