I finally got to use my Hyperstar III f/2.3 Lens with the Celestron 8300 Camera on my Celestron Fastar 9.25" Telescope.
The original stackings looked pretty discouraging until I did some post processing in Lightroom.
The final shot looks ok except the camera and cables are present in every star. The focus is perfect, the only time I ever
been able to get perfect 0.0 distortion. Being my first shot with the setup was shot 15 lights, darks at 100 sec and 15 bias.
So more experimentation will continue, more exposure time or less I don't know yet what will give me better stacks to work with.
As Jim says "practice, practice, practice". And Sonny "just shot it and post".
Craig
PP in Lightroom
Original
I've been thru this, you are not in focus. You shouldn't get any donuts and the wire will not show when it's in focus. Also, you will need to get flats to help with the vingetting. You sure did get a lot of data tho.
Europa wrote:
I've been thru this, you are not in focus. You shouldn't get any donuts and the wire will not show when it's in focus. Also, you will need to get flats to help with the vingetting. You sure did get a lot of data tho.
Thanks Brian. How do I get flats with all the gear on the front of the scope???
Craig
Yes, that gets tougher with this setup...I have a few shield and I hang a flat t-shirt over it. I do it in a darker room and use a lamp to shine on the t-shirt. I never had any luck with the white sky method. I think for several reasons:
1) you have to shoot the flat, then look to see if the correct value
2) download time, you are probably around 10 seconds, mine is almost 30 seconds.
For your focus, when you are trying to focus, don't use the bright stars, they are more blown out and kinda fills in the donut. Use the fainter and zoom far in.
I assume you are using astroFx, do you know how to change the view so that it stretches it? It's on the bottom bar, I don't recall what it's called, it it's. Ext to the % used for the zoom. It doesn't affect the picture, only the view.
Let me know if you have any questions, looks like you are off to a good start with your equipment. You will be shocked when you fix the focus and use the flats.
Europa wrote:
Yes, that gets tougher with this setup...I have a few shield and I hang a flat t-shirt over it. I do it in a darker room and use a lamp to shine on the t-shirt. I never had any luck with the white sky method. I think for several reasons:
1) you have to shoot the flat, then look to see if the correct value
2) download time, you are probably around 10 seconds, mine is almost 30 seconds.
For your focus, when you are trying to focus, don't use the bright stars, they are more blown out and kinda fills in the donut. Use the fainter and zoom far in.
I assume you are using astroFx, do you know how to change the view so that it stretches it? It's on the bottom bar, I don't recall what it's called, it it's. Ext to the % used for the zoom. It doesn't affect the picture, only the view.
Let me know if you have any questions, looks like you are off to a good start with your equipment. You will be shocked when you fix the focus and use the flats.
Yes, that gets tougher with this setup...I have a ... (
show quote)
Yes to the AFX program I think I'll run it thru DSS just to see what happens and Thanks for your help.
I'll be gone for the next week and a 1/2 so I'll give it a go again when I get to the Mountain in 2 weeks.
Craig
SonnyE
Loc: Communist California, USA
It's odd that Lightroom change the original so much.
Humm... Beats me.
SonnyE wrote:
It's odd that Lightroom change the original so much.
Humm... Beats me.
"The focus of originality lies not within the lens and camera, but within the focus of the photographer using it."
You are absolutely right Sonny. I do need to focus more on attention to detail.
But Lightroom does help fix my my mistakes. Next time I'll get it better.
Craig
CraigFair wrote:
"The focus of originality lies not within the lens and camera, but within the focus of the photographer using it."
You are absolutely right Sonny. I do need to focus more on attention to detail.
But Lightroom does help fix my my mistakes. Next time I'll get it better.
Craig
Look forward to your next outing...good luck.
CraigFair wrote:
"The focus of originality lies not within the lens and camera, but within the focus of the photographer using it."
You are absolutely right Sonny. I do need to focus more on attention to detail.
But Lightroom does help fix my my mistakes. Next time I'll get it better.
Craig
Spent a little more time tweaking this one of the Veil Nebula.
I still have the focus problem and I know no one is going
to look at this except you Brian. This time with the "Download"
Craig
CraigFair wrote:
Spent a little more time tweaking this one of the Veil Nebula.
I still have the focus problem and I know no one is going
to look at this except you Brian. This time with the "Download"
Craig
Is this uncropped, just wondering about the size of the 8300?
Europa wrote:
Is this uncropped, just wondering about the size of the 8300?
This is uncropped it has a much narrower FV than I expected which is actually good.
Do you have suggestions as what exposure times I would want with the Hyperstar III ????
Craig
CraigFair wrote:
This is uncropped it has a much narrower FV than I expected which is actually good.
Do you have suggestions as what exposure times I would want with the Hyperstar III ????
Craig
I generally don't go more than 300 seconds, things start getting pretty blown out. The image below was a stack of 180 second exposures. I probably could have gone 200, maybe even 220 on this.
The Western Veil, I shot at 120 seconds and the bright star was pretty blown.
SonnyE
Loc: Communist California, USA
CraigFair wrote:
"The focus of originality lies not within the lens and camera, but within the focus of the photographer using it."
You are absolutely right Sonny. I do need to focus more on attention to detail.
But Lightroom does help fix my my mistakes. Next time I'll get it better.
Craig
As long as we strive to improve on what we are doing, we move in the right direction.
I can merely dabble in Post Processing, and mostly I don't like my results. So instead, I strive for what I do understand, the mechanics of the mount, and trying to fine tune that. Then pluck one of my proverbial 'pikturds' out of the sky.
Life... is a learning curve.
I wouldn't expect your first attempt to be perfect. That's something that will come in time.
Europa wrote:
I generally don't go more than 300 seconds, things start getting pretty blown out. The image below was a stack of 180 second exposures. I probably could have gone 200, maybe even 220 on this.
The Western Veil, I shot at 120 seconds and the bright star was pretty blown.
Beautifully done Brian. Are these shot with the Hyperstar III???
It sure looks like it with the Field of View. I took the western into Lightroom
and tweaked it a little, hope you don't mind. It's such a great shot I couldn't
resist.
Craig
SonnyE wrote:
As long as we strive to improve on what we are doing, we move in the right direction.
I can merely dabble in Post Processing, and mostly I don't like my results. So instead, I strive for what I do understand, the mechanics of the mount, and trying to fine tune that. Then pluck one of my proverbial 'pikturds' out of the sky.
Life... is a learning curve.
I wouldn't expect your first attempt to be perfect. That's something that will come in time.
As long as we strive to improve on what we are doi... (
show quote)
All your practice is paying off Sonny. They are no longer pikturds they are works of art.
Craig
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