maryccc:

You did an awesome job putting the photos together.  I am going to try it again but for some reason it is saying invalid image when I use dss and try to view the photo.  Can you see Casseopia in the photo at all.  I was sure that was what I was pointing at.

You can make out the majority of the Asterism that forms the 3 or M just right of center closer to the bottom half of the image. If you were looking to capture that whole asterism you were aimed just a little to high.

you only have jpg's right?- i seen the images you posted, you dont really have any dark frames do you? if you dont have  any real dark frames, dont stack them as such- you can only stack light frames, also, some options wont work in DSS unless you shoot RAW, just open the files, check all the light frames, register checked pictures, stack checked pictures, then save picture to file- your done, then open it in your photo software and tweak it

If I were to aim at jupiter would it look like anything after I stack them?

Depending on the length of exposure the only difference you would notice from the picture and what you see naked eye would be the brightness. You need long focal length and much much more magnification than you get with your camera lens. Even attaching a DSLR to a telescope the size of the sensor chip makes it difficult to get a decent image scale to recognize Jupiter as anything other than a bright spot of light.

Your second picture looks like Jupiter. I zoomed it and stretched the histogram, and the colors came out. There looks to be two dark bands running across it, could be the equatorial bands on Jupiter.

But the middle of the image got wiped out, possibly by jpeg compression artifacts. You want to overcome these artifacts, by saving the files with no or minimal compression. See if you can save photos in tiff or raw format. Thats what you want to do in astronomy. For normal landscapes and scenes you can leave the compression switched on. Taking multiple shots of planets can give you a better final image, because it helps to overcome turbulence in the atmosphere that might be present in a single shot.

There seem to be other Jupiter-like "ghosts" in the original image, I wonder how they got there. Did you take the shot with the camera lens attached?

 wow that is so cool.    I did have a camera lens on when I took the picture.  I will see if I can figure out how to save in raw or tiff.  Thanks for the photo it is awesome.

I am pretty sure they are defocused stars. It is easy to have inaccurate focus. You were probably using a wide angle lens with the focus askew. Then the brightest star became a spread of light instead of being a point source. I doubt with you're lens you would get that much magnification on Jupiter. With that high of  magnification you would probably be able to expose you're camera for 1.5  seconds (probably less) and, if exposed for any longer you would have trailing. Do you have two lenses? Occam's Razor is calling.

Based on her first picture which shows more like pin-point stars, I assumed the second pic was done with the same focus/ ability. But you could be right.

 

Here's a great tool that helps you determine if what you're seeing is real or not- www.calsky.com

There are libraries of data on the internet that show what the planets look like, taken from real data gathered by telescopes. The Jupiter image taken at this approximate time and location comes up as this:

I don't know if you guys can see that or not, but the angle and position of the equatorial belts are very similar to the markings in the image. So I say it "could" be Jupiter, and this is more evidence.

It is not technically unfeasable. If the lens was at 3X, and with the 12 mega pixel sensor you might get a high enough number of pixels per arc second.

For example with my scope, took an afocal moon shot using a 20mm eyepiece, magnification about 38x, with 640 x 480 webcam, The moon was 200 pixels in diameter. Another person took the same shot on the very same night, with her Canon Digital Rebel and possibly a 55mm lens (not sure exactly) in her case with the canon sensor the moon was also about 200 pixels across. This was with the 12 megapixel sensor, the camera focussed on infinity.

But in comparison the telescope image was better, maybe due to better spatial frequency, less scattering of light, better focusing.

I suggest that you try it again, with a longer lens on the camera if possible, like a 100 mm or 200 mm lense. Take a few photos of the same bright star. And remember getting the focus and exposure right on the camera is critical.

I do have 2 lenses.  I have the kit lens which is a 55 mm I think and a zoom lens that is 55-250.   I believe I may have manually zoomed on what I thought was jupiter. with the bigger lens.

The usual kit lens with the Canon DSLR's is a EF-S 18 - 55 mm f/3.5 zoom lens. At least that's what my XT/350D came with. Then my 50D came with a EF 28-135 mm IS USM lens

 Okay, so, I had to download some different indexes for astrometry to solve the image. Here is the information that astrometry spit out from the linux terminal.

 joseph@joseph-laptop:~$ '/usr/local/astrometry/bin/solve-field' '/home/joseph/Desktop/cas10.fit'
Reading input file 1 of 1: "/home/joseph/Desktop/cas10.fit"...
/usr/local/astrometry/python/astrometry/util/filetype.py:20: DeprecationWarning: os.popen2 is deprecated.  Use the subprocess module.
  (filein, fileout) = os.popen2(cmd)
Extracting sources...
This looks like a multi-color image: processing the first image plane only.  (NAXIS=3)
simplexy: found 673 sources.
Solving...
Field 1 did not solve (index index-219.fits, field objects 1-10).
Field 1 did not solve (index index-218.fits, field objects 1-10).
Field 1 did not solve (index index-217.fits, field objects 1-10).
Field 1 did not solve (index index-216.fits, field objects 1-10).
Tweaking!
Field 1: solved with index index-215.fits.
Field 1 solved: writing to file /home/joseph/Desktop/cas10.solved to indicate this.
Field 1: solvedfile /home/joseph/Desktop/cas10.solved: field has been solved.
Creating new FITS file "/home/joseph/Desktop/cas10.new"...
Field center: (RA,Dec) = (5.317, 59.22) deg.
Field center: (RA H:M:S, Dec D:M:S) = (00:21:16.1, +59:13:23.5).
Field size: 22.3341 x 15.0714 degrees
Creating plots...
Your field contains:
  Part of the constellation Cassiopeia (Cas)
  NGC 7822
  NGC 129
  NGC 281

So according to this software you indeed did capture Cassiopeia. I thought that you would want to know exactly what your image actually is.

Thanks that is cool.  I was aiming for Cass and got part of her.  How can I get software that will tell me what my picture was?

 

You need Linux for this software. You could dual boot Ubuntu and Windows. Once you have linux installed you would then go to the website below (astrometry.net) and download the software. Once you have downloaded the software and installed you need to request the indices by email. Finally, you can install the indices. The software comes with all the instructions to use it and even how to get the indices. Linux has quite a steep learning curve, so if you intend to use it be prepared to spend some time learning how to navigate it. As always the biggest advantage to Linux is that it is free so you will not loose anything trying it. Just remember to back up important data before you format anything. I hope that this information was not to vague; if it was, and you have a more specific question about Linux I can try to answer it.

GOOD LUCK!

READ all of this if you intend to dual boot! : https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/switching/dualboot.html

Astrometry: http://astrometry.net/

I had linux in my computer.  It was ubuntu but when I had to restore my computer I never reinstalled linux.   I like it but always seem to go back to windows.  Isn't there a program like that for windows.  I'll see if I can get linux installed back into my computer.

Possibly, Iris has the same function, but I have never used it.

Another option is to get a good map of the sky, an atlas or some online software that shows you what the sky looks like from your location and time. Plan your observing session by looking at maps, look for bright stars or constellations/patterns that help you locate the region of interest. This gives you a better understanding of the sky.

Check out the free online program right here on this forum, Stardome. I use it frequently to help me locate objects. It's a little quirky for finding certain types of objects though, but for planets and brighter stars it does fine.

I opened up your starfield astrophoto, and did some background gradient subtraction with IRIS. It greatly improved the image. Check it out I think you will really like it.

 

IMHO, Since this image was initially done with a DSLR and using a background gradient removal also lost useful image data giving the image a bland monochrome look to what was a color image.
There are other post processing techniques that can be done, and probably should have been done in the first steps to enhance the star field without losing any color image data. E.g. You can try sharpening tools, or you can even use an unsharp mask which can enhance even the smallest stars making the field of stars look richer. You can also try adjusting the bright points on either or both curves and levels adjustments to brighten up even the smallest stars while adjusting the dark points to reduce background glow. But you must be careful and also remember, Space is Not black!
Nevertheless, trying to improve on a copy of a jpeg image usually doesn't produce very good results because you're already working with limited image data. Before you make any of those kind of image processing adjustments you really need the image data that was there in the RAW files.

 Jpeg or not it still seems better to see the stars without that weird gradient. Now, I am off to bed to catch the clear skies in the early early morning. Later!