Thursday 8 October 2009. Met Office
seeing condition: Good
I know I need to take more shots to minimise the noise, but this is a first attempt and I am happy to get something recognisable. I am using (probably very badly) ImagesPlus (IP) to combine and develop the digital images. I recently purchased a copy of Ron Wodaski's book "The New Astro Zone System for Astro Imaging" which describes how to use Photoshop's levels and curves to selectively develop the different 'zones' of the astro image. When I tried to use it on this image it became apparent to me that the method is probably only going to produce significantly better results than IP with shots where the noise level is much lower than in this example. Still, its early days and I may just need to play with Photoshop more.
M27 Dumbbell Nebula
Canon 450D: 8 x 240secs at ISO800; PHD guiding
I know I need to take more shots to minimise the noise, but this is a first attempt and I am happy to get something recognisable. I am using (probably very badly) ImagesPlus (IP) to combine and develop the digital images. I recently purchased a copy of Ron Wodaski's book "The New Astro Zone System for Astro Imaging" which describes how to use Photoshop's levels and curves to selectively develop the different 'zones' of the astro image. When I tried to use it on this image it became apparent to me that the method is probably only going to produce significantly better results than IP with shots where the noise level is much lower than in this example. Still, its early days and I may just need to play with Photoshop more.
M27 Dumbbell Nebula
Canon 450D: 8 x 240secs at ISO800; PHD guiding