Another M42 & M45 - sorry

Frank,

Used Deep Sky Stacker to align and stack. Iris on M45 for levels as I couldn't get it right in Photoshop elements. Photoshop Elements on M42. And of course Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools for fine tuning in Photoshop.
Did plenty of Darks for each (actually ended up with more darks than lights due to the amount of lights I had to bin - I used to do in camera darks but have recently changed to "end of session" darks). No flats - (am thinking of building a light box to deal with this though).
The really big improvement here though is the fact of not having to deal with light pollution. You have no idea how tough it is in Dublin to try to get half decent results. The shots above are taken in the middle of Wexford town - I'd stand no chance of getting the same results from my back yard in Firhouse in Dublin.

I've only recently used DSS for the first time and was wondering
when you align and stack do you just take the given image and then
adjust it in Photoshop or whatever.
I just find the levels are usually way off and the prog is slow
and cumbersome for adjusting levels and rgb.

Yeah same experience with DSS.
I usually play with the levels in Iris after DSS to see what is there and then make a decision as to wether Photoshop can deal with the results. If NOT then I save a .bmp in iris and then move to potoshop. For instance - The resulting M45 image could not be dealt with by photoshop alone, I thus saved a .bmp of the resulting stack from DSS after finding decent levels in Iris, and then finished the pic in photoshop. However for the M42, photoshop was all that was needed.

Hi John, the CGE is much heavier and less portable than the CG5 (I Don't have a CG5 but I would imagine it is about the same as my LXD75 in spec and weight), Even though the CGE is "theretically" portable (if you have lots of strength and patience.)I have never attempted to bring the CGE on a trip beyond my backyard.... lots of Hex type nuts to mess around with too!!! in assembly and alignment. It is a very solid and dependable mount for the price, and there was a noticable wind blowing last night down here in Waterford, yet I only had to delete about 15 frames in total. For DSO type imaging it usually takes me about two hours to set it up, to try and get everything ready, for planetary work much less.

All I need is a permanent place to put it.

I still have the LXD75, as I would consider it my portable set up, and would still use it for Quick images requiring a "just as quick" set up time!!

I also use DSS to stack the images,(try a few adjustments in DSS, on the Luminace tab...etc and save them just in case...) then use the Autosave version from DSS (Its a 32 bit Tiff file, that Photoshop filters don't like very much), convert it to 16 bit and then do Curves, levels and the other cosmetic conversions.If Photoshop doesn't like the Autosave versions, I revert to the "saved picture Versions" from DSS, and then hope for the best!!!:S

Hope this helps

Happy Crue Year (Motley ... that is.......)


Steve Roche

John/Steve

I have recently started taking my CGE and C11 out to dark sites such as the SAC sites in the Burren and Boher. It's a bit of work but quite manageable. The mount lies on the front seat of my almera with the seat belt around it, the C11 on the back seat and the tripod fits comfortably in the boot. As long as I remember not to bend my back lifting the mount out of the car its fine. It takes about 15 minutes to set it up for visual use with a rough polar alignment and 4 star align.
However, the golden rule: get rid of all the hex bolts on the pillar and replace them with a set of ADM knobs.
www.admaccessories.com/
It makes the set up so much quicker and easier-no tools required.

Having reviewed pricing on the CGE, I think it may be out of my budget range. Now thinking of an EQ6 Pro.