[Ducky13]

Hi All,

I finally made my way up to Wales & found a reasonably isolated spot on a somewhat cloudless night & tried astrophotography for the 1st time. I followed the amazing advice that was given to me in THIS THREAD (thank you ) & the results are below. These were shot in RAW, using my Pentax KP & Pentax 15mm F4, no astrotracer. All of them were 30 second shutter, ISO 3200 (2nd one is 1600) F5. I have done zero post processing.

So what do you think? Any feedback? What could I have done better? Do you reckon that I should have used different settings? I played around with the ISO but felt that the 4 images below were the best ones. Also, how much better do you think I could make these images with post processing? Please note that I don't own Photoshop or Lightroom? I have no idea what the scale of improvement is with post processing or how to go about it so any basic advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Ducky

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[steve_k]

Hi All,

I finally made my way up to Wales & found a reasonably isolated spot on a somewhat cloudless night & tried astrophotography for the 1st time. I followed the amazing advice that was given to me in THIS THREAD (thank you ) & the results are below. These were shot in RAW, using my Pentax KP & Pentax 15mm F4, no astrotracer. All of them were 30 second shutter, ISO 3200 (2nd one is 1600) F5. I have done zero post processing.

So what do you think? Any feedback? What could I have done better? Do you reckon that I should have used different settings? I played around with the ISO but felt that the 4 images below were the best ones. Also, how much better do you think I could make these images with post processing? Please note that I don't own Photoshop or Lightroom? I have no idea what the scale of improvement is with post processing or how to go about it so any basic advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Ducky

Nice job. First attempt or not. I’m not an expert but I prefer your 2nd and 4th shots using the wide angle as they contain landscape. The other 2 just contain sky and might be better using your 200 and picking some constellation or galaxy to focus upon.

Just my 2 cents.

[Ed Winchester]

Raw will give you a whole new world in edit if you’ve never used it before!

[mikeSF]

You are off to a great start. Nice first effort and just keep practicing.

[pakinjapan]

So what do you think?

your first attempt looks a million time better than my first attem, that's all I can say. good job

[Ducky13]

Thank you all for the kind replies. The quality of the photos in my first attempt is a true reflection of the amazing advice that is provided on these forums.

Questions – If I were to attempt to edit the photos, what do you reckon I should do? Please keep it simple as I have almost zero experience with post processing. Also, is there any free software that you reckon I could use? Or any Pentax software that I can dig up? I’m really keen to see how much better the photos can get with post processing so if any of you want to have a go with the photos I posted then please go ahead.

Thanks
Ducky

[Rondec]

I am not an astrophotography expert, but my impression is that a lot of folks shoot multiple images and then stack them using Deep Sky Stacker or something like that. This will let you brighten up your stars quite a bit. But I'm not an expert on the subject, as I said. You look you have a nice start on it though.

Deep Sky Stacker for Astrophotography - Stacking Your DSLR images | AstroBackyard | Astrophotography Blog

[Belcik]

My first attempt with astrotracer ended with deletion of all attempts. Could not find infinity...

[Binth]

Great start! Focus is one of those things that can be tricky.