Helpful Posts: Living on the side of a sleeping volcano away from the madding crowds means we have great soil for our garden and dark skies for my astronomy.
It also means we have fluctuating electricity and consistent black outs. We count on five to ten blackouts a week and plug our delicate electrical equipment into voltage regulators.
The thought of spending money on a motorized EQ mount sends shudders up and down my spine. Which is why I ran a tracking test last night.
I put a brightish star in the center of my LCD and shot three sets of seven frames at a shutter speed of 3.2s.. I was curious if I could keep everything centered using just my eyes and hands. Turns out that using a Slik U8000 with a pan and tilt head I can.
I still need an EQ mount but now I know it can be and will be a manual EQ mount. At the start of my journey into astrophotography I was told that I needed to learn before I bought. It was good advice.
ISO 1600 ~ Shutter Sped 3.2s ~ F/2.8 ~ 17 frames ~ 18 Dark ~ 5 Off Bias ~ Hand Tracking ~ Sony Alpha a58 ~ Tamron 90mm 272E
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11th August 2017, 04:08 AM #1
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- Brian
A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
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11th August 2017, 11:54 AM #2
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- Dan
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
What did you use to stack them?
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11th August 2017, 12:57 PM #3
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- Kerala, India
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- Nandakumar
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
Very nice work
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11th August 2017, 01:25 PM #4
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- Brian
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
dss
Originally Posted by dank
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11th August 2017, 01:26 PM #5
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Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
it is one heck of a learning curve. Originally Posted by Wavelength
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11th August 2017, 01:42 PM #6
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- Ted
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
What is "dss", please. Anybody? Originally Posted by JBW
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11th August 2017, 02:45 PM #7
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- Brian
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
DeepSpaceStacker it is a free program that does a very good job of stacking deep space shots. Originally Posted by xpatUSA
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11th August 2017, 02:51 PM #8
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- John
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
Is that the same as Deep Sky Stacker? Originally Posted by JBW
John
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11th August 2017, 03:08 PM #9
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- Ted
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
Looks like it - Brian does have a condition that makes him prone to the occasional typo. Originally Posted by JohnRostron
I'm looking at stacking as a general subject and have an app or two myself but not "DSS".
I see that DSS has some familiar-looking (to me) functions:
Finding "control points"
sub-pixel methods
Auto-rotating (not helicopters
)
Auto-alignment
Various stacking methods also seen in panorama creation and/or HDR apps like TuFuse, Helicon, Hugin, etc. for example 'enblend', 'enfuse' and so forth.Last edited by xpatUSA; 11th August 2017 at 03:17 PM.
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11th August 2017, 03:18 PM #10
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- Brian
Re: A.P. ~ manual tracking test. three seven frame series shot at 3.2s and stacked
Yup Ted's right brain to finger malfunction. Originally Posted by JohnRostron
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