Orion strikes again

We had a very dark clear night tonight, so I tried the orion nebula shot again.



30 second - F2 - ISO 400



2.5 second - F2.4 - ISO 100 - Stack of 13 images

1st frame unenhanced stack, 2nd frame contrast enhanced, 3rd frame orion overlay from telscope image to compare visible details.

The contrast is better than last time, and there is a little bit more detail that is showing up, but I think the camera will have to be guided and take a longer exposure to get the fainter details to show up.

Shay

Get yourself a clock drive and you will really be getting some cool shots. Nice to see the F707 working at its limits. Keep up the good work.

Perry

Thanks Perry. I am going to try and cannabalize my telescope and rig something up. It is so tantalizingly close to revealing details and color.

Shay

Perry said:

Get yourself a clock drive and you will really be getting some cool
shots. Nice to see the F707 working at its limits. Keep up the good
work.

Perry

Click to expand...

Shay said:

Thanks Perry. I am going to try and cannabalize my telescope and
rig something up. It is so tantalizingly close to revealing
details and color.

Shay

Click to expand...

Beautiful shots, Shay, as per usual ! Do you mind me asking how you post an overlay. What a super way to present a shot like this...what technique was used ? I this a Gif animation ? Sorry to pester you with tech questions...but how's a Newbie to learn ?
Don C

Shay Stephens said:

Perry said:

Get yourself a clock drive and you will really be getting some cool
shots. Nice to see the F707 working at its limits. Keep up the good
work.

Perry

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The picture is an animated gif. I am using photoshop elements right now, so I created three layers. On each layer I pasted the correct image in the order I wanted them to show up. First image on the bottom, last image on top. Then I went to "save as" and specified the gif format, and checked the box "animate" then set the period between frames at 2 seconds to give the viewer a chance to see what was going on, the default time was .2 seconds...a wee bit fast. Then clicked ok and voila, animated giffage

As far as posting, the same technique is used as a jpg image. Just upload your gif to your favorite web server, and then type the link to it right in your message.

Shay

Donniedark said:

Shay said:

Thanks Perry. I am going to try and cannabalize my telescope and
rig something up. It is so tantalizingly close to revealing
details and color.

Shay

Click to expand...

Beautiful shots, Shay, as per usual ! Do you mind me asking how you
post an overlay. What a super way to present a shot like
this...what technique was used ? I this a Gif animation ? Sorry to
pester you with tech questions...but how's a Newbie to learn ?
Don C

Donniedark said:

Perry said:

Get yourself a clock drive and you will really be getting some cool
shots. Nice to see the F707 working at its limits. Keep up the good
work.

Perry

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this info, Shay.
--Jaxon

Shay said:

As far as posting, the same technique is used as a jpg image. Just
upload your gif to your favorite web server, and then type the link
to it right in your message.

Shay

Donniedark said:

Shay said:

Thanks Perry. I am going to try and cannabalize my telescope and
rig something up. It is so tantalizingly close to revealing
details and color.

Shay

Click to expand...

Beautiful shots, Shay, as per usual ! Do you mind me asking how you
post an overlay. What a super way to present a shot like
this...what technique was used ? I this a Gif animation ? Sorry to
pester you with tech questions...but how's a Newbie to learn ?
Don C

Shay Stephens said:

Perry said:

Get yourself a clock drive and you will really be getting some cool
shots. Nice to see the F707 working at its limits. Keep up the good
work.

Perry

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Shay said:

2.5 second - F2.4 - ISO 100 - Stack of 13 images

Click to expand...

When you say a 'stack of 13 images', could you give more detail on how you are doing this --- presumably in Photoshop Elements, right?

I continue to be shocked at the detail that the camera makes available. Can you also mention again exactly what was the setup for the capture of this stack of shots? You're using a telescope, right? Size and adapters, please?

Shay,

I told you that the 707 would do well in astrophotography. These are great shot! By all means,get a telescope with a clock drive. You can get ETX-90 for less than $500.

Hide

Hide Takahashi said:

Shay,

I told you that the 707 would do well in astrophotography. These
are great shot! By all means,get a telescope with a clock drive.
You can get ETX-90 for less than $500.

Hide

Click to expand...

Shay:

Thank you for sharing this info....I was not going to buy PS ELEMENTS because I happen to have PS 5.5 but after seeing this beautiful presentation of yours I am afraid I may be shopping for Software...again !
Don C

Hide Takahashi said:

Shay,

I told you that the 707 would do well in astrophotography. These
are great shot! By all means,get a telescope with a clock drive.
You can get ETX-90 for less than $500.

Click to expand...

Better yet, get the ETX-125 for only a little more.
http://www.meade.com/catalog/meade_etx/index.htm

Someone is selling a 90 on eBay for only $250 in "mint condition".

I'm leaning towards the 125 or possibly a Nexstar in the future. I'd like to be able to take short exposures with the drive.

An excellent group with info, many of them using digicams...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/meade-etx

Hi Ulysses,
Here is what I did to make the "stack"

Put the camera on the tripod (standard pan tilt head only for now) and pointed at the orion nebula. Took a test photo at 10 seconds - F2 in order to verify the aiming. Then I zoomed in and took another test shot to make sure I was still on the nebula. Then I set the settings to 2.5 seconds to minimise star trailing. Once that was setup I began snapping photos. As soon as the camera became available I snapped another, etc until I had 13 pictures.

With pictures in the can, I turned to photoshop elements. Opened the first picture in the series. Then opened the second photo, selected all, pasted onto the first photo, thereby creating a new layer. Clicking on the layers tab and changing the blending drop down box from normal to screen. You then see an overlay. By using the cursor keys you can manuver the top layer to be directly over the bottom layer. I used a single star as my alignment guide. I repeated those steps until all thirteen images were registered one on top of the other.

The animation:

I copied the final result and pasted as a new image. I made a copy of the first layer and pasted as a second layer. I then altered the levels of the second layer to obtain the darker version of the image. Then I overlaid the telescopic version of the nebula over a copy of the second frame to derive the third frame. Then saved as an animated gif.

Now you may be surprised to learn that this was done without the aid of a telescope, the images are right out of the camera. I thrill at the possibilities. I have a equatorial tripod I am altering to hold the camera and use it for tracking. If that goes well I should be able to do full 30 second exposures without fear of detail destroying trailing. Hopefully the next few days I will have an opportunity and clear skies to try.

Ulysses said:

Shay said:

2.5 second - F2.4 - ISO 100 - Stack of 13 images

Click to expand...

When you say a 'stack of 13 images', could you give more detail on
how you are doing this --- presumably in Photoshop Elements, right?

I continue to be shocked at the detail that the camera makes
available. Can you also mention again exactly what was the setup
for the capture of this stack of shots? You're using a telescope,
right? Size and adapters, please?

Click to expand...

Don, if you happen to be in the market for a scanner, you might consider the Canon model N1240U, it is the only Canon model that includes PhotoShop Elements in the software bundle that comes with the scanner. It retails for $199 but Compures4Sure.com has it for $179, a pretty good deal considering that PhotoShop Elements sells for $99 alone. Check it out.

Larry Myers

Donniedark said:

Shay:
Thank you for sharing this info....I was not going to buy PS
ELEMENTS because I happen to have PS 5.5 but after seeing this
beautiful presentation of yours I am afraid I may be shopping for
Software...again !
Don C

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion and the link.

Shay

Ulysses said:

I'm leaning towards the 125 or possibly a Nexstar in the future.
I'd like to be able to take short exposures with the drive.

An excellent group with info, many of them using digicams...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/meade-etx

Click to expand...