Deepsky index

Deep Sky Index Page.

Messier List	Messier was the first list I had seen so I wanted to try and capture them all.
Dark Nebula	This list is small right now but growing slowly.
Nebula	These objects are what I really do enjoy chasing down and looking at. Not so easy to capture.
Globular Custers	I have taken a few images of these objects but I have not been too successful as yet.
Open Clusters	Some of these objects are so open they really do not look like a cluster at all ?
Galaxies	These are strange beasts. They come in all shapes and sizes.

DSI capture and processing software. Capture with Envisage which comes with the DSI range of cameras. If you have not already updated your software from Meade then I would recommend you do so now as it gives more commands for stacking using drizzle (de-rotating images) See here for a demo Penumbra: Windows. http://neurohack.com/penumbra/index.html This software is used to stack and align fits files. You can use either RGB or LRGB in this package. It saves the final image for futher processing as a tiff file. CinePaint: Windows / Linux http://www.cinepaint.org/ I use Linux as my main OS but the older version of FilmGimp (Cinepaint 0.16-1) works on Windows. I have not tried Glasgow XP version as of writing this. CinePaint is 8, 16 and 32 bits per channel which is great for astronomy images. Gimp: Windows / Linux http://www.gimp.org/ The only gripe I have with The Gimp is its only 8 bits per pixel where as CinePaint is native 16 bits per pixel. Other software that might be used that is platform independant because it runs from Java: ImageJ SalsaJ There is a lot of progranes for the astronomer/astrophotographer here are just a few.. Aip4Win: Processing your images. Also includes a book. MaximDL: Capture and processing your images. AstroArt: Capture and I belive processing as well. Photoshop: A lot of Astrophotographers use this software with Fits Liberator a free plugin for PhotoShop. The list of sofware is very extensive see here:	Capturing an image with the DSI. Setting up. I have been asked how I work from starting imaging to finishing the poished image. So here is what I do. I set up my EQ5 mount, setting it roughly north. Put the weights on, then finally put on the telescope. My main telescope right now is a 222 mm f/7.25 Newtonian. I insert the DSI with an Atik .5 focal reducer and an Atik IR filter of 31.7 mm nose cone type, the Meade IR filter has been removed as this came apart early on with screwing on 42 mm threaded lens. I will now insert the USB plug into the laptop and start Envisage. This gives the DSI time to reach its operating temperature. Guiding. Now I insert the webcam into the 60 mm f/11 refractor for guiding. I also use a .5 focal reducer on the webcam. This works out to guiding at f/5.5 and imaging with the DSI at f/3.6-7. Now I will polar align using the polar scope that came with the EQ5 mount. When I have what looks like a good polar alignment I will now balance the telescope with the weights. When the balance is just so I will put just a little bit of extra weight on the lifting side of the gears. This means if I have the telescope on the west side of the tripof and the weights on the east side then there is an ever so slight heavier weight on the east side. This is so that the motors are lifting and the gears are meshed all the time. If the telescope is on the east side and the weights on the west side then I will make the telescope slightly heavier than the weights. Again so that the gears are meshed and the motors are lifting all the time. Guide Star. Now its time to start collecting the photons of the object you wish to captuer. First I start up GuideDog to get the webcam warmed up and running. Next I find the object I will to image in an eyepiece (12 mm) and centre it. Now replace the eyepeice with the DSI . Turn to Envisage and up the exposure to make sure I am focused and have the target centred or composed as I want it. Now its time to find a guide star. This can be a bit of hit and miss right now until I get used to the idea of how to work this. Some times it takes over 15 mins to find a good guide star. I have found that GuideDog does not like to have star to guide on that are close to the edge of the image. So its a case of moving the guide scope until the star is somewhere close to the centre of the frame. Now I can start the guiding proceedure. Once the guiding is going I can now turn my attention back to Envisage. Dark and light frames. I watch to see if the stars are coming down round from the DSI. I don't know if its true or not but I have found that using the sharp feature under the Auto Colour balance seems to help keep my stars round. I used to use smooth but always found my stars were elongated. I have not done a thing to the guiding sequence. I will have to recheck this idea and see if it pans out. I may have done something that I have not remembered doing to cause the stars to elongate. Now I cover the end of the telescope and take dark frames. This can take many minutes if you set Envisage to 1 second to 2 minutes. Here I normally take advantage of this time to go and make a mug of tea. After I have got my dark frames making sure I have dark frames the same length of exposure as my light frames I can now start collecting my light frames or images. I set Envisage to save all uncombined and set the Min Quality to 0 and the Evaluation Count to 1 with fits files. These are the uncompressed 32 bit RGB images. This save 4 files per image RGB and L. When I have what I think is enough frames which is normally around the 50 frame mark because of throwing away the bad frames I will stop the computer from capturing more frames. I will hand check these either in Envisage or AutoStar Image Processing (ASIP). When I have more experience with collecting my light frames using this method I am going to start using the Min Quality and Evalutation count which should cut down on the amount of work for me to do when the time comes to stack the resultant frames. Sorting and Stacking. Here I have a choice of how to stack the images. I can either use ASIP or Penumbra. There is a lot less work to do in Penumbra and you just point it to your stacks or RGB and L fits files and it will align and stack them for you. Now all you have to do is save the resultant image. Here Penumbra saves out as a 16 bit Tiff file. CinePaint can now open this tiff file and using Levels and Curves I can bring out a little more detail. One thing to watch out for is if you use too much Levels or Curves the stars in the image will bloat badley which is something I tended to do in the early days of post processing. Pros and cons. The longer your exposure the more detail you will have in your images and the less stretching you will have to do in your graphic package of choice but the more chance you have of getting elongated stars because of periodic error of your mounts gears. This periodic error will be a lot less if you have an expensive mount. I used to collect frames around the 4 - 8 second range because of the periodic error of my mount. The latest set of images were captured at 1 min exposure because the guiding was doing what its suppose to do and that is produce round stars. Captured on the 20th March, 2007 North East Coventry. Light pollution. This is my latest M104 image. This image is a stack of 39 frames of 15 seconds each. I should have used flat frames but I still have to work out how to use them. Captured on the 11th April, 2007 Kelling Heath Star party. Misty conditions. M13 is 23 frames of 60 seconds each frame. I got more detail in this image but the stars are still starting to bloat because of over stretching the Levels and Curves to bring out more details. I will of course update this page as I get better at guiding and processing my images. I hope this is of some help to someone just starting out. If you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to e-mail me on c dot rogers at ntlworld dot com substituting the dot for a full stop sign and the at for the at sign.