Canon 1100D Alt-Az First Light

[Davo]

I just tried out my new Canon 1100D with 300mm zoom lens on my Nexstar 4SE alt-az mount and you can see the results here http://starrydave.com/?p=259

Nowhere near the quality of the deep sky gurus on here but I am very pleased with what Star Tools was able to produce using very basic equipment.

My next step is to try to image thru the OTA. Fingers crossed.

Dave

[admin]

I just tried out my new Canon 1100D with 300mm zoom lens on my Nexstar 4SE alt-az mount and you can see the results here http://starrydave.com/?p=259

Nowhere near the quality of the deep sky gurus on here but I am very pleased with what Star Tools was able to produce using very basic equipment.

My next step is to try to image thru the OTA. Fingers crossed.

Dave

These are very good results Dave - congratulations!
My only nitpick would be the color balance on some of the images (rather blue), notable exception M1.
Very nice - would love to see what happens when you really start pushing it!

[Davo]

Thanks Ivo. I worked in a TV repair shop when color TV first came to Scotland. We would set the color balance up to be as natural as possible but people would then crank up the saturation after we left. I guess I am still in that mindset.

One thing you can maybe help me with is that I seem to only be able to use the central part of each image outputted from DeepSkyStacker. My work flow is AutoDev>Wipe>Develop>Sharpen>Color>Contrast>Denoise. I use the default settings for AutoDev>Wipe>. With all my 1100D shots I get a result like the attached screenshot after the Develop. Any idea what is causing this? I never saw this on my Canon A810 point and shoot captures.

[admin]

One thing you can maybe help me with is that I seem to only be able to use the central part of each image outputted from DeepSkyStacker. My work flow is AutoDev>Wipe>Develop>Sharpen>Color>Contrast>Denoise. I use the default settings for AutoDev>Wipe>. With all my 1100D shots I get a result like the attached screenshot after the Develop. Any idea what is causing this? I never saw this on my Canon A810 point and shoot captures.

We're either looking at vignetting (use Wipe's vigneting preset in that case, or better yet - flats!), or we're looking at stacking artifacts which make Wipe back off near the edges where they are located. The latter can (and should!) be remedied by cropping them.

[Davo]

Thanks Ivo,

I haven't shot any flats yet but you were right about the stacking artifacts. I cropped the edges out after doing the AutoDev and that seems to have solved the problem. The artifacts were probably caused by field rotation due to the alt-az mount. I will now go thru the images again.

Is it possible to highlight the artifacts in ST to make them easier to see?

thanks again
Dave

[Davo]

Just an update on this. I reworked all the captures by cropping off about 300px around each image after AutoDev and it seemed to solve the Wipe problem. I also cut back on the blue levels and posted the best images here

http://starrydave.com/?p=259

Even managed to get some of the elusive M45 nebulosity

[admin]

Just an update on this. I reworked all the captures by cropping off about 300px around each image after AutoDev and it seemed to solve the Wipe problem. I also cut back on the blue levels and posted the best images here

http://starrydave.com/?p=259

Even managed to get some of the elusive M45 nebulosity

Nice, nice, nice!
May I ask which version of StarTools did you use ? How did you calibrate your colors?

[Davo]

May I ask which version of StarTools did you use ? How did you calibrate your colors?

ST v 1.3.3.224

Excuse my dumbness but I don't know how I calibrated. All I do is load the color module and move the sliders around until I am happy with the result.

[admin]

May I ask which version of StarTools did you use ? How did you calibrate your colors?

ST v 1.3.3.224

Excuse my dumbness but I don't know how I calibrated. All I do is load the color module and move the sliders around until I am happy with the result.

No dumbness at all! A lot in this hobby is about personal taste! You can have a look at the StarTools.log file (in the same folder as the executable) to see what you did.

Here's my question though; can you try processing the image in 1.3.5 beta? Its color module is greatly enhanced and should yield much better results - most definitely worth a shot!

[Davo]

Here's my question though; can you try processing the image in 1.3.5 beta? Its color module is greatly enhanced and should yield much better results - most definitely worth a shot!

Will do. I also uploaded the M42 .FTS file here if any gurus want to give it a go.

http://www.starrydave.com/images/M42.FTS

I also managed to get some more digiscoped captures using my Nexstar 4SE/Canon A810 combo so I have plenty to experiment with. In fact, here is M42 taken with my £50 Canon A810 camera using the beta ST. You can see I just worked out what the Reveal button does.

http://starrydave.com/?p=282