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Hello everyone! Tried for the first time from my B8 rooftop, IC434 and the results without filter and my stock camera, where as expected dissapointing... This is my final product (with my current processing skills in PI WBPP/DBE/CC etc, I even tried color masks but high pixel values were prominent)   This is obviously ,even for my first try a VERY noisy and overstreched image ,even though I added about 6hours of total exposure time ... Is this the limit of my current equipment (stock Nikon D5300 no filters/RedCat51/SA 2i pro) or is it a matter of my processing skills (I have less than 4 months under my belt) ? What would be the next best upgrade, a astromodification of my Nikon / buying maybe an astro camera or adding guiding w/ filters? If anyone could reprocess it I would be very grateful ,just to compare it with my final image  I will add my *.xisf when it uploads...Thanks everyone! Edit: Master Light |
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Dimitris, This is actually pretty good for your light pollution and using a stock camera. You have round stars a flat field and some good detail on the horse head and flame. If you try M42 you will be happier it's brighter and covers a wider color spectrum. Bottom line I think you have the basics down. So to your question, my experience is yes your camera is now the limiting factor so either have it modified or if you have the budget get a cooled astro camera. I rejoined the hobby this time last year with a stock DSLR, then had it modified, then bought an ASI 2600 MM Pro and filters. I shoot under Bortle 7 skies. There really is no comparison to the cooled dedicated astro camera - but you can still get great results with a modified or indeed unmodified DSLR but you light pollution is going to be limiting. Good luck John |
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Dimitris Looking at your M 42 post I would say your setup seems to be working fine. Imagining things like IC 434 with very bright stars in the center of the field are just very challenging. I would spend more time working on processing and imaging skills than money on new equipment. There are many excellent images on astrobin using the same equipment as yours |
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| As said by John above the result is really pretty good and you got your fundamentals right. It is time to decide whether you would want to go incremental by modding the D5300 (which is a rather good camera once modded) or going "pro", that is you're going with the cooled astro cameras, OSC or mono. Also, think of bringing in a larger aperture into the equation, as this will help too. |
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I had a quick play with your master light and got the below. I think you have some great data there, however I am also quite new to PI. I'm sure others could do it a lot more justice. |
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here's my result using a Canon EOSr(unmodified) and the Redcat51. Just an hour of data collected as well. https://astrob.in/kgdyrf/0/ |
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Here is amy first take on the original data: |
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| Nice going! As a suggestion, try dithering your frames more to avoid the walking noise pattern you are seeing there. You also have quite a bit of light pollution so if you can try at a darker area it will be even better. |
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| Hello @Dimitris, would you please post a .fits or .tiff version as well? I'd like to take a crack at your data but, I'm currently not using Pixinsight. Thanks! By the way, it looks good for an unmodded DSLR! |
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| That's a pretty good shot for the gear and location you are under. I think at this point you could both continue to improve your post processing as you learn more, and also consider investing in a cooled camera. Narrowband filters will cut straight through and would be very beneficial for all of the Ha in that region. The only real struggle with narrowband in your case is using a star tracker, but you can take test exposures to get the framing right. A GoTo mount is probably a better investment first though. I think without investing any more money in gear, the next best thing is to go travel to a dark site if you have access to one. |
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I processed your master light and got this. Regarding your question for the beginning I suggest you to modify your DSLR, you can still get an amazing results with your setup. I modified my Canon DSLR and was amazed with the results. Maybe with the modification you can buy a LP filter, that's what I did. More importantly, dithering will significantly reduce the walking noise in your final image, you don't need guiding for dithering, I do it manually between 3-5 frames. Practicing on free data will help you to improve you processing skills, you can just type in google "free astrophotography data" and you will find a lot to download. Mohd |
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Thanks everyone for your replies! I threw away out 1.5 hours pf exposure (another master light I integrated) and just processed the one I attached and got a somewhat better result (will post it for historical reasons on my AB page ) :  Still very noisy, but it's something... If I was to add another 5 hours let's say , with the same conditions/equipment .Is it going to improve the final image? @Mohammed Hussain In order to do dithering I need guiding, am I right? How do you do it manually? Also I have not found a shop here in Greece to modify Nikon DSLRs and Iam not confident in doing it myself...Is there a fellow greek or EU member that knows a way?Or is it doable to find a tutorial and do it myself? Lastly, what Lp filters do you suggest for a modified astro DSLR or astro camera for white zones like mine? @justins.apHere it is. @andrea tasselli Andrea, getting bigger aperture mean bigger mount/scope etc, I thing that I want to take the best out of my star tracker first! For cooled cameras do you have any suggestions? Getting an OSC cooled camera instead of mono,would be better for me now because that way I dont need extra filters, also it less time consuming in regards with the acquisition time .What do you think? Sorry for the thousands questions of mine, just excited to be part of this hobby and community. Thank you guys |
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You need to add 4x the data to get 2x in SNR. It will help, but you will get by far the most significant increase by modding your camera. I also noticed that your flat correction use not very good and you have quite some vignetting left in the image. Having a proper flat correction is very important. |
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For the dithering part, I just randomly change direction of the camera. On the Sky-watcher SA there are buttons with arrows on them, between 3-5 frames use them to change what your camera is pointing at, I hold push for 3 seconds. You need to do it randomly, so no specific direction. If you use a ball head you can use it also to change pointing. I sent my DSLR to a store in my country to do the modification and I don't live in EU, so sorry I can't help you with that. About the LP filter, dual band filters may be the best option or the L-pro filter. Dual band filters like, L-extreme or the l-enhance from Optolong. I personally use the L-enhance but the L-extreme will suppress more of the LP. If you have any further questions or you need extra clarification mention them, I will be happy to help. |
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7.35
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Dimitris: Hi Dimitris, To get it modified I sent it to this chap in Rumenia:Florian Mihai www.infraredcameraconversion.com https://www.facebook.com/infraredcameraconversion/ Be sure to ask for an IR Cut modification with the cut-off at 700nm. As for bigger I mean a bigger lens, something as 300mm f/4, used of course. And get a LP suppresion filter if you want to keep the RedCat. An L-PRO should suffice. My recommendation is going with the modified DSLR route first and then sit and assess how are you faring. As you can see from the link I'm sending you the price asked is well withing the cost a 2" filter so not really expensive. An APS-C sized cooled camera is going to be a LOT more expensive than that! But, if you want to go that route there are several options: ZWO I'd recommend for quality. Omegon is a cheaper alternative and a viable one, especially in the EU. |
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andrea tasselli:Dimitris: Andrea,thanks for the info! In any path that I choose though, I believe that guiding is going to be mandatory especially when shooting with LP filters... Am I right? Without guiding I am not going to achieve 2-3 mins of exposure that the filter dictates. What model would you recommend for an OSC ZWO camera? |
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| If you want the biggest bang for the bug, i recommend the asi533mc. It's very easy to use, has no amp glow and you don't need to get any expensive filter sets. |
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| Guiding would be required by the tracking precision of your mount and the pixel scale of the image. It might be required or not, it depends. It is definitely a requirement if you want to stretch exposure length above 60s with a sky-tracker and your current setup. As for the camera it depends on budget and requirements. If you want to stick with OSC then my choice would be the ASI294MC-Pro. |
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If you are within driving distance and portable, going to a dark sky site will be, by far, the single biggest impact. Truly, the difference dark skies make has to be experienced to be believed. This costs nothing other than gas and time. Driving to a B3 or B4 site and spending two hours there will give you an infinitely better image than what you've shared. Here is one, just over 1 hour from B3, using very similar equipment to yours (un modified DSLR, portable tracker, no guiding, camera tripod): The Flame and Horsehead Nebulae in Orion You could certainly spend cash on a cooled camera (well over $1000 for a good one with an APS-C type field of view); the advantage of a cooled camera is simply lower dark current noise. But if you are imaging from B8, dark current is not your issue, light pollution is. A cooled OSC astro cam will do nothing for light pollution. A cheaper solution to that is to buy a clip filter for your DSLR that removes some of the light pollution. There are compromises involved with using one, but it will definitely give you a better result than what you shared and will be the cheapest upgrade (costs $100-$150). You can astro-mod that camera, for a few hundred dollars (or better, simply buy one used on Astromart or CN, they come up very often). Astromodding will improve H-alpha sensitivity but will not do much for things like galaxies and reflection nebula. |
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It might be an idea to try using the starnet feature which is now found in the latest PI release? This would help control the size of the bright star blooms. Do your normal processing -- then apply an initial weak stretch -- then pull out the stars using starnet into a starmask. Next work on stretching and optimising the starless image using curves (luminosity and colour) and then additional noise reduction (say MLT) etc Then improve the colour of the stars in your starmask using curves -- possibly then reduce star size using starmask and morphological transformation. Finally add those now nice sharp correctly coloured and smaller stars back into the starless image using PixMath. best wishes TimH |
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| I wonder why Starnet is for astrophotographers the equivalent of Windex in the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" universe. Starnet isn't the cure for every malady. The issues with this particular dataset are the wild gradients, the lack of signal and the walking noise. Let's focus on these issues first. Star reduction and similar things are low-priority processing steps. I can't understand why the astrophotography community gives so much importance in such processing tools while forgetting the essentials like signal, noise, light pollution, and the impact of tracking/optics issues to star-shapes. |
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Die Launische Diva: I couldn't agree more. Dimitris issues have nothing to do with stars shape and colours and all to do with getting more net signal into the camera. |
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| @Tim Hawkes Well ,I used this tool to try and make the nebulae more apparent and add contrast in the starless part of the image. I think my star shapes are ok-ish. Thanks anyway! As Andrea says, I think that I have to improve the acquisition part of the process, unfortunately cannot avoid LP, I am going to have to battle through it with filters and better equipment or add exposure time for now. |
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Just read that I can dither with the built in SA 2i pro console app, is this a viable option? Does it need to be paired through the app the whole time the mount gives the sequence orders to my camera? Thanks again! |
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Dimitris: Did some digging, as I'm not familiar with the app. But, yes. I does appear that you can connect your DSLR with a shutter release cable to the Star Adventurer 2i Pro. And then you can set up dithering in the "Console app" And this will give you dithering in the RA axis. This will already improve your images a lot. Any dithering is better than no dithering. But you will need to have the camera connected to the mount in order to do this There also seems to be a "wifi Off on run" option in the console app when setting up the astrophotography, in order to extend battery life. If you're able to turn off the wifi, I'm pretty sure this HAS to mean that you could run dithering without being connected to the phone for the entire night. (personally I wouldn't turn off the wifi, as turning on the wifi requires you to touch the mount) I had a look at this video for this info |
