Lovejoy Finally: I was finally able to find Lovejoy, this also was my first light for my new guidescope, a William Optics 70mm fl/420mm, I used a Nikon D7000 to limit the vignetting...

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

I was finally able to find Lovejoy, this also was my first light for my new guidescope, a William Optics 70mm fl/420mm, I used a Nikon D7000 to limit the vignetting and field curvature with such a small scope. This image is a combination of 4) 5min exposures unguided along with a 2min exposure for background. I initially shot 20 images, but since I was a bit off on PA and have not corrected for the PE of my mount only 5 were usable. Stacked with darks and flats in CCDStack with a mean combined.

I was amazed how much the comet moves from frame to frame even, as opposed to the surrounding stars.

Any critique is appreciated,

Thanks for looking
Matthew

(Download)

Stargazer Loc: South of Watkins Glen, NY

Very nice; really like it.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Oknoder wrote:

I was finally able to find Lovejoy, this also was ... (show quote)

Really nice shot Matthew
I had trouble with my stacks also. It didn't occur to me the comet was moving across the sky DUH.
Craig

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

What I ultimately ended up doing was after calibrating and simple noise reduction, I stacked the 20min of exposure using mean combination. Since the comet moves so much even from one exposure to the next I found it impossible to have everything line up properly, so focused primarily on just the comet for registration. I imported the combined image and a 1 or 2 minute exposure of the comet into CS6.

What I ended up doing was using the combined image I erased everything but the comet and its immediate surroundings, I even methodically went through the tail fixing all the messed up star images by using the healing brush. Once I was satisfied that all that remained was the data of the comet I layered it over top of the shorter exposure and used the Lighten blending mode to allow all the stars from the shorter exposure to shine through the haze of the comet. It didn't come out perfect, but I could not figure out a better way of having semi-round stars plus a decent showing of the comet and its tail.

Thanks,
Matthew

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Oknoder wrote:

What I ultimately ended up doing was after calibra... (show quote)

I just looked in DDS and found some Help Files for stacking Comets.
I need to read up on that.
Craig

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Oknoder wrote:

What I ultimately ended up doing was after calibra... (show quote)

Sorry for the double click
Craig

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

Hate to sound stupid but what is dds. Lol I never though to google how to stack them. Well if there is an backassward way of doing something I will undoubtedly be found stumbling along that path. At least blissfully unaware.

Thanks,
Matthew

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Oknoder wrote:

Hate to sound stupid but what is dds. Lol I never though to google how to stack them. Well if there is an backassward way of doing something I will undoubtedly be found stumbling along that path. At least blissfully unaware.

Thanks,
Matthew

DDS is supposed to be DSS Deep Sky Stacker. It's free just Google it. I don't know you may be using it now???
Craig

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

I tried using it but for the life of me I could not start more than just a couple of images without it giving me a memory error or just crashing especially if I was dithering. Ultimately I chalked it up to the file sizes were just to large. Probably just operator error though.

mrova Loc: Chesterfield, VA

What a great shot! Thanks for sharing this!

dlmorris Loc: Loma Linda, Ca

Really Good Shot! The tail shows very nicely!

DougS Loc: Central Arkansas

Your results are the best I have seen of this comet! By far! Well done.

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

Thanks for the compliments guys. I was hoping someone would have critiqued me on my composition, because that was the main disappointment I seen in my image. The raw files didnt show the tail well till they were stacked. I am planning to shoot it again if the weather will clear. Probably use a 200mm Nikkor this time around though inorder to get the wider field of view. Since this is my first year doing astroimaging its mostly trial and error at this point.

CraigFair Loc: Santa Maria, CA.

Oknoder wrote:

Thanks for the compliments guys. I was hoping someone would have critiqued me on my composition, because that was the main disappointment I seen in my image. The raw files didnt show the tail well till they were stacked. I am planning to shoot it again if the weather will clear. Probably use a 200mm Nikkor this time around though inorder to get the wider field of view. Since this is my first year doing astroimaging its mostly trial and error at this point.

For being a rookie you sure got one of the best shots posted so far.
I just started a couple months ago myself and every time I go out it's trial and error.
I need to set a plan before I go out and stick to it.
Good luck.
Craig

Oknoder Loc: Western North Dakota

I started acquiring the basic equipment in April bit with repeated RMA's for a faulty mount my first real image other than the lunar eclipse this spring, was in Sept. I now see the allure of being able to leave all equipment hooked up and aligned. Other than removing my Nikons everything stays in place. Took me three night to polar align to within a half of an arc second,might be a minute, 0.03 PA Error is what the hand controller says, which only gets me around 3.5-4min subs without trailing. Can get 5min subs but not all are kosher. I need to set up my guider so I can run the periodic error correction software and so I can learn it.