Hi guys

This is easily my best DSLR image so far.. taken with Chris Wakeman's modded 350D at the dark skies of the South Pacific Star Party, at Wiruna, NSW on the 6th April.

It consists of 21x 5 minute exposures @ ISO400. Darks ICNR, flats calibrated. Unmodded 350D + WO 0.8x reducer/flattener, through ED80. Guided on an EQ6 with PHD + DMK.

The images were taken from about 2:40am until 6am on the Sunday morning at the star party, and I slept in the car on and off while the exposures were running.

Please click on the image at the link below to see the best version:
M20 and M8 with modded 350D

I'm very happy with how this turned out and I can't imagine going back to a non-modded camera now But i'm going to have to for a while at least.. Chris wanted his camera back

I practised a few different processing techniques with this one, since the data was so good to begin with. I tried some wavelet sharpening in PixInsight but the image came out too flat (although it was sharper). I also experimented with using the red channel (sharpened) as the luminance - and that didn't turn out too bad: M8 and M20 with red channel as luminance.

Thanks for looking.

M20 and M8 with modded 350D

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Mike
. mikesalway.com.au - Astronomy and Photography by Mike Salway
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
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Mike,

These are excellent shots. I think I like the one with red as luminance better, but both are very nice.

One comment on PixInsight wavelet processing. For Nebula, the HDRWavelet transform does flatten contrast overall -- that is the intent of the algorithm. But with that flattening you can then use curves to adjust contrast where you want it. It keeps the bright areas from getting saturated while brightening the darker areas. In your shots, the bright areas are not over-saturated so HDRWavelet isn't much of a help.

The ATrous Wavelet transform will bring our more nebular details, but would take some careful masking not to harm the beautiful star background you have. Perhaps a sharpened image could be blended with the original as a new layer in Photoshop with an overlay or softlight blending and a layer mask to selectively pass the sharpening.

Altogether, great work.

--Andy

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Observatorio de la Ballona

I find this image looking too over blown, you might try reducing your midtones a little in levels and then a slight curves correction to give a more pleasing final look to the image.

The modified camera does help a lot. Are you going to get yours modified? I'm trying to picture that little ED80 on that mount! Should carry it! That field is so low here it doesn't image well.

Rick