135mm Lagoon and Trifid

First attempt at this region. I am relatively pleased, even though my shooting was cut short by the smell of smoke in the air. My hubby is a volunteer firefighter, and with the fact we are EXTREMELY dry, I didn't want to leave him to fret if there was a fire because he couldn't leave our young son alone. Needless to say, there was not a call for our district.

Anyway, it was taken with my 135mm Pentax on my unmodded 40D, piggybacked to my AT102ED. The subs were only 50 seconds in length and 15 frames total, and the exposures were really being pushed, as many of my stars are egg-shaped. I'm still struggling deeply with drift alignment. I also had my aperture at f/3.5 and ISO 800 or 1600 (can't remember off the top of my head.) Pre- and postprocessed with Adobe Elements 8, and stacked using DSS.

nice shot!!!

Thank you! I still feel like I am playing T-ball in the midst of Major Leaguers, but I am learning.

This is amazing. Beautiful shot, i keep meaning to try one of these out.

Thank you Karl. I'm always amazed at a lot of the quality work produced here. It gives me something to strive for.... You definitely should try it. I have a limited time to do so, as it doesn't get super high above the trees for me.

Very lovely indeed!

Have you tried shooting through the AT102 yet? What I do when I know I want to just play with a camera lens, after I do the 6star alignment + polar align the mount, I'll remove the OTA and weights and have the camera mounted to a spare dove tail. I can get 5min unguided this way (85mm lens), longer w/ the 50mm.

I haven't tried shooting through the AT102 yet because I can't even eek out much more than 30 seconds unguided at around 100mm. I have to do a polar alignment EVERY time I take the scope out, and I'm in the middle of a cow field, on very uneven ground, so it's difficult under the best circumstances. I don't have anybody to come and teach me physically, so it is also left up to me learning through trial and error, and books and reading. Thank goodness I'm hard headed, LOL!

Is the cow field yours? If so, go the lumber store and get some lumber, weather treated 4x4 x 8ft or what ever length they sell it in. Have them cut it into 3 pcs. Go out with just the base tripod, wood, spray paint for marking the , and shovel. Go out to your favorite spot, lay the tripod out with one leg pointed to North (maybe a compass might help) and make a big X under each one Dig up the hole and put a post in each one. Fit the tripod a few times during the process to make sure the span is how you like. When you're done you now have a stable platform to work from.

Yah you'll have to align the mount ever time, I got it down to 20mins if I know the stars that are up, 2+ 4 calibration stars + all star polar slign mount, power down and do it again. And you can do plenty with 30s subs!!Just many of them stack (usually 2 hour's worth)

Here's my 30sec sub photos from a yr ago
315x20s subs

Elizabeth,

That shot is fantastic! Well-framed...you picked up a good amount of galaxy dust. The red in the emission nebulae (Lagoon and lower part of Trifid) are very good considering your camera is not modified. The blue in the upper part of the Trifid looks great. I am not familiar with Elements 8, but if you can work with curves, you should be able to do a couple of things:

1) remove the subtle haziness in the photo
2) increase the nebulosity presence without boosting the stars

Also, I think you can increase the saturation a bit. You have great data (even if the stars are a bit egg-shaped, the nebulosity data looks good), so experiment with it.

Look at Noel Carboni's astro actions for Photoshop Elements. He has some good stuff in there that will help enhance your image.

-Phil

Jsigone, yes the farm is ours. I've got two fields I tend to do work in, depending on where the cows are. You have an excellent idea!
Phil, thank you for your kind words and encouragement. I did not know that Noel made a plug in for Elements. I'll most definitely need to check that out!

I have ordered the program! I am SO excited to get it and try it out! Thank you again for your support and wonderful images to strive for.