Second Light

Saturday was my first attempt at DSLR astrophotography. I've had the unmodified Canon 6d DSLR camera about a week now and finally we had some clear skies. First light setup was a breeze. After getting so used to the Atik 16IC's very small sensor this is a dream. It used to take me awhile to find things on my chip and with such a large format it's visible every time. I used the trial version of BackYard EOS (BYE) for the session and am running the Magic Lantern firmware hack.

I didn't end up realizing there were more settings that ought to have been adjusted and the subs didn't come out so well. After a little reading I found a nice PDF on the Canon website that enumerates all of the settings one should consider. http://downloads.canon.com/CDLC/Canon_CDLC_Astrophotography_Quick_Guide.pdf

Second light was last night (Sunday). I was able to take some decent subs capturing M81 and M82 on the same frame (another very exciting moment!). I have a really noticeable vignetting that seems to stem from the baffle tube on my Celestron C8. Does that sound like the culprit? I have a 2" focuser and camera adapter and think they're wide enough. I'm not sure if there's an Eye Opener for Celestron?

Anyways, I also took a shot at the whirlpool (just picking easy objects). The whirlpool seemed pretty successful. I feel like I could mess around with it in DSS and Photoshop forever and never quite get it just right. I'm fairly happy with this version (attached).

The most exciting thing of all is that I was able to sit outside last night in only a sweater. Almost all of the snow has melted! Gone are the days of long underwear, snow suit, fleece, goose down, hats, gloves, 3 pairs of socks, etc... New challenges await that I've no idea how they'll go. Will birds land on the scope when it's running unattended around dawn? How about bugs? What about dew? I've read so much on dew heaters but haven't had a drop of it since getting started...

Attached Image:

Here's my other take from the same night... M81 & M82 in the same frame. :-) The stars on the periphery seem to bow out and I'm wondering if that indicates a collimation problem? They seem circular in the center of the image but on the left stretch left and on the right stretch right. Lots of problems with sky glow and vignetting and on and on. I imagine some of the gurus would be adept at removing all the gradients and other artifacts. Here's what I have thus far...

Attached Image:

Take #2... same data... :-) A little more punch to the color since we all like the almost sickeningly blue/purple galaxy look here. ;-) I brought out the galaxy with the sponge tool.

I've been experimenting with a new DSLR postprocessing workflow that's basically DSS -> PS -> Adobe Camera Raw 8.8 for noise reduction and then back into PS. Anyone else liking Adobe Camera Raw? It's fantastic! I downloaded all of my lens profiles today. Mostly using it for terrestrial but the noise feature is very useful. Maybe not as robust as noise ninja but it's the best thing I've got...

Getting back to whirlpool... the previous version looked terrible to me the day after I sent it and still does. I really believe that I need to start recalibrating my eyes on a color chart. I have one from the Tony Hallas DVD open on the right-hand side of my screen in PS now. The other part may be due to my LCD laptop display.

We had to do a quick run to the store tonight and while picking up things for the kids wandered past a floor model LED TV just sitting there for 20% off the clearance price. Our old TV is a CRT and weighs at least 40lbs so we decided to go for it. I now am using it as the monitor for our living room computer and logged in remotely to the laptop for PS. The colors are MUCH better! Now if I can only fix the hole in my pocket that astrophotography has caused... ;-)

Attached Image: