I just sent my canon 6d into life pixel to be astro converted with regular H-Alpha. Any good idea how a good photo of orion constellation would end up looking? Looking for anyone who has owned and used a modded canon 6d and shot with it.
I've had similar*, Canon 7dm2, and you can get excellent pics with those dslr's, with or without filters. Canon's tend to have heavy'ish banding, but those can be worked out.
Some objects, like Orion Nebula, can benefit from hdr*, so take short, mid and longer exposures. Or just max what you can take without blowing the core too much/without star trailing.
Check your darks with different ISO's, like 800, 1600, 3200 and see which one is cleanest after stretching, use that ISO and adjust exposure.
Take ur time with calibration frames too, and ur solid!
7D MK2 enjoyer here, also astro modded. How have you been dealing with the banding? The PI script doesn't really do anything for me. I usually do 2min exposures @iso 800
I got rid of most after i did that dark testing with different ISO's. Atleast in mine, it was cleanest at ISO3200 and then i got by with shorter exposures -> less banding, less artifacts. I think i tooked most of my exposures in the 30-60s range and found that those gave the best results in stacking and in post-processing. Thou a pain in the arse to stack +1000 frames, tried that too, didn't go well with my pc at the time 🤣🤣
After that the PI script started to do something/do better and then i usually just did spectro-color calibration and ABE, basic things, and it was gone. If i recall correctly, it did make some difference where in the pp you did that, but can't say 100% sure.
Can't remember for sure what else, it's been a while since i've edited pictures taken with 7dm2. I did start to dither too and that did it's own quality improvements too. But that banding is 100% removable, maybe takes few try's and fails, but when you get it few times right, it's a breeze and it comes automaticly.
I just upgraded storage in all my PC's and switched to Linux for PI stacking. I should be able to stack ~ 2000 DSLR frames before I run out of space. I did change to an OAG and I don't think I calculated the dither pixels correctly. I'll have to try different iso, as I recently did a 24hr integration on M42, and I wasn't pleased with the signal in the outer regions, and a heavy banding. I think my seestar S30 with just 7 hours had better signal there.
And that ISO testing, just take 2min dark frames, one of each is enough, at ISO 800, 1600 and 3200, maybe even 6400, throw them in Pixinsight and nuke them. Atleast in mine, the differences were so obvious, that no deeper analysis was needed. And i think it's usually the ISO 3200 in those older Canon's that tend to give least banding and such. But hey, if/when you get around to do that, i'd like to hear what you found out!
I worked around this storage and ram problem by stacking each night on it's own and then just stacked the stacks, worked fine 🤣 Since then i've upgraded my pc a bit, but since i now use cooled camera and narrowband filters, subs are longer and i have much less of those than back in the day with dslr, so, i don't even know what this would do 😅😆
I mean, as any other H-Alpha target would look with enhanced Ha sensitivity. Expect to work twice as hard to bring out Oiii signal. The red will overpower most of that, especially in targets like the North America Nebula. However, with good editing you can get intense reds even on unmodified cameras. Here is my image of the Orion constellation with an unmodified camera. With a good filter and a Ha mod, expect a lot more red.
Simply look for people using proper astronomy cameras like an ASI 2600 from ZWO. That’s what’s possible.
I've had similar*, Canon 7dm2, and you can get excellent pics with those dslr's, with or without filters. Canon's tend to have heavy'ish banding, but those can be worked out.
Some objects, like Orion Nebula, can benefit from hdr*, so take short, mid and longer exposures. Or just max what you can take without blowing the core too much/without star trailing.
Check your darks with different ISO's, like 800, 1600, 3200 and see which one is cleanest after stretching, use that ISO and adjust exposure.
Take ur time with calibration frames too, and ur solid!
Clear skies!
7D MK2 enjoyer here, also astro modded. How have you been dealing with the banding? The PI script doesn't really do anything for me. I usually do 2min exposures @iso 800
I got rid of most after i did that dark testing with different ISO's. Atleast in mine, it was cleanest at ISO3200 and then i got by with shorter exposures -> less banding, less artifacts. I think i tooked most of my exposures in the 30-60s range and found that those gave the best results in stacking and in post-processing. Thou a pain in the arse to stack +1000 frames, tried that too, didn't go well with my pc at the time 🤣🤣
After that the PI script started to do something/do better and then i usually just did spectro-color calibration and ABE, basic things, and it was gone. If i recall correctly, it did make some difference where in the pp you did that, but can't say 100% sure.
Can't remember for sure what else, it's been a while since i've edited pictures taken with 7dm2. I did start to dither too and that did it's own quality improvements too. But that banding is 100% removable, maybe takes few try's and fails, but when you get it few times right, it's a breeze and it comes automaticly.
I just upgraded storage in all my PC's and switched to Linux for PI stacking. I should be able to stack ~ 2000 DSLR frames before I run out of space. I did change to an OAG and I don't think I calculated the dither pixels correctly. I'll have to try different iso, as I recently did a 24hr integration on M42, and I wasn't pleased with the signal in the outer regions, and a heavy banding. I think my seestar S30 with just 7 hours had better signal there.
And that ISO testing, just take 2min dark frames, one of each is enough, at ISO 800, 1600 and 3200, maybe even 6400, throw them in Pixinsight and nuke them. Atleast in mine, the differences were so obvious, that no deeper analysis was needed. And i think it's usually the ISO 3200 in those older Canon's that tend to give least banding and such. But hey, if/when you get around to do that, i'd like to hear what you found out!
I worked around this storage and ram problem by stacking each night on it's own and then just stacked the stacks, worked fine 🤣 Since then i've upgraded my pc a bit, but since i now use cooled camera and narrowband filters, subs are longer and i have much less of those than back in the day with dslr, so, i don't even know what this would do 😅😆
I mean, as any other H-Alpha target would look with enhanced Ha sensitivity. Expect to work twice as hard to bring out Oiii signal. The red will overpower most of that, especially in targets like the North America Nebula. However, with good editing you can get intense reds even on unmodified cameras. Here is my image of the Orion constellation with an unmodified camera. With a good filter and a Ha mod, expect a lot more red.
https://app.astrobin.com/i/s33xme
Dang!!! What bortle was that?
Bortle 4 (21.40 on the SQM)