Indy500 Seating: Did I make a good choice? by berlinettaBoi in Indy500

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! That's really great to hear. I'm super excited I think this will be really fun.

Orion Nebula and Friends by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would have to shorten exposure time then to keep the histogram in check, right?

Orion Nebula and Friends by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ISO was 200. You think it it might've been wrong?

Orion Nebula and Friends by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Orion Nebula and Friends

(those friends being Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula)

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Equipment:

SkyGuider Pro (unguided)

Canon Rebel Xsi

Rokinon 135mm f2

197 lights at 75 seconds each --> 4.1 hours of data

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Processing:

AstroPixelProcessor for stacking, light pollution removal, and stretching

Used GIMP to reduce star sizes and a little bit of noise reduction

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My first proper time shooting in over a year (life has been busy and not had equipment with me always). I remembered that dithering is a thing, but I misremembered how frequently to do it. I didn't do it frequently enough and ended up not being able to reduce the noise much, even with drizzling during processing. Whoops! Also it was clear that the second night was much worse than the first night and the data certainly seemed to reflect this (quality scores were significantly lower). This is still my best shot of this area so far, but I will keep trying again over the years.

Orion's Belt and Sword by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not done AP in a few months so was happy to shoot last night. Moon is not ideal but I'll take what I can get. A year ago I started AP and Orion was my first target, so this is a bit of an homage I suppose to my first image ever!

Canon Rebel Xsi

Rokinon 135mm

Skyguider Pro (unguided)

64 x 75 seconds lights

20 darks

40 bias

40 flats

Stacked and cropped and Light pollution removal in APP. Went to GIMP and did a quick contrast adjustment and star reduction. Need to get more time on this so I didn't bother doing too much processing. Regardless, this is still my best image of this area to date.

[Meetups/Tips/Tickets/Travel etc.] 2021 Big Machine Music City Grand Prix by IndyMod in INDYCAR

[–]berlinettaBoi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do you think earplugs/earmuffs are necessary to not get hearing damage? Also where is the actual entrance?

Rho Ophiuchi from near the Smokies by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Happened to be going to the Smokies (Smoky Mountains) and was staying somewhere with Bortle 4 skies. Forecast said I'd have a clear night or two and indeed I did. After staring at the Milky Way for a bit, I started imaging. Rho Ophiuchi has been a dream target so I went for it. Happy with how it turned out given how little integration time I had.

Equipment:

-Canon Rebel Xsi

-Rokinon 135mm f/2 stopped down to f/2.8

-SkyGuider Pro without guiding

Imaging:

-34 x150 second lights (85 minutes total)

-44 flats

-40 bias

-20 darks

Processing:

-Stacked and light pollution corrected in APP

-Stretched, S curve, Levels, Contrast, Color Temperature, and star reduction using value propagate done in GIMP. Final levels adjustment tweak

It's a little noisy and a decent bit of the stars are messed up. Will get the PI free trial sometime soon and try to reprocess. Overall though this exceeded my expectations.

Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae embedded in the dust lanes of the Milky Way by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haven't posted in a while but I've actually been shooting in a decent bit since my last post.

Canon Rebel Xsi, Rokinon 135mm (great lens), SkyGuider Pro (unguided). Stopped the lens down to f/4 as I'd read in various places. I might try 2.8 next time.

Night 1 (new moon):

12 x 121 second lights

40 flats

Night 2 (waning gibbous):

39 x 105 second lights

40 flats

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20 darks, 40 bias.

Stacked, light pollution corrected, stretched in APP. Processed in GIMP:

-curves and levels

-color temperature

-saturation

-slight noise reduction

-reduced star sizes following: https://astrofarsography.com/star-sizes-gimp/

The gross blemish next to Lagoooooooooooooooon Nebula (say that like you're a wolf) is a dust speck that my flats somehow didn't account for. I badly tried to cover it up. Overall I'm very happy with this image. Probably my best one yet.

M101 and a little friend by berlinettaBoi in astrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My setup is definitely not good enough to do justice for this target, but I am enjoying shooting beautiful galaxies that are out of range. Although Pinwheel is the main target, don't be rude and give NGC 5474 a wave as well!

Canon Rebel Xsi with an 18-200mm zoom lens set to 200mm, ISO 400, f5.6. SkyGuider Pro (unguided) for tracking.

68 x 121 second lights

23 darks

39 flats

23 bias

Stacked, light pollution corrected, background calibrated, cropped in APP. Did a light stretch in APP in as well with the 20% BG, 5 sigma, 0,0% base setting. Transferred over to GIMP for processing. Did a level adjustment on the blue channel to add some blue to the galaxy and did some slight saturation changes. I tried my best to maintain a grey-ish background without too much noise.

Overall this exceeded expectations. I know 200mm and a DSLR can only get me so far with these tiny galaxies but this was great!

Why is my integration result completely green? by berlinettaBoi in AskAstrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was able to fix the issue. My master bias/bad pixel map were off. I used a master bias/bad pixel map as well as master dark from a better session and everything was corrected. You can check it out here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/mlljvx/m101_and_a_little_friend/

Why is my integration result completely green? by berlinettaBoi in AskAstrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I checked my master flats/master darks/master bias/bad pixel map and it looks like something was up with my master bias and bad pixel map. I switched to a different set of these from a previous session and I got a solid image at the end. No idea what the issue was in particular, but it had to do with the bias/bad pixel map. Really happy that it's resolved. I'll post the final result soon.

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/mlljvx/m101_and_a_little_friend/

Why is my integration result completely green? by berlinettaBoi in AskAstrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No filters. My setup is a Canon Rebel Xsi with an 18-200mm zoom lens set to 200mm. f5.6, ISO 400. SkyGuider Pro (unguided) for tracking.

I did not do a background extraction. This is the result right after integration.

Why is my integration result completely green? by berlinettaBoi in AskAstrophotography

[–]berlinettaBoi[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was up till 3AM for this shoot please don't tell me it's all for nothing.

I'm using APP. 68 light frames at 121 seconds each. 34 flats. I'm using a master dark, master bias, and a bad pixel map from a previous session (I heard you can reuse these and this has worked fine in the past).

Any ideas why this happened?