Y'all may recall (hey, that rhymes!) the m31 (Andromeda galaxy) image I shared a few days ago. It was a single 45 second exposure and made from a single in-camera JPEG (not even the RAW file). Refresher link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelsmithy/10181475554/
Well, I finally got to attempt my first use of the freeware DeepSkyStacker (version 3.3.3 beta 51) and with it I stacked the 11 "good" RAW images that I had taken that evening. Added together, they represent a 6 minute "integrated" exposure time. The latest versions of DSS also let you work with the histogram (in R, G, & B), luminance, and saturation, along with the curves. I then applied a few Photoshop astrophotography-related actions and adjusted the color-balance, which seemed a bit green to my eye. Here is the result: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelsmithy/10299785464/ This is still not even doing everything "right" because I was working with no "dark frames", "bias frames", or "flats" which would make for an even better stacked image (especially where noise is concerned). Still I'm pretty pleased with the result, for my "maiden DSS voyage". K-5ii, O-GPS1, ISO 800 K135mm f2.5 @ f4 -- Nothing is sure but death and Pentaxes. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
