The Mystery of a Nebula

[JimFox]

This is the California Nebula, if you rotate it in your mind, you can see how they came up with this name.

I am including 2 more images for those who just might be a little curious. The first is the Stacked image coming out of the DeepSkyStacker program that is a Freeware program for Astro stacking. The 2nd is after the initial Curves adjustment in Photoshop showing just how much the stars can obscure a Deep Space Object.

38 - 60 sec images
12 - Dark Frames
12 - Light Frames
12 - Bias Frames
Nikon D850 and Tamron 150-600mm at 300mm

I spent much of 2 days working on the processing of this. I started over 8 different times as each time I got towards the end where I thought it was finished I saw things I didn't like so I started it from scratch again. My biggest obstacle is learning how to reduce the stars but not leave any artifacts behind while doing it. I am starting to get the hang of that, though it appears there is no one cure that fixes it all. It's a bit of this and a bit of that, and each image seems to be different.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

Finished Edits

Fresh out of the Stacking Program - You can faintly see the Nebula

After the initial Curves adjustment

 

[Jameel Hyder]

That’s really fascinating Jim. Enjoying your journey of Astro photography - both the capture as well as processing.

 

[AlanLichty]

Curious process - I had no knowledge of how these sorts of images were created until just recently with the explanations in this forum. I always assumed they were single frame images from exotic telescopes on high mountains.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Great trip you astro guys are taking us on.

 

[JimFox]

That’s really fascinating Jim. Enjoying your journey of Astro photography - both the capture as well as processing.

Thanks so much Jameel! It's a pretty fun journey that I have been having so far!

 

[JimFox]

Curious process - I had no knowledge of how these sorts of images were created until just recently with the explanations in this forum. I always assumed they were single frame images from exotic telescopes on high mountains.

Hey Alan, I was in the same boat as you. Part of this interest started a year or two ago when my grandson wanted a telescope to see these awesome objects in the sky. I had assumed that just getting a telescope would work. I bought him one for Christmas. He never got to use it as his Dad messed it up while assembling it. But that's where I just assumed you could just visually look through the telescope and see all of these awesome objects. I think most people just assume that, I know I did.

So as I got more interested in capturing Astro as I kept seeing @Colorado CJ awesome work here, I thought it sounded fun. I had noticed he wasn't using a telescope but just his DSLR and a Tracker I believe in the beginning, but in my head I still had it stuck that if I just had a telescope I could visually see these awesome objects visually through it, so why waste time with a star tracker mount. I was looking up prices for telescopes that would track, and if you didn't look close you would assume from most advertising that you could see these objects visually through the telescope. It wasn't until I did more research, and I had a lot of phone calls with @Mike Lewis as I tried to wrestle all of this info in my head, until I finally realized that even with a telescope I wasn't seeing the vast majority of the objects in space. That even with a telescope I would still need a camera to capture multiple images and then stack them. I found out that if I just looked through the telescope basically all I would see was just stars. So that brought me to the point of a question as to why should I invest $$$$ into a telescope when I didn't even know if I would enjoy doing it.

I came across a website www.Astrobackyard.com I don't recall if Mike had told me about it or not, but this website does come up at the top of most astro searches on Google. I found that he was shooting with the same Tamron 150-600mm that I already owned and the SkyGuider Pro mount and was capturing awesome Nebula. I forgot to mention, that in the beginning I didn't pay much attention to these star tracker mounts for the DSLR as ever person I knew, and I mean everyone I knew was only using them with a wide angle lens and to capture the Milky Way. So I had no idea that these mounts could have the precision or the ability to then capture Deep Space Objects. So that's where I found out that instead of investing $1200 to $4000 or more for a telescope and accessories I could get a mount and accessories for around $500 and just use my existing camera and Tamron 150-600mm.

Now I knew there were limitations to the quality of the images, all you have to do is see the work from @Colorado CJ and you can see that the better more expensive gear does indeed result in better quality images. The expense does result in better astrophotography. But I thought that the quality of work I was seeing from Trevor at www.Astrobackyard.com was definitely way above average and looked really acceptable and all he was really using was a star tracker and the Tamron 150-600mm (which I already owned!). So that for $500, I could get my feet wet in this and hopefully have some fun. So far I have been getting my money's worth I think.

Okay, I have to get going as I need to get my rental jeep packed up with camera and astro gear and head out to Joshua Tree to shoot some more Deep Space Objects tonight!

 

[Mike Lewis]

Jim,

Nice result - you continue to progress very rapidly on this! As you are starting to realize, with so little signal in a single frame, getting proficient at post processing has quite a lot to do with your final result, assuming you have tracking and focus nailed down. While the post processing can be time consuming, I personally love watching an object pop up out of the darkness and noise and take shape - it is very exciting.

I may revisit this target if/when I ever get out imaging again (hopefully now rescheduled for March) as it has been quite a while and I am confident I can improve on my previous image.

ML

 

[JimFox]

Jim,

Nice result - you continue to progress very rapidly on this! As you are starting to realize, with so little signal in a single frame, getting proficient at post processing has quite a lot to do with your final result, assuming you have tracking and focus nailed down. While the post processing can be time consuming, I personally love watching an object pop up out of the darkness and noise and take shape - it is very exciting.

I may revisit this target if/when I ever get out imaging again (hopefully now rescheduled for March) as it has been quite a while and I am confident I can improve on my previous image.

ML

Thanks so much Mike! I have the tracking down, up to 5 min at 500mm should do the trick.

Yeah, I can’t wait for you to get set up. Be sure to take photos of where you will be setting up your gear, it would be cool to see the setup you will have.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Will do!

ML

 

[Alisa]

Wow another cool shot!

 

[Beth]

great end result.

 

[JimFox]

great end result.

Thanks! I like how it turned out.

 

[Nilo Photography]

You're really getting into deep space here. I like it.

 

[JimFox]

You're really getting into deep space here. I like it.

Thanks Lenny! It’s lots of fun.

 

[David S]

Wow! The final result is pretty flabergastingly magnificantal. I don't think I possess the amount of patience to produce something like that. I was just watching the last episode of Picard...this belongs somewhere in there !!

 

[JimFox]

Wow! The final result is pretty flabergastingly magnificantal. I don't think I possess the amount of patience to produce something like that. I was just watching the last episode of Picard...this belongs somewhere in there !!

Thanks so much Dave!