New to AP seek advice

[MarcoS]

Hi Ivo,
this one is the same pic but stacked without flats it looks a bit better, I' will try again with a fresh set of flats/bias and see the results.

double cluster upper part.JPG (52.48 KiB) Viewed 10504 times

Gretings
Marco

[admin]

Hi Ivo,
this one is the same pic but stacked without flats it looks a bit better, I' will try again with a fresh set of flats/bias and see the results.

double cluster upper part.JPG

Gretings
Marco

That looks better, indeed. My hunch is something is not quite right with the flats (or how they are applied).

[MarcoS]

Hi Ivo,
I am planning to get an occasion DSRL camera and have it modded (or do the modding myself).
pics taken with a modded camera are all reddish in color, I presume that the elimination the excess red in StarTools is done in the color tabs.?
Or is some other special buttons to do it?

best regards

Marco

[admin]

I am planning to get an occasion DSRL camera and have it modded (or do the modding myself).

Nice! Modding can be done yourself quite easily on some models if you have a steady hand. Which model are you getting?

pics taken with a modded camera are all reddish in color, I presume that the elimination the excess red in StarTools is done in the color tabs.?
Or is some other special buttons to do it?

Wipe will take care of any bias in the red channel (which is indeed to be expected). You'll catch a lot more Ha, N2 and S2.
Looking forward to seeing your first-light results!

[MarcoS]

Hi Ivo,
I'm looking for Canon 1100D or a 600D with preference on the 600D model.
I have seen few you tubes over modding the 600D and it does not look really complicated, and I'm quite handy in electronics.
So I will give it a try myself.
I still have to decide exactly which kind of mod to do.
I will be keeping the original canon LPF-1 filter with the autocleaning thing, and will remove the LPF-2 filter.
And then I haven't decided jet if I will replace it with the Baader-BCF-Filter http://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/pro ... -1000.html or just live that space empty.

Somebody advised me that you do not actually need to put a filter in place of the LPF-2..... still checking if this is correct.
and if I read this spectrum report correct he could be right.

spectrum.jpg (69.8 KiB) Viewed 10486 times

What is your opinion about?

Regarding PIxInsight, I received the trial key,and I fired it up once, very nice and colorful tabs everywhere I must say, but nightmarish to use,and one of the most cluttered interfaces I have came across.

So one of this days when my budget will permit I will purchase a licence of your program.

Best regards
Marco

[admin]

Have a serious look at the 1100D. The nice thing about that model versus anything else, is that its pixels are bigger (and are thus better at gathering faint signal at reduced noise). You more than likely won't use the full resolution that either the 600D or 1100D have to offer (as atmospheric conditions won't allow resolving that much detail at the focal lengths you are imaging at).

[MarcoS]

Hi Ivo,
I haven't made my mind up yet about the camera model, the 1100d as you say got bigger pixels but a guy from Duch Digital works advise me against it because he say that those camera have a pixel leakage problem.....

Any way I had a couple of hours of clear skies and I managed few shoots.
First one was with the camera piggybacked on the scope with a self made staff and with a 146° wide angle inon wet lens in front of it.
10 x 20 sec frames ISO800 +flats +bias and darks stacked DSS.
This is the set up

pic4.JPG (70.87 KiB) Viewed 10455 times

And this is the result after 20 minutes StarTools

Costellazione-di-Orion.JPG (41.1 KiB) Viewed 10455 times

Must say I'm pleased with the result.

This one his an other story en got some problems with it:
Cigar Galaxy
60 x 15 sec frames ISO800 +flats +bias and darks stacked DSS. 15 minutes esposure after stacking
It was taken afocally trough a 36mm 2" hyperion

This is the result after about 3 days trying.... (I had some problems with DSS as well)

cigarlastklein.jpg (17 KiB) Viewed 10455 times

As you can see it does not look really nice no colors, and it lack luminosity and vitality..

Here is the FTS file I was starting with,
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6oGP3 ... sp=sharing

And this is the StarTool Log

Can you please advise where I went wrong with the processing?

File loaded [C:\Users\Marco.CONTECH\Pictures\1-Telescope\16-02-2014\cigar\cigarlast.FTS].
---
--- Bin
Parameter [Scale] set to [(scale/noise reduction 50.00%)/(400.00%)/(+2.00 bits)]
--- Auto Develop
Parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] set to [Off]
Parameter [Outside ROI Influence] set to [15 %]
--- Crop
Parameter [X1] set to [566 pixels]
Parameter [Y1] set to [354 pixels]
Parameter [X2] set to [1429 pixels (-522)]
Parameter [Y2] set to [1106 pixels (-393)]
--- Wipe
Parameter [Mode] set to [Correct Color & Brightness]
Parameter [UNKNOWN] set to [No]
Parameter [Precision] set to [256 x 256 pixels]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [1 pixels]
Parameter [Drop Off Point] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Corner Aggressiveness] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Aggressiveness] set to [75 %]
--- Wavelet Sharpen
Parameter [Intelligent Enhance] set to [Yes]
Parameter [Scale 1] set to [33 %]
Parameter [Scale 2] set to [35 %]
Parameter [Scale 3] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Scale 4] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Scale 5] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [8.0 pixels]
Parameter [Amount] set to [123 %]
Parameter [Small Detail Bias] set to [98 %]
--- Auto Develop
Parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] set to [5.6 pixels]
Parameter [Outside ROI Influence] set to [23 %]
--- HDR
Parameter [Small Detail Precision] set to [Max]
Parameter [Channels] set to [Brightness & Color]
Parameter [Algorithm] set to [Optimize Soft]
Parameter [Dark/Bright Response] set to [Full]
Parameter [Detail Size Range] set to [60 pixels]
Parameter [Noise Suppression] set to [11 %]
--- Color
Parameter [Cap Green] set to [To Yellow]
Parameter [Bias Slider Mode] set to [Sliders Reduce Color Bias]
Parameter [Style] set to [Scientific (Color Constancy)]
Parameter [LRGB Method Emulation] set to [Straight CIELab Luminance Retention]
Parameter [Dark Saturation] set to [2.60]
Parameter [Bright Saturation] set to [1.90]
Parameter [Saturation Amount] set to [384 %]
Parameter [Blue Bias Reduce] set to [3.21]
Parameter [Green Bias Reduce] set to [1.06]
Parameter [Red Bias Reduce] set to [1.99]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [1.0 pixels]
--- Develop
Parameter [White Calibration] set to [Use Dark Anomaly Filter (May White Clip)]
Parameter [Gamma] set to [0.93]
Parameter [Skyglow] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Digital Development] set to [75.85 %]
Parameter [Blue Luminance Contrib.] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Green Luminance Contrib.] set to [18 %]
Parameter [Red Luminance Contrib.] set to [2 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Headroom] set to [2 %]
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [4.6 pixels]
--- Wavelet De-Noise
Parameter [Scale 1] set to [88 %]
Parameter [Scale 2] set to [90 %]
Parameter [Scale 3] set to [90 %]
Parameter [Scale 4] set to [87 %]
Parameter [Scale 5] set to [69 %]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [1.0 pixels]
Parameter [Scale Correlation] set to [3]
Parameter [Color Detail Loss] set to [21 %]
Parameter [Brightness Detail Loss] set to [17 %]
Parameter [Redistribution Kernel] set to [4.5 pixels]
Parameter [Read Noise Compensation] set to [12.25 %]
Parameter [Smoothness] set to [75 %]
File loaded [C:\Users\Marco.CONTECH\Pictures\1-Telescope\16-02-2014\cigar\cigarlast.FTS].
--- Life
Parameter [Detail Preservation] set to [Linear Brightness Mask]
Parameter [Compositing Algorithm] set to [Multiply, Gamma Correct]
Parameter [Inherit Brightness, Color] set to [Off]
Parameter [Output Glow Only] set to [No]
Parameter [Airy Disk Sampling] set to [128 x 128 pixels]
Parameter [Airy Disk Radius] set to [21 pixels]
Parameter [Glow Threshold] set to [0 %]
Parameter [Detail Preservation Radius] set to [20.0 pixels]
Parameter [Saturation] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Strength] set to [100 %]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [4.2 pixels]
--- Filter
Parameter [Filter Mode] set to [Saturate H-beta]
Parameter [Sampling Method] set to [3x3 Average]
Parameter [Filter Width] set to [5]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [1.0 pixels]
--- Color
Parameter [Cap Green] set to [To Brown]
Parameter [Bias Slider Mode] set to [Sliders Increase Color Bias]
Parameter [Style] set to [Scientific (Color Constancy)]
Parameter [LRGB Method Emulation] set to [Straight CIELab Luminance Retention]
Parameter [Dark Saturation] set to [3.60]
Parameter [Bright Saturation] set to [8.30]
Parameter [Saturation Amount] set to [355 %]
Parameter [Blue Bias Increase] set to [1.96]
Parameter [Green Bias Increase] set to [2.02]
Parameter [Red Bias Increase] set to [1.73]
Parameter [Mask Fuzz] set to [1.0 pixels]
File saved [C:\Users\Marco.CONTECH\Pictures\1-Telescope\16-02-2014\cigar\cigarlast.tiff].


Best regards
Marco

[admin]

Hmmm... This data is *very* challenging.
There appears to be some sort of strange cross-hatch pattern visible. Any idea what caused that?
The stars also seem devoid of color information and the flats also don't seem to have helped - vignetting is pretty severe!

There seems to be something very wrong with the data - I don't think anything is necessarily wrong with your processing!

Regarding the 1100D - that's the first I've heard anything negative about this camera body. I'm not sure what 'pixel leakage' is, but I do know that other members have had great results with it. Price may come down now too because they are just about to launch the 1200D (the successor) - you may be able to pick one up cheap!

The 1100D is the favorite of many modding gurus (check out this bad boy; http://www.jtwastronomy.com/products/ultimate.html) There is a good explanation of what to look for in a DSLR too.

[MarcoS]

Hi Ivo,
Yes it is challenging, no Idea what caused the cross-hatch,
Could it be a DSS problem?
I stacked again leaving the flats out, did not help...
I will try again with other settings

Regarding the D1100 must say that in all the googoling I have done I have not found this problem mentioned nowhere else. It could be that the statement of that guy was influenced by other factors such as not having a D1100 in stock ready for delivery of preferring to mod a 600D instead...

Best regards
Marco

[MarcoS]

Hi Ivo,
I ended up getting a EOS1100D, nice camera, easy to use, and in prime focus the images are much easy to process

here two sample of what I managed so far:
Orion Nebulae
Meade LS6" EOS 1100D on prime focus
Total exposure 29minutes and 52seconds
ISO 800 72 x 25sec frames

orion-neb-04-03.jpg (103.83 KiB) Viewed 10376 times

Bode's Nebulae.
Total exposure 30 minutes
70 x 30 seconds frames ISO 1600

bode-nebulae.jpg (102.24 KiB) Viewed 10376 times

Have a nice clear skies weekend!

Marco