Camera Labs

This is my first one. I've used a 6" reflector (750 mm focal lenght) and my 50D in prime focus. 20 exposures of 30 seconds at ISO 1600, 20 darks and 16 bias frames. Played with it in photoshop ( too much I think)
But it was surely fun.
C&C wellcome and whished for.

M31-V3 by Radu Coman, on Flickr

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Radu
Canon PowerShot S100
Canon 50D , SIGMA 10-20 f3.5 ,Canon EF 24-105 L IS USM, Canon EF 100/2.8 macro Canon EF 50/1.4 ,Canon EF 85 f1.8,Canon EF-S17-85 4-5.6 Old Tamron 28-300 inherited from my Canon Rebel G film camera
Canon580EXII
http://www.errre.net

Hi Radu,

Congratulations. Isn't it lovely the way a camera can show so much more than the fuzzy blob you get looking through the eyepiece.

I'm absolutely no expert but I'd be tempted to convert the image to black and white, apply some strong noise reduction, add a little sharpening (smart sharpen in PhotoShop) and then apply just the gentlest of "S" curves to enhance the faint nebulosity at the edges. There's a limit to what you can recover from any image due to noise but have a go and see what you think.

Bob.

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OM-D E-M5 + ED 12-50mm, H-PS14042E, H-F007014E, L-RS014150E, M.ZUIKO DIGITAL 45mm 1:1.8.
Gitzo GT1541T, Arca-Swiss Z1 DP ball-head.
Astrophotography: TEC 140 'scope, FLI ML16803 camera, ASA DDM60 Pro mount.

Thats a great shot which demonstrates what can be achieved with such a small sub time.

The dust lanes are showing up very clearly (which is more than I have ever managed!!!)

It has a a definite colour cast which could do with being removed. One way, as Bob suggests would be to convert to B&W, alternatively going back to the source stack can help. Did you stack the images in Deep Sky Stacker?

Its quite noisy, but thats only to be expected with relatively few subs. Adding more subs will help to reduce the noise.

The framing is good and this shows a lot of promise, looking forward to seeing how it develops.

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Lee Diggle
My Astronomy Blog | My Photography Gallery

Thanks Bob and Lee. I am yet to learn a lot about shooting stars and pp in Photoshop.
And yes, I’ve stacked them with DSS. I’ll surely try the B/W route, see how it goes. The pictures were taken in the middle of the Negev desert, I drove 200 km to get there but it was worth it. I’ve shot the Milky Way too with a wide angle, but I haven’t processed them yet.

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Radu
Canon PowerShot S100
Canon 50D , SIGMA 10-20 f3.5 ,Canon EF 24-105 L IS USM, Canon EF 100/2.8 macro Canon EF 50/1.4 ,Canon EF 85 f1.8,Canon EF-S17-85 4-5.6 Old Tamron 28-300 inherited from my Canon Rebel G film camera
Canon580EXII
http://www.errre.net