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[RCC] First picture of the orion nebula

Nikon D5300 Request for feedback M42 Messier Objects Emission Nebula
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Rakeen avatar
Rakeen avatar
Hello, friends. This is my first time trying to take a picture of the orion nebula.

I attached the result that I got to the post. If it doesn't work I'll upload it again in a comment.

I did 2 separate batches, 1 with 6400iso, 130x2s exposures f/5.6 and 1 with 1000iso, 130x3s exposures each with I think 40 darks flats and biases. When I tried with 100iso there was horrible concentric rings so I upped the iso this time around.

I am doing this with my dad's old DSLR (nikon d5300) & tripod. Don't judge the specs.





The one attached is the 3s one, I didn't export the 2s one as png. Stacked them with Siril.

Here's the stacked files: https://filebin.net/ymscgyevlx1r343i

Anyway, how can I get better pictures? I am also located in Bangladesh, Dhaka with a bortle of 6. No ability to get to a better location anytime soon.

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YingtianZZZ avatar
YingtianZZZ avatar
A good start!

CS, Yingtian
Thomas Madey avatar
Thomas Madey avatar
It looks like you are a little out of focus but overall a good first attempt
Mel Martin avatar
Mel Martin avatar
I took your stacked file and got it into Pixinsight and then Photoshop to clean it up a bit. There's some data there.. you need to stretch the image a bit and reduce the highlights after, and bring down the shadows a bit. 

Tracking was off, and this seems like a really short exposure. I don't know a thing about Siril or what its capabilities are. Anyway, a good start.. certainly better than my first one many moons ago.

Here's what I got playing with one of your stacked FITS files. 

Keep at it! It all seems impossible at first, but piece by piece a solid method will fall into place. Don't worry about your location or sky condition at this point. M42 is bright enough for imaging in a light polluted city. 

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Rakeen avatar
Rakeen avatar
Mel Martin:
I took your stacked file and got it into Pixinsight and then Photoshop to clean it up a bit. There's some data there.. you need to stretch the image a bit and reduce the highlights after, and bring down the shadows a bit. 

Tracking was off, and this seems like a really short exposure. I don't know a thing about Siril or what its capabilities are. Anyway, a good start.. certainly better than my first one many moons ago.

Here's what I got playing with one of your stacked FITS files. 

Keep at it! It all seems impossible at first, but piece by piece a solid method will fall into place. Don't worry about your location or sky condition at this point. M42 is bright enough for imaging in a light polluted city. 


Hey there Martin!

Thank you so much for the advice, and what you did with this garbage data is really cool!

I will definitely do better next time, thank you !
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AstroÅmazer avatar
AstroÅmazer avatar
Good start! Great effort without an equatorial mount or star tracker.

Few things to try on imaging front from my experience:
1. Stay around ISO 800-1600.
2. Try 1s exposures. There is enough star trailing on your stack - understandable since it's on a camera tripod. Keep going lower till you get round, focussed stars.
3. Use a Bahtinov mask to nail focus. You can print one from templates available on the internet.
4. Use lowest possible native F and step down rings. Using the iris to control F will give you processing headaches where the diffraction spikes from different channels will not line up. Most DSLR kit lenses have COMA.
5. Use prime lenses with ED glasses whenever possible.

Few things to try on processing (free software):
1. Try out GraXpert. Good tool for gradient removal and basic denoising. Tons of YouTube videos on how to use it.
2. Try deconvolution on the linear stack with Siril before any denoising.
3. Process stars and nebulosity separately. Siril has a Starnet++ integration… Again, YouTube is you friend.
4. GHS in Siril will help.
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Rakeen avatar
Rakeen avatar
AstroÅmazer:
Good start! Great effort without an equatorial mount or star tracker.

Few things to try on imaging front from my experience:
1. Stay around ISO 800-1600.
2. Try 1s exposures. There is enough star trailing on your stack - understandable since it's on a camera tripod. Keep going lower till you get round, focussed stars.
3. Use a Bahtinov mask to nail focus. You can print one from templates available on the internet.
4. Use lowest possible native F and step down rings. Using the iris to control F will give you processing headaches where the diffraction spikes from different channels will not line up. Most DSLR kit lenses have COMA.
5. Use prime lenses with ED glasses whenever possible.

Few things to try on processing (free software):
1. Try out GraXpert. Good tool for gradient removal and basic denoising. Tons of YouTube videos on how to use it.
2. Try deconvolution on the linear stack with Siril before any denoising.
3. Process stars and nebulosity separately. Siril has a Starnet++ integration... Again, YouTube is you friend.
4. GHS in Siril will help.

Thank you a lot for this advice man.

I will use this and go again. This time I will do better for sure with this useful advice. 

Best Regards
Rakeen
James Markgraf avatar
James Markgraf avatar
This is an excellent start! Way better than my first attempts at astrophotography. Keep up the journey, it's well worth it.

CS,
Jim
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TiffsAndAstro avatar
TiffsAndAstro avatar
Mel Martin:
I took your stacked file and got it into Pixinsight and then Photoshop to clean it up a bit. There's some data there.. you need to stretch the image a bit and reduce the highlights after, and bring down the shadows a bit. 

Tracking was off, and this seems like a really short exposure. I don't know a thing about Siril or what its capabilities are. Anyway, a good start.. certainly better than my first one many moons ago.

Here's what I got playing with one of your stacked FITS files. 

Keep at it! It all seems impossible at first, but piece by piece a solid method will fall into place. Don't worry about your location or sky condition at this point. M42 is bright enough for imaging in a light polluted city. 


Hey there Martin!

Thank you so much for the advice, and what you did with this garbage data is really cool!

I will definitely do better next time, thank you !


this is a great first image, especially untracked. just learn about siril for post processing   keep up the good work
Jean-David Gadina avatar
Jean-David Gadina avatar
I fully agree with AstroÅmazer's comments.
ISO 1600 is usually a good place to start, and that's what I use most of the time with my DSLR.

Exposing for 2 or 3 seconds is too long without a tracker, especially for a bright target like M42.
Even if you can achieve a good focus, your image will be blurry because of that.
I wouldn't go higher than 1 second. You may even try less and take more frames.

For a first picture, there's some good data in it.
Keep experimenting with different settings and processing techniques!

Here's my take on your data, using PixInsight and Photoshop for the final cleanup:



PixInsight:
  • BlurXTerminator - Correct Only
  • Dynamic Background Extraction
  • Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
  • BlurXTerminator - Sharpen
  • StarXTerminator
  • NoiseXTerminator (starless)
  • HDR processing (starless)
  • Seti's Statistical Stretch (starless)
  • Seti's Star Stretch (stars)
  • Medium Star Reduction

Photoshop:
  • High Pass filter
  • Levels adjustments
  • Small saturation increase
  • Less contrast
  • Curves
  • Denoise
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Rakeen avatar
Rakeen avatar
Jean-David Gadina:
I fully agree with AstroÅmazer's comments.
ISO 1600 is usually a good place to start, and that's what I use most of the time with my DSLR.

Exposing for 2 or 3 seconds is too long without a tracker, especially for a bright target like M42.
Even if you can achieve a good focus, your image will be blurry because of that.
I wouldn't go higher than 1 second. You may even try less and take more frames.

For a first picture, there's some good data in it.
Keep experimenting with different settings and processing techniques!

Here's my take on your data, using PixInsight and Photoshop for the final cleanup:



PixInsight:
  • BlurXTerminator - Correct Only
  • Dynamic Background Extraction
  • Spectrophotometric Color Calibration
  • BlurXTerminator - Sharpen
  • StarXTerminator
  • NoiseXTerminator (starless)
  • HDR processing (starless)
  • Seti's Statistical Stretch (starless)
  • Seti's Star Stretch (stars)
  • Medium Star Reduction

Photoshop:
  • High Pass filter
  • Levels adjustments
  • Small saturation increase
  • Less contrast
  • Curves
  • Denoise

That's genuinely incredible

So cool man! I'm so inspired. Thank you for this!! I will do better next time.

Unfortunately I don't have the money to get pixinsight.
Jean-David Gadina avatar
Jean-David Gadina avatar
That's genuinely incredible

So cool man! I'm so inspired. Thank you for this!! I will do better next time.

Unfortunately I don't have the money to get pixinsight.

It is expensive but completely worth it.
Note that there is a trial version that you can use for free for 45 days.

But I must warn you that you’ll most likely want to purchase it after this time. ; )
There’s usually no turning back once you’ve started to use PixInsight.
That being said, you can still achieve great results with OpenSource/Free software.

Many good tutorials on YouTube can help you see how it works before trying.
I’ve personally started with this series:


Have fun, and keep taking great pictures!
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James Markgraf avatar
James Markgraf avatar
That's genuinely incredible

So cool man! I'm so inspired. Thank you for this!! I will do better next time.

Unfortunately I don't have the money to get pixinsight.

While I think PixInsight is worth every penny, you can achieve similar (if not the exact same) results using free software. Besides Siril and GIMP, you can use GraXpert as a standalone application to do some of what PI does. SetiAstro has his tools available as standalone apps as well. StarNet2 is available as a standalone tool. While not as convenient as PI where everything is under one shell, you've got a lot of what we do in PI as individual apps.
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