Astrophotographers hangout. Invite friends and notice chat bar on bottom.

Marc Basti's Comments

Comment Wall (34 comments)

At 12:39pm on March 25, 2014, NICOLA CORBASCIO said…: Many Thanks, Marc...! ;-)
My Compliments for Yours Beautiful Pictures too....!
Nature always provides cues for great photos, just able to observe ...! ;-)
Nicola

At 2:34pm on February 24, 2013, rashmi bhatt said…: Hey marc
sorry take so long to reply I'm making a steel pier by tube is 32"by8" diameter bottom plate 1/2" thick top pl
ate thickness is 3/8 for cpc 8" telescope is that ok
thanks

At 8:31pm on November 26, 2012, M.C. said…: Hi Mark,

I spent some time looking at your images, I totally love them. They're amazing! The Elephant trunk is one of my favorites.

By the way, you asked me about Startools the other day, and Ivo, the guy who wrote StarTools decided to process my Heart nebula to show me what the tool can do, and I was blow away for an image that is taken from a Bortle 8 sky like Portland downtown...I uploaded his processing and obviously gave him credit for that, and I thought you may want to take a look to it.

http://astrogab.ning.com/photo/heart-nebula

Cheers, M.

At 2:19pm on September 3, 2012, carlo colombo italiano milanese said…: carissimo fai veramente delle belle astro foto ciao c.colombo

At 9:04pm on March 14, 2012, Farrell Germann said…: thanks for the Look.. Farrell

At 7:30pm on March 13, 2012, Farrell Germann said…: Marc thanks for the Look..I'll Try to do better w/Colour next time..

CS

Farrell

At 11:51am on November 21, 2011, Derek Baker said…: Hi Marc. My apologies for the slow reply. I have been busy and haven't been on Astrogab in a loooooong time. :-(

cheers,

Derek

At 8:57am on November 21, 2011, Gary Gonnella said…: Thanks for the comments Marc. The Canon 20Da has 2 main features for astrophotography, it has a slightly better IR response and more important it has 2 live focus modes that enlarge the center of the image making focus very easy. Trying to look through the view find is useless for the sky. My understanding is that when the 20D was in production one of the big executives asked engineering to make ans astronomy camera for him. They said they could not make one but they could make 5000, so they did and sold them. Don't know if this story is true or not.

At 9:13am on October 23, 2011, Gary Gonnella said…: Thanks marc, Slowly but surely I am starting to figure a little of this stuff out.

At 10:16am on October 13, 2011, Derek Baker said…: True, you can set Grad Xterminater to deal with sudden changes via the "Fine" mode and "Strong" corrections, but I suspect that such a harsh filter would alter other desirable detail in the image(s).

Part of the issue with gradients is that one side of one of the images you are merging could have a brighter overall level than the other image you are merging, yet on the other side of the seam you could very well see the opposite in brightness comparisons. So when you got to equalize things on one end of the seam, you actually make things worse on the other end of the seam.

And from what I have found, it takes just a tiny tiny difference in levels to produce a visible seam....so this is a really 'picky' process (which I am still not 100% confident with doing!)

Cheers, Derek

At 5:32pm on October 11, 2011, Derek Baker said…: Hi Marc. That's a good question, and one that's relevant to ccd imagers too, because sky conditions vary so much during a night, or from one night to the next.

From what I have found, you will see some difference in the backgrounds, although some NoiseNinja or other noise removal routine will help. What you will end up having to do is to equalize the backgrounds while blending, and this MAY limit some of the faintest stuff you got in the image with the least noise. But it shouldn't be huge difference.

I should mention that the most pressing issue when blending images was that you have to do a careful job of flat-fielding and also removing any gradients due to the influence of light pollution or the Moon. The program Gradient Xterminator is excellent at this, If you don't have a perfectly flat background, you will blend on part of the overlap well, but then find that another area where the images overlap has a visible seam, and if you correct the visible seam, then the first area may not blend properly.

I hope this helps Marc. I look forward to seeing the results of your two-panel mosaic! :-)

cheers,

Derek

At 9:06am on October 1, 2011, Gary Gonnella said…: Thanks for the comment Marc. I just went through your album and you have some very impressive shots. That particular shot of M76 was 9 5Min exposures on my 14" with a 12nm Astrodon filter. I also have the 3nm Astrodon and it would have brought it out more with less stars shine but I am setting out to get all Messiers in my backyard with Ha and since most are stars the 12nm gives me better overall results. I see no reason why your equipment wouldn't give you the same results. From my home location in So. Cal. narrowband filters have been a god send.

At 12:25pm on July 4, 2011, Lisa Kaminski said…: Marc, what type of camera are you using for photography? Just curious.

At 11:24am on June 25, 2011, Russ Ruggles said…: Marc, which M20 image were you talking about? The single sub or the full image loaded up on the Reprocess My Image group?

At 2:20pm on March 23, 2011, spike77 said…: marc ur photos are top notch buddy i love them all we could all take a page out of ur book keep up the good work man

At 2:31pm on March 15, 2011, John Laning said…: I am not seeing a dark image, just a X at the top left. Why are you stretching the dark, I always do a median combine, and never process the darks in any way. John Laning

At 3:22pm on February 19, 2011, Alexandros Filothodoros said…: Thank you Marc :)

Seems nice here !

At 2:38am on February 19, 2011, Alexandros Filothodoros said…: Thank you Marc :)

Charles Dunlop created this Ning Network.

Welcome to
AstroGab

Sign Up
or Sign In