AP processing

[lsintampa]

I do not have any tracking equipment yet. I am trying to improve focusing, camera settings, and photo processing. I also do not have Photo Shop, and I'm limited to GIMP and LightZone for now.

Setup is Celestron 102mm XLT, CG-4 GEM, Piggybacked Nikon D5300 with 55-200 Zoom lens (for this exercise).

Photo 1 was taken at ISO 1000, f5.6, 4 seconds - zoom set to 90mm. Raw file here:

Best I could do is this - frankly the raw file looks better:

Photo 2 was taken at ISO 3200, f5.6, 2 seconds - zoom set to 200mm. Raw file here:

Best hack for me:

Aside from my total lack of post processing, any comments on camera settings, exposure, focus, etc. would be helpful.

Then if anyone wants to play with the raw files and give me some pointers that would also be helpful.

I'm hoping to have tracking abilities by next week - and keeping fingers crossed that this will get better in time.

I know I'm stretching the one shot limits here and that I should do some one shot wide angle shots. Weather permitting I'll do that - if for no other reason than to try to gain some confidence that it is possible - even for a dolt like me. :veryconfused:

[Larry 1969]

Processing a single, short exposure is going to be difficult. You need to stack a bunch of them in Deep Sky Stacker then process them.
I must say that the first image isn't too bad for 4 seconds with no tracking!

Larry

[JayTee]

I moved this post to the correct forum. Its subject matter is not best suited for the beginners' forum.