first light with full spectrum modded t2i

I really rushed this tonight but I have been dying to try out my newly acquired T2i modified by hypercams and mods. After the first test shot I was stunned by ho much more sensitive this camera is in the dark than my T3i. Secondly I want to say that it is really hard to setup a proper white balance with a full spectrum camera. I struggled in CS5 to stretch this image and get the tones right, they still look weird to me but oh well it was my first time using it. I was happy to actually remove all yellow light pollution by selecting yellow in the hue saturation tool and turning it all the way down. I'm really excited about the potential of this camera. See Rho Ophiuchus up there amongst scorpio? That is going to be my first target 2 weeks from now, I plan to get a good couple hours worth of exposures on that and I am excited because it is already really showing some of it's colors in a 25 second exposure. Oh yea the shot ...
ISO 1600
f/2.8
exposure - 25 seconds
white balance: custom
Lens: Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/70374000@N08/8​899110612/

nice MW. Astronomic makes a OWB (original white balance) clip in filter that is for daytime. And a L filter to filter out the IR with the Full Mod. Of course there is the CCD-CLS light pollution filter. Awesome filter! Are you stacking with RAW images and lining up the RGB in either DSS or Levels in PS? Deep Sky Colors if free and will line the RGB up and reduce green hues in PS. It's hard to find a good dark site that doesn't give you LP of with shots like this. RHO looks good and away from the LP. It is a really cool target. I hope to work on it again sometime soon. Congrats on the mod!

Mo

Toxic Coolaid wrote in post #15987386
nice MW. Astronomic makes a OWB (original white balance) clip in filter that is for daytime. And a L filter to filter out the IR with the Full Mod. Of course there is the CCD-CLS light pollution filter. Awesome filter! Are you stacking with RAW images and lining up the RGB in either DSS or Levels in PS? Deep Sky Colors if free and will line the RGB up and reduce green hues in PS. It's hard to find a good dark site that doesn't give you LP of with shots like this. RHO looks good and away from the LP. It is a really cool target. I hope to work on it again sometime soon. Congrats on the mod!

Mo

Thanks Mo, I was just about to pm you asking advice on post white balance. My ccd-cls clip arrives tomorrow and I am excited about that but I guess it might make white balancing even trickier. Got any advice on where I can master the basic steps of editing astro work? thanks

First off, RAW...RAW...RAW, only use RAW. Lights, Darks, Flats, Dark Flats, Offset. Sometimes DSS will give me a real bad and funky result. The 1st thing I do is uncheck the Offsets. I’m not sure what the problem is, but it clears it up sometimes. The CLS-CCD filter will make the blue channel spike will be the over to the right on your histogram screen. This means it's the brightest. Press INFO button on your T2i and the histogram one of the views as you cycle through. I usually shoot at 800 or 1600iso, and adjust my exposure time in 30 second increments to get the histogram spike about 1/3 over from the left side of the screen. Don’t worry about a custom white balance for your astro shots, because when you use RAW files the white balance does not matter.

I do not use DSS to adjust my finial image, I do it in Photoshop. But either way, the 1st thing I do is line up the Red, Green and Blue spikes (or humps), so they all line up on top of each other. If they are really narrow spikes you can do a curve stretch which will make the spikes wider, and then line them up. Now all your colors are lined up and good to go.

I don’t know how you do your processing. I get my best results by stacking in DSS and processing in PS. Some use PixInsight or other programs. I will make adjustments in DSS and save it 2 ways. I’ll save it with changes applied, and a second save with changes embedded. These choices come up when you save you image in DSS.

Here are links I refer to:
http://flintstonestarg​azing.com/?s=deepskyst​acker
step by step for DSS

http://www.myastronomy​journal.com …AIP/C002-M31-Walkthrough/
excellent walkthrough in PS

http://www.youtube.com …er_embedded&v=e​0JSTF8SGi4!
Step by step using both DSS and PS

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1241460
a right up by TC_Fenua from this forum

http://mophopix.smugmu​g.com …p#!i=2369399143​&k=BcwQ5b4
processing videos I have found and put up on my site.

I was wondering the same thing Mo and thanks for the links. Wes, my 50D was just done by HyperCams and Brent did a great job!

Greg

PS: Nice shot there Wes!

Toxic Coolaid wrote in post #15989486
First off, RAW...RAW...RAW, only use RAW. Lights, Darks, Flats, Dark Flats, Offset. Sometimes DSS will give me a real bad and funky result. The 1st thing I do is uncheck the Offsets. I’m not sure what the problem is, but it clears it up sometimes. The CLS-CCD filter will make the blue channel spike will be the over to the right on your histogram screen. This means it's the brightest. Press INFO button on your T2i and the histogram one of the views as you cycle through. I usually shoot at 800 or 1600iso, and adjust my exposure time in 30 second increments to get the histogram spike about 1/3 over from the left side of the screen. Don’t worry about a custom white balance for your astro shots, because when you use RAW files the white balance does not matter.

I do not use DSS to adjust my finial image, I do it in Photoshop. But either way, the 1st thing I do is line up the Red, Green and Blue spikes (or humps), so they all line up on top of each other. If they are really narrow spikes you can do a curve stretch which will make the spikes wider, and then line them up. Now all your colors are lined up and good to go.

I don’t know how you do your processing. I get my best results by stacking in DSS and processing in PS. Some use PixInsight or other programs. I will make adjustments in DSS and save it 2 ways. I’ll save it with changes applied, and a second save with changes embedded. These choices come up when you save you image in DSS.

Here are links I refer to:
http://flintstonestarg​azing.com/?s=deepskyst​acker
step by step for DSS

http://www.myastronomy​journal.com …AIP/C002-M31-Walkthrough/
excellent walkthrough in PS

http://www.youtube.com …er_embedded&v=e​0JSTF8SGi4!
Step by step using both DSS and PS

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1241460
a right up by TC_Fenua from this forum

http://mophopix.smugmu​g.com …p#!i=2369399143​&k=BcwQ5b4
processing videos I have found and put up on my site.

thanks Mo. Im glad you mentioned aligning the colors RGB, that clears up alot of questions. I assume my white balance will be easier to attain in post when I try this. I use DSS and CS5 right now, although pixinsight sounds pretty user friendly, I think I will stick with what I know for now which is photoshop. That gradient tool that you used on my markarian chain earlier this year was awesome, I would like to find that plugin if you have any info about that. Im going to reprocess this image later, unfortunately I took just a single light frame but maybe I will have better luck with the white balance.

NovaTJ wrote in post #15998210
I was wondering the same thing Mo and thanks for the links. Wes, my 50D was just done by HyperCams and Brent did a great job!

Greg

PS: Nice shot there Wes!

sweet, they do so?me nice work down there in florida. Did you get full spectrum or the baader ir uv filter?

Amazing photo with a T2i! Just to show it doesn't take a crazy expensive camera to take night photos!

calypsob wrote in post #15999974
sweet, they do so?me nice work down there in florida. Did you get full spectrum or the baader ir uv filter?

I got the Baader mod this time as I already have a 300d with the full spectrum mod. I found the full spectrum too hard for me to process the images.
Greg

ktan7 wrote in post #16001000
Amazing photo with a T2i! Just to show it doesn't take a crazy expensive camera to take night photos!

well it is modified, but yes it does out perform unmodded fullframes in sensor response, not so much in the noise department however.

NovaTJ wrote in post #16001858
I got the Baader mod this time as I already have a 300d with the full spectrum mod. I found the full spectrum too hard for me to process the images.
Greg

Hmm I think I am understanding the difficulties you had myself. I just got the astronomik Cls CCD filter so hopefully the IR/UV blocking will make things a little bit easier

calypsob wrote in post #15999969
That gradient tool that you used on my markarian chain earlier this year was awesome, I would like to find that plugin if you have any info about that. .

The plug in is Gradient XTreminator. You can check a box in Grad X andit will align the RGB for you. Follow the Grad X steps in the Andromeda Walk through video

http://www.myastronomy​journal.com …AIP/C002-M31-Walkthrough/

1 Lasso the subject, then invert selection so you have chosen everything but the DSO/comet whatever

2 Run Grad X on Medium and Low with Balance Background Colors checked

3 Run Grad X on Fine and Medium also with Balance Background Colors checked

That's usually it. Grad X is worth every penny. It is amazing what it will do by itself, but when you also have good Flats the image will great.

Thanks Mo, that looks like a great plugin. I actually found some freebies today that sound promising http://www.deepskycolo​rs.com/tools.html

I mentioned Deep Sky Colors in my 1st response. I does line up the RGB and will reduce green hues. But it does not do anything for gradients. I have processed images lining up the RGB myself and then using DSC and the resulting image was pretty much the same. I use GradX to line the curves up, but I still use DSC to remove the greenish tints. I just create a new layer and run the "HLGV",then you can toggle it back and forth to make sure you like it. The use of layers in PS is a great tool also. I learned to get comfortable with layers with the Andromeda Walkthrough video also.

Nice one Wes, very well done.

Dave.