Exploring Night Sky » processing

May 29

by Amit Kamble in Astrophotography, Nightscapes, Tutorial 2 comments tags: Amit Kamble Photography, astrophotography, comparison, east cape lighthouse, Light Polluted Location, lighthouse, nightscape, Nightscapes, photoshop, processing

A 5sec Exposure – East Cape Lighthouse

Often when you talk about astrophotography, first things that come to mind are Long Exposure and High ISO. For most of the time this is true but then there are times when you cannot use both at the same time and sometimes you just have to stick to short exposure times. Sometimes, the images produced with a short exposure will not have much detail of the sky, but if you are a dark site, it is sufficient enough to capture those details. I recently visited East Cape lighthouse, which is the easternmost point of New Zealand to capture the milky way rising next to the lighthouse. This was my first time so I did not know what to expect. These beautiful beams going across the sky looked so beautiful and I wanted to capture them with the milky way rising. As usual, I set up my camera to a 20sec exposure, ISO 6400, f/2.8 and not to be surprised but the lighthouse was overexposed and I did not capture any of those beams. A bit disappointed, I tried again with slow exposure and got better. Then I thought, the reason I am not capturing the beams is because, when on […]

Apr 16

by Amit Kamble in Astrophotography, Deep Sky, Tutorial 0 comments tags: Amit Kamble Photography, astrophotography, Deep Sky, ioptron, iOptron skyguider, LMC, photoshop, pixinsight tutorial, processing

LMC Processing – PixInsight Tutorial

I recently uploaded an image of LMC which is probably one of the best images i’ve processed so far. As i was processing the image, i decided to record the process, so i can upload that as a tutorial as in the past few people have asked about the processing. I used pixinsight for processing and photoshop for final touches. Keep a look around as i upload more videos. Here is a 11 part video series that shows the processing workflow.

Apr 03

by Amit Kamble in Astrophotography, Deep Sky, Tutorial 0 comments tags: Amit Kamble Photography, astrophotography, Deep Sky, photoshop, processing

M51 Processing – Photoshop

This is a short video of M51 processing. A friend of mine “Rahul Ramtekar” from Dhruva Skywatchers Association asked me to process this beautiful image of M51 galaxy shot from a Dobsonian telescope. I did not have DSS so this set of image was stacked in PixInsight, but any stacking software will do. The image was taken by Rahul Ramtekar of Dhruva Skywatchers Group – Nagpur, while observing through the 10″ Go-To Dob at Sillari, Pench with Pravin Jat. Canon EOS 60D + Skywatcher 10″ Synscan Dob Alt-Azimuth Tracked 20 images Stacked in DSS + Postprocessing in PS 29Sec, f/4.8, ISO 1600 19th March 2016, 4.20 AM, 21.3732455 N,78.7575318 E Telescope Credits: Observatory, Sillari Pench Tiger Reserve

Feb 22

by Amit Kamble in Astrophotography, Deep Sky 0 comments tags: astrophotography, AT65EDQ, Deep Sky, Eta Carina, photoshop, processing, ZEQ25

The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme

Carina Nebula is a region in the sky much brighter and larger (at least 4 times larger) than the famous Orion Nebula (M42), yet is not as famous. This is probably because of the location of the object which is circumpolar south of latitude 30°S, but is never visible north of latitude 30°N. It is a treat for people in the south and especially for astrophotographers. During the summer, we have Orion up in the sky and as the winter comes, it’s time for Carina to be up nice and high. This not so famous Carina Nebula is an extreme stellar nursery, a home to one of the youngest known star clusters (Trumpler 14), Trumpler 16 which is home to of WR 25, currently the most luminous star known in our Milky Way galaxy together with the less luminous but more massive and famous Eta Carinae star system, and HD 93129A (another luminous star). The nebula lies at an estimated distance between 6,500 and 10,000 light years from Earth. It appears in the constellation of Carina, and is located in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm. I Bought a new AT65EDQ and iOptron ZEQ25 mount but never used it due to bad weather around […]

Feb 08

by Amit Kamble in Astrophotography 0 comments tags: astrophotography, Deep Sky, Lagoon Nebula, photoshop, processing, Trifid Nebula

Lagoon and Trifid Nebula Processing Workflow using Photoshop CC HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMMyVvSz1s?html5=1 Members of the facebook group “Indian Amateur Astrophotographer ” upload one RAW image to be processed by other members. This helps everyone learn and share the art of processing astro images. This is my small contribution to the group on how i processed this particular image of the Lagoon and Trifid nebula using Photoshop CC. The above image was taken by Subhankar Saha, Renganathan Venketesan and Dr. Suresh Mohan on a hot summer night from Yelagiri. The night temp was 29c on may 30th and they forgot finder scope, after some gimmicks they got a star centred and did the GOTO. This is 2 hr exposure from yelagiri at ISO 800x 10 minutes. The image was shot using Canon 500D modified, Takahashi FSQ85 at f 5.3. I’ve used basic curves and level adjustment along with some masking techniques, colour balance and camera raw filter. Click here for a full res image Here is a before and after comparison. Before is the RAW stacked image and later is the processed version. This shows that when you stack images and end up with a dark dull image, do not be disappointed. The image data is all there it’s a matter of […]

Dec 01

by Amit Kamble in Astrophotography, Nightscapes 3 comments tags: astrophotography, lightroom, photoshop, processing

Processing Nightscapes

Processing nightscapes is a challenge that every nightscape photographer faces. Nightscape photographers spend hours under the dark sky capturing the beautiful night sky and spend more hours processing it. Unlike most landscape photos which are shot at faster shutter speeds and do not have noise and darker foregrounds, nightscape images are polluted with noise, dark foregrounds and so many other artifacts that are caused by long exposures. Recently, I attended an astrophotography camp organized by Horowhenua Astronomical Society with Jonathan Green as volunteers for AstroNZ, where i gave a presentation / talk on processing nightscapes. My talk included topics on: 1) Gear required 2) How to capture 3) Post processing in Lightroom and Photoshop. As, this talk was focused on nightscape processing, I also included panorama stitching and processing. Here is the presentation that was a part of my talk at the astrophotogtaphy astrophotography camp.