[Dr_who]

I've been continuing my work with an old K10D -- this specific body was made in Dec 2006, so it's almost 6 years old!




Rosette Nebula as seen on Nov 25 and 26 over two nights of capturing in the back yard.

Equipment used for this effort:
Stellarvue SV4
Full spectrum modified Pentax K10D camera with cooler (Camera temps ranged from 6 to 9 C)
SSF6 flattener with IDAS LPR filter
Losmandy G11 with Gemini 2 and PEC turned on
Guided with Maxim and SSAG on SV70ED

Data set:
32 lights, 45 darks, 256 bias, 35 flats - best 90% used giving a stack of 28 lights for 4 hours and 40 minutes of integration time.

Calibrated with Maxim DL, Stacked in DSS, Processed in PixInsight and LR3.

Some of my learning depends on patience and being willing to take the time and practice to get good data -- then save it for when I learn more and can return to the source for a rework.

I've been wanting to get out and take a stab at the Rosetta Nebula for soem time, but it's been over cast here for a good month :S Hope for some clear skies. Your picture is great! Just out of curiousity, how long approx. were the 32 light subs?

[smigol]

I've been wanting to get out and take a stab at the Rosetta Nebula for soem time, but it's been over cast here for a good month :S Hope for some clear skies. Your picture is great! Just out of curiousity, how long approx. were the 32 light subs?

Thanks for the note. I've been wanting to get after the Rosette for years. It was only with the recent testing that I'd had the chance. Now that I'm staring at rain clouds for the next week I'm glad that I did!

The subs that I use are 10 minutes at 400 ISO. I use this setting to build a library of darks to get my lights calibrated within 1C. I'm always adding new samples to the library when I get the chance. There's lots of non-linear amp glow on the K10D and having a good library helps a lot. From what I've seen on the K5, there isn't as much amp glow so the rigors of calibration that I've had to use with this camera aren't as required.

[pixelsaurus]

Thanks for the note. I've been wanting to get after the Rosette for years. It was only with the recent testing that I'd had the chance. Now that I'm staring at rain clouds for the next week I'm glad that I did!

The subs that I use are 10 minutes at 400 ISO. I use this setting to build a library of darks to get my lights calibrated within 1C. I'm always adding new samples to the library when I get the chance. There's lots of non-linear amp glow on the K10D and having a good library helps a lot. From what I've seen on the K5, there isn't as much amp glow so the rigors of calibration that I've had to use with this camera aren't as required.

Nice Rosette.

[zambonikane]

Hey everyone,
Here is a composite of a number of shots with my kx through my 8" f/4.9 Newtonian. I did a pretty poor job on the moon, but my only purpose was to capture the moon alongside Jupiter. After playing around in PS, I was amazed that I would get cloud bands on Jupiter, as well as the 4 Galilean moons in the shot.

[zambonikane]

Hey everyone,
A friend of mine is a pro landscape photographer and he invited me to one of his workshops on night photography. We headed up to French State park in an effort to capture some of the Geminids. Here are the 2 shots in which I was able to get one.

[krp]

Hey everyone,
A friend of mine is a pro landscape photographer and he invited me to one of his workshops on night photography. We headed up to French State park in an effort to capture some of the Geminids. Here are the 2 shots in which I was able to get one.

Nice, I like the lighting on the first one. I'm guessing this must be your friend? Jeff Berkes

[krp]

I shot this last week




I wanted to see how much detail I could capture without a tracking mount. I stacked over 100 4 second exposures shot with a Takumar 135mm f2.5 lens.

[v5planet]

I shot this last week




I wanted to see how much detail I could capture without a tracking mount. I stacked over 100 4 second exposures shot with a Takumar 135mm f2.5 lens.

Wow, I'm very impressed you were able to get as much detail as you did in the Horsehead Nebula with mere 4-second exposures!

[Brian Mould]

nice capture !!! the stars are perfect as if it were perfectly tracked

[zambonikane]

Hey KRP - Thanks for the kind words! My friend is indeed Jeff Berkes - How did you know?

[Dr_who]

I took this image of M42 in the city on the 16th.

In case someone was wondering the location the image was taken, I also included a image that the image was taken, in the back yard in the city. Other then the obvious light pollution, it also shows how bright Orion Nebula is as even in this hand held shot you can see it faintly in the backyard image.

[Gimbal]

VERY nice!

[krp]

Wow, I'm very impressed you were able to get as much detail as you did in the Horsehead Nebula with mere 4-second exposures!

I was surprised too how much detail was in the raw files. The lens was even stopped down to f/4 to avoid overexposing m42.

Hey KRP - Thanks for the kind words! My friend is indeed Jeff Berkes - How did you know?

Your picture reminded me of a similar photo I had seen of a meteor shower in Pennsylvania. So I found the picture again and saw it was taken by Jeff Berkes at the same place.

[Dr_who]

I don't know if anyone uses pixinsight to stack images but a fyi in case you use the K5IIs for the first time I'll save you some grief I went thru trying to find out why my K5 inages would stack properly but not my K5IIs.

You need to adjust the default debayer algorythim from RGGB to the second option BGGR. I assume this means the color pixel layout is slightly different on the sensor then it's older K5. Maybe has to do with not having the AA filter. Anyhow if this helps one person then I'll be happy

[smigol]

I don't know if anyone uses pixinsight to stack images but a fyi in case you use the K5IIs for the first time I'll save you some grief I went thru trying to find out why my K5 inages would stack properly but not my K5IIs.

You need to adjust the default debayer algorythim from RGGB to the second option BGGR. I assume this means the color pixel layout is slightly different on the sensor then it's older K5. Maybe has to do with not having the AA filter. Anyhow if this helps one person then I'll be happy

Dr_who -- that's a nice tip!

I've yet to get good debayering from PI on my K10D. I've found a good system of calibrating via Maxim, then stacking the undebayered fits through DSS - including the debayering at this step, then doing all the other work in PI. Nothing else seems to handle the non-linear amp glow of the K10D properly.