CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

I stacked 10 shots of the Comet in Halicon
I am a real novis so I don't know how to make any
adjustments in the exposure. Can anybody help?
3 shots: 1 original, 2 unprocessed.
Craig

Original

(Download)

Unprocessed Stack

(Download)

guts Loc: texas.

Sorry I can't help you Craig but the second one is amazing kinda looks like a spot light.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Did you use your D800....if so did you shoot raw? I believe I can help you if you have those files. Actually, Nikon's Capture NX-D is a great place to start as neither LR or Photoshop can read all of the data captured in a NEF file....in fact no raw converter other than NX-D by Nikon can. I did some, over the top, stretching....and in so doing I have lost your star field which pretty much ruins my effort but just taking your unprocessed JPG for a trip I came up with this. Those red points are not stars....but artifacts from my processing. In reality, a star field should have as many white, blue, yellow, and red stars if properly processed and white balanced. It is not a good effort but I had fun trying. Let me know if you have the RAW files and want my help.

(Download)

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

I personally have never used this program before, honestly never heard of it, but I also have a large stack of comet images that did not turn out as well as I expected. If I can figure it out ill report back, but like others have mentioned some stretching may need to be done before importing to this program.

Hope this is the answer for my comet images,
Matthew

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

If you are referring to Nikon NX-D...it is provided free. It is Nikon's proprietary software ..and can be downloaded at http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/microsite/capturenxd/download/

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

No I was talking about halicon, which I think might be spelled helicon. I normally use Maxim or Pixinsight to convert and stretch my NEF files as these programs seem to be able to access much more data than any other program I have tried. These I save as IEEE Float .fits images so as preserve any data that can be lost in the compression and conversion that tends to happen when converting files. I also shoot with the black level hack that allows the reading of negative values in the black levels so everything below zero does not get cut off.

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Interesting....I use a product by Helicon called HeliconFocus which does focus stacking but this is primarily for close up work. I wonder if it is the same company. BTW, Oknoder, how are the skies in your neck of the woods - my guess is fantastic!

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

They are astounding especially considering I come from the Detroit metro area where you are lucky to see 10 stars, here I can see the Milky Way with the unaided eye. Along with quite a few Nebulae and clusters, I do have to say it makes it a bit easier being able to point my scope by eye instead of relying solely on the programming and its pointing accuracy.

Matthew

nikonshooter Loc: Spartanburg, South Carolina

Do you have a spare bedroom ???

Our weather has been typical early summer - clouds building in the afternoon and thunderstorms late afternoon and night....for the last three weeks it has been storming nightly. Tonight is suppose to be perfect seeing for our area (a rarity)....our astronomy club is having a star party - in mountains about 1 hour away from my home. ....but, we have a Sunday School party at 5:00 so I doubt I will get back in time. I have a new Ioptron mount CEM60 that I am dying to try....weather permitting I may just drag it out when I get back.

Have a great weekend!

chazz4623 Loc: Prairieville, La

Pretty cool shot Craig

SonnyE Loc: Communist California, USA

When I download Picture 1, I can make out the tail all the way off the picture. Nice!

I'm using DSS (DeepSkyStacker) because I want to focus on learning one program well. And it will handle the file extensions coming out of my gear, like RAW, TIF, and FITS.
I have 6 programs installed just for astronomy files, But I have drawn back to DSS and need to focus on one program. Hopefully, it will be the only one I will need in time. (Based on Jerry "Algol" Armstrong's excellent results.)

I have One (1) successful stack to date. :shock: :roll: :hunf: Woo-Hoo!
When it finally came out and displayed, it was drastically dismaying. :-P It looked like chit.
Then I tried playing with the color adjustments. Finally, when I reduced the Blue scale, the background darkened. :shock: :-D .
Encouraged, I played around with the other adjustments, Red & Green. I finally got a semblance of what I had hoped for. Not very good at all, but hey, a stacked picture of 21 out of 64 total.
All I can add, Craig, is to keep twiddling and fiddling until you get your result to begin moving in a direction you like.
(Like a black space, and a presentable subject. :hunf: )
With your permission, I'd like to download and diddle with your pictures a smidgen. Just to see if I am on track with what I discovered from my first, and only, success to date. :oops: :lol:

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Sonny please do I'd love to see anything that can be done to the photos.
Craig

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Hey Bill yes it does look like a spotlight. Because it is photographed through a SCT with round mirrors and blind spots in the Primary and Corrector Lens.
From what I understand a Refactor Telescope takes better photos.
Craig

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Hey Coach, Yes it is Helicon Focus I thought I would give it a try but I'm not to happy with Astro images.
I can not figure out how to control the outcome of the stack. It seems to process every pixel to its full extent of exposure.
Nice job on adjusting that shot.
Craig

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Thank you Charlie. I'm going to the Mountain tonight so I hope it will be a great show. Good luck to you too.
Craig