Orion Nebula (M42) with a DSLR, Start to Finish, Pt. 2b - DeepSkyStacker and GIMP

[@pierrechaput2439]

Dude ... thank you thank you. Between this vid, and the first one with the cam and capture part, you just held my hand through my entire very first official "dslr long exposure multi raw frame stack with calibration frames and post editing" experience. I'm trippen and it couldn't have went better. lol Welllll ... I guess it could have hehe. My focus was off so my stars are fuzzy and my finished M42 doesn't look remotely as good as yours, but holy friggn giggidy IT WORKED!! From start to finish without a problem, and I understood everything so well from your direction and explanations. I'm gonna treasure my crappy M42 forever, and be able to laugh at myself sometime down the road when they get way better with practice and more of your advice. Sincere appreciation from chilly Ontario, Cda.

[@Josedav3]

Can't say enough how I appreciate your very slow and methodical tutorial- very clear and encouraging for all who want to learn the right way starting out! Thank you and please don't change a thing in your excellent videos!!!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks!

[@Paavy]

This is the best tutorial I've seen, very easy to follow and you explain everything you do and why, thanks!

[@Fro-man]

This vid was genuinely so much help, living under Bortle 8 skies results in a fair bit of light pollution, your method of reducing this is easily the best I've seen so far. Thank you so much for making this, it's really helped tease out new details

[@southernexposure123]

Thank you very much for the video. The more you talk the better I understand. It's helpful when you tell what you're wanting to accomplish before beginning your actions on a layer. Thanks again.

[@danjensen9425]

Thank you for the time in making these processing videos. They are all different from one another but as I watch them multiple times I start to understand more of what you are doing and try a different approach to specific problem . Getting a nice black background is not easy .

[@NebulaPhotos]

Glad to hear Dan! Clear skies, Nico

[@southernexposure123]

Thank you so much for your videos. I'm making progress by following along. There's times you had a mishap of over exposure while doing a subsequent change of Levels. You cancelled that iteration of Levels, and then reopened Levels to restart the iteration of Levels. I've found that if I click "reset" the immediately previous changes are set back to zero and I can begin again from the starting point with "that iteration" of changes. Clicking the reset button that's beside the cancel button does not reset the previous iterations of Levels. The same is true for Curves etc. Thanks again for all the time and effort you put into making videos.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks for the tip! Clear skies, Nico

[@stream9264]

Extremly helpful!!! Now I'm able to stretch the luminance without the need to pay monthly for a software. Please keep going with your excellent work. Best whishes from Heidelberg/GER

[@nicolaasventer9442]

Thanks Nico, you're a legend!!

[@smassky]

Three years later and this video is still useful. Got some tips I'm going to try with processing my recent stack of Orion. Though I only got about 5 minutes worth of data and didn't take and dark, flats, or bias images so I suspect it won't be as good as it could be, but I wanted to start small so I get the process down. Though I do have an older stack of Orion I may revisit and try processing again and see what I can pull out of it.

[@donr6234]

Thank you for the GIMP tutorial, not many on the web yet! You really gave me a good deal of help here, Thank you!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks for the comment Don! Yes, now that GIMP works with 16 bit it is perfectly usable for astrophotography. Clear skies, Nico

[@donr6234]

@@NebulaPhotos I hope you do more with Gimp also, all of us can't afford PS and Gimp works pretty darn good, thanks to you that is! 👍

[@williambarrett7108]

Thank you so much for your videos!! I would love to see more about downloading and using siril and gimp.

[@liviulazar9387]

Wonderful job! I followed you step by step and I did a great job with my first ever M42 editing in GIMP. Thank you so much! I will keep an eye on your work.

[@tejaskadgaonkar6962]

Excellent tutorial for beginners 🔥🔥🔥

[@johnwaczak8028]

For subtracting the gradient, you can make a copy of your first stretch and then go to Filters->Enhance->Despeckle. Uncheck adaptive and then increase the radius to ~25 and the result should be the gradient without needing to manually make the gradient layer.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks! I know photoshop better than GIMP and so I'm sure there are some things I do in this video that are not very efficient. Thanks for the tip!!

[@rkmvca]

Hi there! After creating the layer you describe, I assume you subtract it. I have tried this a couple of time and it works great for reducing overall background, but it just kills the nebula itself. Is there any way to exclude portions of the image?

[@clarky_astro]

@@rkmvca try using a layer mask. Tricky to decide where to mask and where not with many nebulae tho. And I find using a Gaussian blur at the edge of the mask ensures the transition is not visible. And, to anyone reading this, my pet irritation: Gaussian rhymes with house-Ian, not gauze. He was German

[@goatsuukerhill]

Thank you for walking me through DSS. Looking forward to your gimp session.

[@Teleccomtch2]

Thank you for your patience. A true teacher. I am very happy with the raw visual images I am able to capture but they deserve much more enhancement. I can't wait to give this tutorial a walk through after my next capture. I thank you Sir. You must be as truly passionate and in awe of this view of the cosmos that our technology now provides us, as I am. And to spend the time to bring others along with you .. is a gift. Is there perhaps a way you could provide a one-on-one or an internet classroom type of interaction like a Skype, or Messenger for example, ? Have you contacted the local colleges and universities to make your sessions valid of college credit ? Regardless, you are a good man and I thank you for your time.

[@davebrogan7941]

Thanks so much for taking the time to go through this in detail. Being somewhat new to the hobby, it is greatly appreciated! I live in south Florida, right near the Florida Everglades - a great place for imaging! Hoping to to take your tutorials and put them to good use!

[@chrisclark6154]

Great tutorial. gradient removal is really useful.

[@apiaristicone9585]

Hi Nico, Hope you are well. I managed to get almost two hours of the Iris Nebula last night so this video will help immensely, thanks!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Awesome! I was out shooting last night too. Clear skies, Nico

[@apiaristicone9585]

@@NebulaPhotos drive.google.com/open?id=1rlL58q9V3HcSV9yFQsTfOITIN-Q48Nox 8)

[@NebulaPhotos]

ApiaristicOne That is BEAUTIFUL! Great job!! 😀👍😀

[@apiaristicone9585]

@@NebulaPhotos you are very kind! Thankyou

[@LateNightAstronomy]

This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. Just started diving deeper into astrophotography with simple tripod shooting, DSS and GIMP. I’m hoping to get a tracking mount soon. Thanks for the video!

[@TC-bq5ri]

Looks like we are in the same boat..I am going to try and follow with you Late Night...you can check out some of my efforts on my channel if you like and I look forward to your work!

[@user-sg3pm2kd4q]

Thank you for the information, I was almost ready to quit trying to use this software, until watching your video. Great tutorial!

[@Yanthungbemo]

Jayzus ... This channel is a goldmine!

[@keithsalmon9892]

That was so herlpful. Thanks. Especially how to aboid burning out the core of the nebula.

[@robbrabs2265]

Brilliant step by step videos. The level of detail is perfect. Keep it up

[@arleibomfim]

Thank very much!!!

[@matthewb8229]

Thuroughly appreciate how you used a prgram you're not completely familiar with! Lots of times, tutorials are done at such a fast pace because the person is intimately familiar with the program, and it's difficult to keep up with what they're doing.

[@jimmcdonald9244]

I think Gimp brought out the nebulosity in the background better than PS, but it let you down in the sky background. Thanks for the detail!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Good insight! I’m also not used to only using one program like I do in these videos. In reality, I usually start in PixInsight and then switch to PS and/or Gimp at a certain point.

[@RaulRodriguezasteroides]

notable, excelente y magistral sobre la marcha...gracias....muy bien trabajado y explicado, para aprender

[@NebulaPhotos]

Glad it was helpful Raul! Clear skies, Nico

[@andreguimaraes96]

Awesome video. Helps a lot 🖖🏼

[@stephenashworth2480]

Very good

[@southernexposure123]

After several uses of GIMP I learned a worthwhile shortcut that has nothing to do with keys. After adjusting Levels and clicking OK if I left mouse click on the picture the Levels dialog reopens. As long as it's desired to repeat Levels just left mouse click on the picture again. It's the same for Curves, Saturation, Exposure etc. If I want to stop adjusting Levels and change to one of the other adjustment options, then I just go to the top tool bar and make the changes as shown in this video. You might have noticed the numbers in the Levels, Curves etc dialogs. You can click inside those dialogs on the number block and type in a number. When you click "OK" that makes the change on the picture in ratio to the number you typed in the block. If I make a mistake typing an input and the picture gets severely over / under exposed I just left click on the reset button in that dialog and type more carefully.

[@martinnappert]

Thanks for the tutorial, you made my day and I have got an Orion Nebula pic nearly as good as yours ;)

[@NebulaPhotos]

Awesome Martin!

[@astronomynotebook]

I believe that if you save the file in DSS as either a 32 bit Tiff or fits file it can be processed in Gimp at that bit level. After you can if you wish save as a 16 bit tiff in Gimp and open in Photoshop for further tweaking of the image.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks, I've tried it and it does work for me. I'm still a bit cautious because I want a workflow that is fairly foolproof and I've had some people tell me they have had trouble opening 32 bit files out of DSS

[@astronomynotebook]

Nebula Photos Glad it works....but I forgot to add that the rational as opposed to the integer type of tiff and fit opens normally that is it gives a normal histogram when taken into Gimp from DSS. The integer type of fit and tiff needs to be inverted but the histograms shows a thin line instead of a mountain shape with the rational type....so I think I am going with the rational fits and tiff formats and try to stay in 32 bit processing as long as possible before I need to downgrade to 16 bit to tweak further in other software such as Photoshop, Luminar.....I do Astro imaging.

[@nathanchristopher7770]

Great tutorial

[@southernexposure123]

You might have used GIMP enough by now to know this. You can set a default in Preferences to make GIMP start with the rulers and layer boundary OFF - as well as several other options. Click EDIT and on the edit dropdown click Preferences, then on the Preference page cursor down to Appearances and click that. On that page set those options to OFF. That page has 2 conditions for which you can set those preferences. Thank you very much for all the helpful videos you make and share.

[@BruceElliott]

And here's a little convenience tip: There's an icon at the bottom of layers panel for duplicating the selected layer. Since you duplicate layers so often, you end up saving a lot of clicks by using the icon instead of the context menu.

[@southernexposure123]

@@BruceElliott Thanks. That's a great tip. I have very little experience with layers and masks, but I'm watching videos about that process and the video authors make it look easy and simple. It's a mandatory method to master for high dynamic range targets. Thanks again for the tip.

[@BruceElliott]

@@southernexposure123 - I'm just learning, too. For me, it's curves and levels that are new. Nico's video is going to help when I go back and take another shot at editing my own image of M42 that I took recently.

[@southernexposure123]

@@BruceElliott I watched some videos and different people use slightly different clicks, mainly some shortcut keys that are worthwhile to learn, to accomplish the same procedures. I found myself needing to change my procedure slightly from those shown on "some" of the videos I've watched. I wonder if the difference is caused by different Bortle class of skies or the camera lens vs a telescope or because of the camera's sensitivity to light. What works really good for me with the Orion Nebula is to make levels adjustments at about half the amount as that shown. I'm making just 2 or 3 levels adjustments, and then change to curves adjustments. After a while I've developed a "sense" about when to go to saturation and to exposure - more often saturation - and then go back to curves. I tend to get carried away with the levels and curves adjustments and I've learned to scale back on that to prevent getting too much brightness too soon. Today I improved a little on my most recent shots of Orion Nebula. The most recent video I posted is a video about my learning process. At that time I didn't attempt using layers and masks. What is your experience and progress, so far?

[@BruceElliott]

@@southernexposure123 My first astrophotograph was a little over a month ago and was just my cell phone taking a shot of M42 through the eyepiece of my telescope (using the Night Sight mode on my Android phone). I'd really only meant to capture what I was seeing so I could show my wife later, but I discovered that my phone was able to capture color and details that I couldn't see with my eyes. That was when I realized that pure visual astronomy wasn't going to cut it for me. I got a used Nikon D5000 DSLR and took my first shots with it around two weeks ago. I'm still getting the setup optimized on my 8" Newtonian astrograph with a coma corrector. I'll probably have to get some spacers to achieve both coma correction and focus. So far, I haven't done any stacking , calibration frames, or anything like that - although it's coming! This morning I created my best version yet of one of my M42 images in GIMP. Later I showed it on Cloudy Nights, and someone told me my black point was too high (too dark), which is why I was losing faint details. "Stay gray" is the rule he told me. Like you, I've found my images don't start where the images do in these guys' images. Mine are really bright - maybe due to my Bortle 7 skies, maybe I'm overexposing? - but that's the first thing I try to address. I'm also learning that a light touch in small steps helps a lot.

[@milanhenegamage3576]

Thanks for the video. Can you please do a Milkyway edit using GIMP?

[@southernexposure123]

Thank you for the very helpful tutorial. I've watched it several times because the process is all new to me. In your video I learned that naming a layer is to designate what is going to be done within that layer. Before your tutorial that was confusing to me. I don't have PS. Even so I'm going to find your tutorial on Photoshop and try to make the transition to GIMP. The part where you showed a fast forward of several steps (near the 42 minute mark) was hard to follow because it was done so quickly. Anyway, I appreciate your time and effort. throughout I've been using GIMP for a few months, but only on the object and not by designating the background / foreground adjustments. I end up with a pretty fair image by just using levels, curves,color balance saturation etc on the nebula, but now I think I can improve my end result by understanding the bg /fg manipulations. Your demo on how to use, set up, name and use Layers was a big help to me. I've experimented with GIMP as well as Sequator and get different results for the auto saved images. After learning GIMP better I'll try experimenting with processing using RAW Therapee. So far I'm getting more pleasant results with GIMP. The following is my edit: After watching a few more videos I wanted to add that maybe I'm getting better results from Sequator because I'm processing lights only at the moment. Previously I did include darks and bias frames , but found they're not giving much of an improvement. I'm sure that will change whenever I reach the point of using a monochrome camera or certain DSLR filters. Thanks again.

[@rayshaw9397]

Thank you! I've been looking for a tutorial using GIMP!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Glad it was helpful!

[@TC-bq5ri]

Very nice! I will be referring to this tutorial as I get into processing for the first time...Thanks and subbed!

[@TheRandalljburke]

Just the video I've been needing. thank you

[@stromytube]

thank u

[@daddyfred24]

Thank you so much for sharing your work. I can exercise myself to process photographs that i could not afford for the moment... I have a Canon 70D but no good lens at all to take pictures of deep sky. Merci beaucoup !

[@anujitmaity0722]

Best sir , thanks a lot

[@danjensen9425]

I tried your method with the trifid nebula . I did pretty well too much background red but it looks very nice . I have the ability to go to dark sites and i think the processing is easier . But i didnt have to watch it for hours to get satisfied with my results . I will go back and watch background adjustments . I only had a problem with the paint brush but dont think I needed it . Oh and I sold my cls filter thanks again.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Great to hear Dan! Yes, processing is so much easier if the data is taken from a dark site

[@timmc83]

Nico - still one of my favorite tutorials on M42. Would you be interested in doing a tutorial on exposure blending in GIMP? Trying to preserve the core can be quite difficult. I have been attempting multiple exposures from 10 seconds up to 30s, 60s, 120s, 180s, and 5 minutes. Blending those exposures is rough for sure.

[@GregHarland1]

Thank you

[@georgedicker9789]

Hi, I love watching these :) I was wondering about your flat frames, you did the same ISO but 1/3s what determines the exposure time on the flat frames? Thanks

[@NebulaPhotos]

Looking at the histogram in playback mode on the camera, the peak of the histogram should be about 50-70% over from the left edge for a well-exposed flat. ISO/Aperture should be same as the lights, so exposure time is adjusted to get the right exposure based on the histogram rule.

[@Skorpp13]

Thanks, this helped me a lot since I also work with GIMP :)

[@dinomonaco2665]

Just found this excellent tutorial. I’m starting out in AP as well, and I’m using the free softwares , DSS & Gimp, first before diving into the purchased SW. I was wondering if you’ve had any exposure w Astro Pixel Processor. If so A tutorial on that would be great and your thoughts on which is the better of the two. I’m trying to decide on between APP or Pixinsight as my GoTo processing software down the road.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Hi Dino, Yep, I own APP. Between APP and PixInsight, I think PixInsight is the better long-term investment, but APP does a few things better (mosaics for one).

[@AstroC_13]

+1 pixinsight! grab the free 45 day trial.

[@joshuacarter3478]

Great video tutorial. Would you be willing to show how to minimize the star bloat in gimp? I think I can work through the other processing points. Just wanted a little guidance on minimizing the bloated stars. Thanks for the this video. I especially like the cost of Gimp haha!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Joshua Carter I usually don’t minimize my stars anymore, as it can cause problems and look unnatural. I just try to get them as small as possible to begin with by concentrating on focus and not stretching too aggressively. However, you should be able to find some tutorials on this online. They may be for photoshop, but you can figure out how to do most things in GIMP. The basic idea is select just the stars and use the Minimum filter to shrink them. The hard part is getting a very good selection of just the stars. Here is one method that should work with some practice: www.nightanddayastrophotography.com/gallery/Stars&DSOs.htm

[@joshuacarter3478]

Thank you Nico! I will check that out and do some tinkering. I am a complete newbie at this and am trying to work through the learning curve.

[@benc7805]

Keep up the great work! From Oz

[@mabdinur85]

Give Siril a try too instead of DSS ... it's an open source alternative which is getting continual improvement as a stacking and registration tool. It's purpose built for Linux and should work on windows.

[@NebulaPhotos]

thanks, I will try it.

[@mabdinur85]

I think adjusting the levels using the midpoint slider instead of the endpoint slider is what makes that green and violet more pronounced since it's very non-linear. Also the gradient tool usage was something new I learned from you so thanks ... what I do wonder although is why did you apply it at an angle instead of straight up/ down configuration? I actually use a lightroom like open source tool before I move to GIMP called dark table and I find that is an easier place to remove aberrations like vignetting and gradients.

[@NebulaPhotos]

I think I saw an angle to the light pollution. Might have been hard to see in the video. I've been meaning to try Dark Table, so I just downloaded it. Very slick!

[@veronica0406]

Beautiful!

[@JoWalski86]

Really great toturial 🙂 made my picture alot better... BUT!! My picture turn mostly green when i follow your steps. You know why? Love from Denmark

[@southernexposure123]

Thank you.

[@swagatadutta1658]

Here did you use the same 50mm lens you mentioned in your earlier video regarding the capturing process in part 1? Here your total exposure time is showing more than 38min for 72 light frames that means atleast 31 sec exposure per light frame, is that possible with a 50mm lens without a star tracker? Since in the earlier video you mentioned according to the npf rule the heighest exposure can be 3 sec for the 50mm lens. Since I am new to this and clearly don't have much idea i am a bit confused here, sorry again I might be completely wrong.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Hello, your confusion is understandable. This video is from an earlier series (made a couple years ago) where I was using a small telescope and tracker (part 1: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5OUlJh8gpJ3obM) You can see all my video series here to quickly find the "No Tracker" ones: kzbin.infoplaylists?view=1&sort=dd&shelf_id=4

[@swagatadutta1658]

@@NebulaPhotos okay..thanks a lot for clearing out my confusion. Your videos are really helpful and motivating.

[@raymction947]

Could you make a video about your misses or worst attempt in DSO imaging using DSLR and your beginner refractor scope? What steps did you take to improve on it. Did you use filter/s, took more images or used paid stacking software. What does a good stacked image and histogram before stretching looks like? I'm not sure if my PS stretching technique is at fault (I use DS stacker and PS) and need a better software or I'm just taking images in polluted area and sometimes do not notice a thin layer of clouds when taking images. The longest exposure I've done so far is 1 min with 2 hrs total exposure. Thanks.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thank you for the ideas! I will put this on the list.

[@Josedav3]

Is there a way using PixInsight or Photoshop to enhance the nebulosity and still keep the stars "pinpoint" without becoming bloated? That seems to be an unfortunate"trade off" in astrophotography... (Also: I liked the bigger photo before cropping)...

[@NebulaPhotos]

Sure. There are ways to do almost anything in processing. One way to do what you are talking about is make two copies of the picture, stretch them differently, remove the stars completely from the nebula pic (check out StarNet++) and then combine an aggressively stretched starless pic with a less stretched tight stars pic.

[@jamesgu1467]

Hank you for this very informative tutorial! I'm having trouble separating the nebulosity from the sky glow…they are all purplish, any recommendations?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Try playing around with color balancing while stretching the photo first. Check out my Andromeda video series for some ideas for how to do that.

[@briela3erik]

I am completely new to stacking and I tried it out, but I keep on getting error messages for each photo and it refuses to process.

[@markhelkoland7714]

What are "flat"s and "dark"s? So just got the program and tried taking pictures of Andromeda (they where really bad).

[@NebulaPhotos]

Hi Jeppe, Flats, Darks, and Bias are all "calibration" frames, meaning they calibrate your "Light" frames to make them better. Flats are a fully illuminated set of frames that correct vigenetting and dust donuts. Darks are frames you take at the same temperature and exposure length as your lights, but with the lens cap on Bias are frames that are as short as possible and with the lens cap on. More details about all this in the part 1 video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5OUlJh8gpJ3obM Clear skies, Nico

[@markhelkoland7714]

@@NebulaPhotos thanks a lot mate. I'll check it out right away. Quite the foundation of knowledge to get ajour with before taking up this hobby (:

[@run306]

What is dark and white frames?

[@mobsterduck8315]

At around 34:32 the moving black and white background selector thing is still up on my screen after I press saturation, it makes it difficult to preview what I want to save because it only gives me a half a second to look, because the black and white reselects. Anyone else have this issue with gimp?

[@VishalSingh-cr6gt]

did you use a telescope with a tracker? what was the exposure time of the unstacked photo? pls reply

[@NebulaPhotos]

Hi Vishal, Yes, I used an Astrotech AT-60ED and a iOptron SmartEQ tracker. All is shown/explained in part 1: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5OUlJh8gpJ3obM Exposure time 30s X 73 = 37 minutes. Shorter than I usually would do, but hopefully approachable for the beginner. Thanks, Nico

[@EloynAmmillio]

When you are in levels and you click and move the black point, instead of hitting cancel and going back into levels, just hit reset.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Thanks for the tip

[@Nexummusical]

it isnt clear how you select to the layer at 26 min. how u do that?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Not sure if I know what you mean. I created a new empty layer, drew a gradient in it, and then changed the blend mode of that layer from 'Normal' to 'Subtract'. Blend modes are at the top of the layers panel, and apply to whichever layer is active (click on layer to make it the active layer).

[@Nexummusical]

@@NebulaPhotos well u used the gradient tool. Then u select another item and i heared u clicking. My problem is i can get the gradient to the New layer where u extract the colors Good video , its very easy to follow

[@NebulaPhotos]

@@Nexummusical Oh, got it. Not a mouse click, when I said "I'm going to accept that gradient", I tapped the 'Enter' key on my keyboard. Should have been more explicit

[@Nexummusical]

@@NebulaPhotos thnk you very much. Im gonna try it!

[@bart9625]

Did u adjust the picture between DSS and GIMP ?? the stacked photo in dss looks very bright ( like mine ) and when u open that picture in gimp it looks a lot darker.

[@NebulaPhotos]

No. At 12:47 DSS is showing a preview of the image from a little stretch with the rudimentary curves, but my actual autosave.tif is very dark, which is normal. If your autosave.tif is very bright i'd guess something is wrong with your process.

[@bart9625]

@@NebulaPhotos @14:18 I did not check the second (not apply) in options during saving 2 tiff. The image is much darker now. Thank u for responding.

[@k1ng401]

As I apply the levels over and over the image gets grainier on the edge of the gas cloud. Is this normal? Before I apply the levels it’s cloudy but not grainy. Is adjusting the black point of the levels increasing the contrast and causing this graininess?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Yes, there is always a balance between stretching to reveal detail, but also revealing noise or “grain”. I don’t go into noise reduction in this video, but there are methods to smooth noise. Ultimately the best way is to shoot longer integrations. This was only an hour or so. I often do much longer (20 or 30 hours)

[@k1ng401]

Nebula Photos thanks for the reply. My current rig only allows for 4 sec exposures and even then my stars are not perfectly round. I’m saving up for a new telescope and mount. Also, I was shooting a nebula on a smoky night with city light pollution I’m not sure what the general haziness in the photo even is! If I get a quality motorised mount, how long an exposure could I do before I need a guide camera?

[@NebulaPhotos]

​@@k1ng401 Unguided imaging depends on many factors including the mount, scope weight/size, and focal length. Ballpark estimates: at 50mm f.l. maybe 5 minutes subs, at 300mm f.l. 3 minute subs, at 1000mm f.l. 30 sec. subs. Whenever shooting unguided, I expect to throw out about 20-30% of subs. The nice thing with autoguiding (in addition to longer subs) is consistency (keeping over 90% of subs) and dithering (moving the mount slightly between subs - helps reduce noise in processing).

[@jamesbarneveld7398]

for whatever reason when i go to desaturate the image gimp doesnt show me a preview even though i have it selected (basically it doesnt get rid of the white lines even after i hit ok or enter) any suggestions?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Could you provide a time-stamp to the part of the tutorial you are talking about? Thanks, Nico

[@jamesbarneveld7398]

@@NebulaPhotos at 34::05 when you select by colour and start decreasing the saturation and hit enter (around 35:25) you get a preview of sorts to see what happened and the striped lined mask goes away, mine does not. the only way of getting rid of it for me was to hit select none, but i cant tell if its done anything. the other issue im having is that when i desaturate my background (which is more orange and red) it selects too much of the red from the horse head and flame nebula. would you recommend fixing this issue with a mask instead?

[@michiganfireman5299]

I am starting to get into editing my photos with PS express and dss. The problem I am having, is that I can not get my pictures inported from my camera to ether PS express or dss. Do you have a vid that walks through how to inport picture from your camera to PS express and dss?

[@NebulaPhotos]

You need to organize the import and organize the pictures yourself before loading in to DSS. I do have a part of a different video that goes over this whole process: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sIPTZISrlJV-bNE (this link will go right to the part that shows the process of file import and organization)

[@td6935]

When i try to open my autosave.tif file it gives me this error tiff picture warning unknown field of 5000 (0xc350) and then opens a file that doesnt look anything close to the file (looks like an individual subexposure instead of the stacked tif)

[@henryriverasiervo]

Hello there nebula photo I'm a beginner in astrophotography I use my red cat51, asiair with my canon t7i my camera settings are manual,bulk mode,raw only but my question is every time I download my file from my my asiair to my 🖥 download raw & jpg files how can I down loads only my raw files. Thank. Henry R. Chicago ill.

[@NebulaPhotos]

Good question. I just got an ASIAir and basically know nothing about it. I would suggest asking on a web forum. A workaround to get rid of the jpegs quickly: in Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, do a search for .jpg within the folder. This will filter the list so it's only jpegs, then just delete them, and you will only have the raws left.

[@henryriverasiervo]

@@NebulaPhotos hello thank you for your time I was working with it and just got to do with what bin you sent it to bin 4 I was getting jpj file bin 1 full resolution of my camera. So just depending on bin you sent it to. Thanks.

[@heklik]

Do you have sequator and gimp tutorial

[@13_cmi]

Dss is better if you want better photos hut needs more work. Sequator just needs a bit of a stretch to look fine. Follow the same stretch he uses for this and it brings it out a bit. At least for andromeda I haven’t tried much with orion

[@raziqkanani7059]

hey Nico I have a question, when I open up the stacked tif file in GIMP the image opens up as if it was one of my raw light frames and not the final stacked one. what i mean by that is it doesn't look like the much nicer final stacked picture it looks like a singular light frame. any idea as to why this is or how to fix it? (I triple checked i was opening the stack and not the light frame) Thanks!

[@NebulaPhotos]

Hi Raziq, that sounds normal. The file out of deep sky stacker is not stretched so it won’t look like much until you process it in GIMP. Just keep going with the tutorial. Then try just processing one light frame the same way and I think you will see a big difference.

[@raziqkanani7059]

@@NebulaPhotos ah I see makes sense thanks! Appreciate the fast reply 👍

[@apple11117]

I opened GIMP but neither of the editing panels appeared... I can't find them in any of the tabs, anyone know anything about this?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Try this: Edit->Preferences->window management-> click on the button that says Reset saved window positions to Default Values. Then restart GIMP. If you are still having issues, another option is to install the latest version.

[@apple11117]

@@NebulaPhotos thus worked perfectly! Thanks for your help!

[@evanboyle2229]

Is it better to download dss 64 or 32? Or does it not matter since if you'll be processing in gimp you'll be using a 16 bit file?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Most modern computers use 64-bit processors, and you will get a speed boost in processing if you run 64-bit software. Otherwise, doesn't matter.

[@evanboyle2229]

@@NebulaPhotos thanks for the reply, I appreciate the insight!

[@arielmario2952]

PERO q has apilado por q solo se veia un par de estrellas y todo negro

[@wanderingquestions7501]

Why is it that taking a raw image of M42, in my Canon’s utilities digital; comp viewer I can see nice colors having done nothing, but in GIMP I can level the image scale but not see nearly as much colors; even using color supplement tools... it lacks color comparatively? I just can’t find the natural light colors using Gimp

[@NebulaPhotos]

TheDesert IsPatient GIMP itself doesn’t have a raw converter, so It is probably whatever application you are using to convert from raw to something else that is causing the loss of color? Have you tried following the tutorial as in the video with stacking using DSS and then bringing the 16 bit tif in to GIMP?

[@wanderingquestions7501]

Nebula Photos - EOS Utility captures to disc (bias, darks, subs, etc). Then Nebulosity opens and stacks, normalize, demosaiq, could stretch. then on to post-processing in Gimp with sometimes a tiff file

[@NebulaPhotos]

TheDesert IsPatient I’ve never used Nebulosity for pre-processing/ stretching, but the one thing I’ve heard consistently from people that do use it is that it is very hard to retain color using it. So my guess is the problem is with the stretch in Nebulosity. No offense to Craig Stark who I have tremendous respect for, but most people move on from using Nebulosity because it seems to have a lot of flaws with the way it handles images.

[@wanderingquestions7501]

Nebula Photos - I understand what you’re saying about Neb; but’ve I’ve also saved just the stack and exported. I’ll have to look at pre-export issues again. I know of no other options for Mac. Maybe i won’t normalize, demosaiq pre stalking - see what that does

[@NebulaPhotos]

TheDesert IsPatient got you, you might want to try Siril. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but a few friends of mine told me it works well, and it is possible to install on Mac and it’s free!

[@paulhang2719]

40:00

[@robertnicklas655]

I have a Mac; and Deep Sky Stacker is only for PC's. Is there any way of getting DSS for Mac?

[@NebulaPhotos]

Robert Nicklas not that I know of. There is an open source project called OpenSkyStacker you may want to try. Here is the link: github.com/BenJuan26/OpenSkyStacker

[@robertnicklas655]

Thank you for the link. I wanted to say in the last reply that I very much enjoyed watching your videos. Very informative.

[@adrobotics]

The tutorial is great but the swallowing sounds you are constantly making makes it unbearable to watch.

[@NebulaPhotos]

I think I've improved mic placement in newer videos. Thanks for the feedback