The stacking process and long exposures
Image does not look very exciting does it?
This is the start of imaging and stacking process in astro photography. All photos taken will need a program called Deepskystacker. DeepSkystacker takes the picture frames and dark frames together by batch stacking them. Once the batch process is completed you will get one final image.
<------ The final image.
(I only use picture and dark frames when composing a stacked image. Their are four different image types to be taken for a more refined data. please read more about that on the Deep sky stacker FAQ's on their website)
Once a stacked image is complete you can then use a program like Photoshop or lightroom. You would need to edit the final stacked image and bring it to life. Using Curves in photoshop or lightroom, you would selecting a point on the image to enhance the area. On this image I selected the red and moving the curves up or down to get the desired colour. I did the same with the dark and light parts of the image.
This Image has a Deep sky filter to help pick up more data in the contrast of the nebulas whole area.
By keeping the process simple to start you can later move on to bias and flat frames.
Heres youtube video to get you started. Deep sky stacker
This is the start of imaging and stacking process in astro photography. All photos taken will need a program called Deepskystacker. DeepSkystacker takes the picture frames and dark frames together by batch stacking them. Once the batch process is completed you will get one final image.
<------ The final image.
(I only use picture and dark frames when composing a stacked image. Their are four different image types to be taken for a more refined data. please read more about that on the Deep sky stacker FAQ's on their website)
Once a stacked image is complete you can then use a program like Photoshop or lightroom. You would need to edit the final stacked image and bring it to life. Using Curves in photoshop or lightroom, you would selecting a point on the image to enhance the area. On this image I selected the red and moving the curves up or down to get the desired colour. I did the same with the dark and light parts of the image.
This Image has a Deep sky filter to help pick up more data in the contrast of the nebulas whole area.
By keeping the process simple to start you can later move on to bias and flat frames.
Heres youtube video to get you started. Deep sky stacker
North American Nebula covering an area of more than four times the size of the full moon. Taken with a Canon eos 400D with a lumicon deep sky filter housed between my canon 75-300mm IS zoom lens and camera. Processed with Deep sky stacker and final touches using lightroom 4 mounted on a Astro trac for tracking the 4 minute subs