Saggitarius deep field & North American Nebula - Mt Parn

At the risk of having ye all going :roll:
'ara, yer man again'
I got around to working on a few more shots I took in Greece.

I pretty much don't have an iota about deep sky photography so
I just pointed the camera to some of the more interesting areas on offer
opened the shutter and let it track away.

After hours of what only could be described as mindless
button pushing,
I 'processed' these 3 shots by just clicking on the 'auto level' button.
The results looked as good if not better than my efforts so it was a case of...
''File....save as...blah....done!''

They were shot with a 350D, 300mm lens & Astrotrac.



Sagittarius objects 1.
This area of the sky is amazing.
There is so much going on in such a small area it's incredible.
I originally had all the objects listed out on the pic but it made it look ugly

Larger Image:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/2669063903_452556251c_o.jpg
.

Sagittarius objects 2.
Again more of the same, the pink to the right I reckon is heat from the battery.

Larger image:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3236/2669062415_cb910993d3_o.jpg


North American Neb area

Larger image:
farm4.static.flickr.com/3226/2669885600_27a37548f5_o.jpg

Overprocessed? Underprocessed?
outoffocusprocessed? I dunno, I'm gone bug eyed from it all.
Let me know what ye think anyway.

Wow, pristine skies or what?! Amazing shots Frank...

Wow! It was worth you purchasing that Astrotrac even if the only use you get out of it this year was in Greece. Awesome shots. what ISO and shutter duration (roughly) did you use with these images ? The minute the astro trac comes down in price im having one!

thanks for allowing us the pleasure of viewing your images Frank.

Do you have access to anything longer than 300mm? im just wondering how good is the astrotrac for DSO work. if you got 5-10 5 minute images of Andromeda or the orion nebulae, how would they stack up against some of the images from the masters of DSO photography on this forum?
in your expirience, at greater than 300mm, are 5 minute images attainable from the astrotrac?

Very nice images Frank.
I think you took enough images to keep you busy processing for the next year!
Only constructive comments I would make are that they appear a little bit noisy. If you went for a longer exposure at a lower ISO and stacked a few images together of the same area of the sky, it would give you a smoother image and you would then be able to push the curves a bit more to show off the Milly Way with greater contrast. jpeg copmression probably ain't helping you either.
It woud be great to see them at full size.
Just my 2 cent.

HOLY JEEPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :shock: :shock: :shock:

Hi Frank,
They are very nice images Just take on board what Michael said.