Any tutorial for stacking milky way shots with the Zf?

[vegetaleb]

Hello

Yesterday I tried for the 1st time for years astrophotography, it was with my nikon Zf (and 26 f2.8 + light pollution filter) , I am in a Bortle 6 to 7 zone.

My settings were 16 shots at 10sec each ISO 6400 @f2.8, I then converted the RAW files to DNG so I can use them with Sequator (I used to use this app).

The result was ok-ish, the MW is visible but not that much and I am obliged to go to extremes in post with high values of Clarity and microcontrast boost (DXO) to let the MW really appear, ending up with too much noise.

So dunno if I should use more shots for stacking 20 vs 16 ?

Or boost the ISO?

Is there a stacking software that use natively NEF from Zf ? It would help perhaps keeping a max of dynamic range no?

 

[Compadre_Chuma]

Is there a stacking software that use natively NEF from Zf ? It would help perhaps keeping a max of dynamic range no?

I use these mainly. Both do full processing, including the stacking.

Siril - Reads .NEF and converts to .FITS internally very well, as part of the processing.

Affinity Photo - Reads .NEF and converts to an internal file format very well, as part of the processing.

Cheers

 

[KennyT]

Hello

Yesterday I tried for the 1st time for years astrophotography, it was with my nikon Zf (and 26 f2.8 + light pollution filter) , I am in a Bortle 6 to 7 zone.

My settings were 16 shots at 10sec each ISO 6400 @f2.8, I then converted the RAW files to DNG so I can use them with Sequator (I used to use this app).

Images of the milky way from Bortle 6-7 skies are usually pretty poor, no matter what software you use. You need to get to darker skies, while it is foible to catch the ,icky way in such light pollutes areas, they are never very good in my opinion. Can you drive to a darker sky site?

I personally have never used the Zf for astronomy but have done plenty of it and enjoy astro. The only time I shot in a Bortle 7 was to prove it could be done, I don't bother even trying in such bright skies!

 

[Alberto Tanikawa]

Are you adding dark frames in the stack? I also use Affinity Photo, which does a decent job, and I also employ RC Astro and Hasta La Vista Green (HLVG) plugins to assist in processing.

 

[curiousmike1300]

500/26 = 19 seconds

You could push your exposure time to 15 seconds and that would halve your ISO.

Agree with other poster - bortle 6/7 is going to be rough going.

Hello

Yesterday I tried for the 1st time for years astrophotography, it was with my nikon Zf (and 26 f2.8 + light pollution filter) , I am in a Bortle 6 to 7 zone.

My settings were 16 shots at 10sec each ISO 6400 @f2.8, I then converted the RAW files to DNG so I can use them with Sequator (I used to use this app).

The result was ok-ish, the MW is visible but not that much and I am obliged to go to extremes in post with high values of Clarity and microcontrast boost (DXO) to let the MW really appear, ending up with too much noise.

So dunno if I should use more shots for stacking 20 vs 16 ?

Or boost the ISO?

Is there a stacking software that use natively NEF from Zf ? It would help perhaps keeping a max of dynamic range no?

 

[Robert Salton]

So dunno if I should use more shots for stacking 20 vs 16 ?

Yes, drastically more. A hundred images at least for a 6-7 sky, the more accumulated exposure time, the better. Time permitting, I'd go right for an hour. Of course with proper dark and bias frames.

Or boost the ISO?

Nothing to be gained by that.

Is there a stacking software that use natively NEF from Zf ? It would help perhaps keeping a max of dynamic range no?

Siril, Pix Insight, AstroPixelProcessor, Affinity come to my mind. Siril is free and will easily stack/stretch milkyway images.