FREE Astrophotography Workshop with Tom O’Donoghue.

Hi Guy’s,

To help us celebrate our first year of business we are holding an astrophotography Workshop with Tom O’Donoghue. Please book your seat by sending me an email at sales@scopesandspace.ie to guarantee your booking.

Tom O’Donoghue has been an Astrophotographer for 9 years. Tom began imaging with an 8 inch SCT and DSLR from the suburbs of Dublin in 2005. These days he uses 4 inch Takahashi refractors coupled with full frame CCD cameras, from the South of France, and shortly again from the Wicklow mountains. Tom spent 3 years imaging from the Almanzorra valley in the south of Spain, where the weather allowed for the many nights of data needed to build up the large scale mosaics that is favoured style, wide field imaging.

In 2013 Tom was the Runner up in the deep sky category at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Astronomy Photographer of the Year. He was also the Overall Runner up in Spain's Las Palmas Observatory Spain Imaging Competition 2013. (See image below)


Tom has held 2 exhibitions in Dublin in 2010 and 2012. He has also given various talks to camera clubs, and has exhibited his large size framed prints at Star Parties in Ireland.

This will be an intensive one day astrophotoghphy course. Please feel free to bring along your own images and we will show you the best way of processing them.


Scopes and Space Astrophotography Workshop includes:

DSLR Settings:

• RAW Mod
• Manual Focusing with Live View / Auto focussing with Live view
• Set ISO / F ratio
• Set Exposure lengths
• Using a Cable release.
• PC / Laptop control
• Downloading your images from the camera

CCD Settings:

• Cool the camera if the settings allow
• Select a region of a sub frame for focusing.
• Focusing live view.
• Setting a sequence in the software.

Calibration Frames:

• What is a dark frame? DSLR and Long Exposure NR.
• Taking dark frames. Same exposure and same temperature.
• What is a flat frame? Flat box and Luminescence screens.
• Taking flats at the same focus.
• Keep the ADU to approx. 30-50%
• Bias Frames.

Pre Processing:

• Different types of software available.
• Stacking the Darks with Median settings- Master.
• Stacking the Flats with Average settings- Master Flat.
• Making the L, R, G, B stacks. FIT - Dark / Flat.
• Delayering CCD / DSLR Colour images
• Aligning RGB to Luminance in astroart

Processing:

• Screen settings in pixinsite and Photoshop. Adobe RGB
• STF in pixinsite. Linear verses Non Linear mode.
• Crop both images to match pixinsite.
• DBE / ABE in pixinsite. Gradient Xterminator in Photoshop.
• Histogram in pixinsite. Masked stretch in pixinsite.
• Levels Curves Photoshop. Flat to finish, Dim, Mid, and Bright zones.
• Contrast boosts Luminance. Micro curve adjustments.
• Masked sharpness for Luminance. Object masks to blend in bright areas that were sharpened.
• Noise Reduction and Smoothing. Pixinsite and Photoshop.
• HDR pixinsite and Photoshop with masks.
• RGB Background Neutralisation, Colour calibration pixinsite verses Colour Balance Levels and Curves Photoshop.
• Masked Saturation pixinsite and Photoshop.
• LRGB combination. Pixinsite and layering in Photoshop.


Processing Tips:

• Stacking Star Trail images in Photoshop to show through each layer.
• Star Minimising pixinsite morphical Transformation v Star Min in Photoshop. Star minimum for Blue channel if your scope isn't an APO.
• Correcting non round stars in Photoshop.
• Image Clean up. Pixels and colour range select and remove.
• Purple Halo removal. Noels Actions, or colour range select.
• Shadows/ Highlights.

And much more tips and tricks on the day.

So please join us on Saturday the 26th of July,

Time 12.00 – 17.00.

Venue – Scopes and Space Retail Store.

www.scopesandspace.ie/contact-us

Scopes and Space Team.
“Creating time & space for every customer … amateur or professional!”

Hi All,
Yes I'm really looking forward to this. There is a lot in that list above, so hopefully we can get through it all or most of it.
I'll be concentrating on the processing side, both in Pixinsight and Photoshop. I can do parallel runs in both pieces of s/w to show how to take the FIT files to a final version. Bring your laptops and images, we may get a chance to play with the images in class as a tutorial. I hope to bring some of my data which I could give to people to practise with, either in the workshop or later themselves. There are only 8 seats left I believe, so its great to know there is an interest in this. Looking forward to seeing you there next week.
Thanks Tom.

Hi guys,

We have six seats left for Toms workshop. If you are interested in astrophotography this is your opportunity to learn the delicate art of processing. Tom is one of the worlds best imagers with great experience and techniques

Clear skies

Scopes and Space Team.

Hi Guys,

Just to let you know Tom’s astrophotography workshop is now fully booked. Please don’t be too disappointed as we’ll be holding a second workshop very soon.

Clear Skies,
Scopes and Space Team.

Hi Guys,

Just to let you know Tom O’Donoghue will be on the astronomy show tonight at 20.00 on 103.2 Dublin City FM dublincityfm.ie/schedule/tuesday Tom will be taking about his astrophotography workshop this coming Saturday form our lecture room at scopes and space.


I also forgot to mention we will also have plenty of refreshments on the day.

Scopes and Space Team.
“Creating time & space for every customer … amateur or professional!”

Many thanks to Tom for today's event. Very informative and extremely useful. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Big thanks to Scopes and Space for organising and hosting the event. Looking forward to more lectures there.