Very close to Tringulum galaxy M33 we may spot a bright open cluster towards Perseus constellation. Its name is M34 and here it is a picture I took today through a remote 6 inch apochromatic refractor on New Mexico that shows colorful stars. Enjoy it!
Archive for Paint Shop Pro 9
M34 Open Cluster at Perseus Constellation
Posted in Astrophotography with tags 6 inches, apochromatic, Astronomy, Astrophotography, color, Fitswork4, M34, Open Cluster, Paint Shop Pro 9, refractor, starts, Telescope on 2013/10/12 by computerphysicslabLight Pollution
Posted in Astrophotography with tags batch processor, Canon EOS 450D, dark frame, Deep sky, DeepSkyStacker, DSLR, image arithmetic, light pollution, no tracking, Paint Shop Pro 9, shift-and-add on 2009/07/21 by computerphysicslabLight pollution in suburban skies makes nearly impossible astrophotography. Nevertheless, there exists some computer techniques to make it possible. I have used a dark frame to catch the exact pattern of the light pollution in the photographed area. The way to accomplish this is not difficult. Shooting in continuous mode the DSLR camera facing the zenith in my home window, and forcing every frame to last 15 seconds I got a sequence of subframes to be processed afterward.
To get the dark frame I do some image arithmetic with Paint Shop Pro 9: I choose 3 or 4 distant subframes and compute them using “darkest” option. This way, stars become to fade until disappearing.
With Paint Shop Pro 9 and batch processor I apply a barrel lens distortion of 17 (empirical value to correct a 18mm focal lens like Canon’s) to every subframe and also to the dark frame.
Once got the dark frame DeepSkyStacker is needed to stack the single subframes and substract the dark frame. The sideral drift of the field is automatically compensated with the intelligent algorithm that DeepSkyStacker provides.
The resulting image is surprising taking into account this is an urban sky.