[masraum]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

Taken from my back yard, fairly dark skies. Still get a light bubble from nearby portland. For sure on the processing. I've a lot to learn. I strapped my Fuji xpro 1 on top the telescope with an old canon fd 75-210 manual lens. I so was highest it could go, maybe 125000. I'm not sure on the exposure though.

Anyway, I had another go at after some reading. This time with a nikon d800, sigma 70-200 @f3.2. Multiple exposures taken from 30 seconds to 5 minutes and stacked in deeps stacker for 22 minutes of total exposure. We weren't quite in focus but are pleased with the progress.

Wow, nice improvement over the first which is impressive. Great stuff, I'm jealous.

Deepskystacker is what I've tried using before. It worked really well for me. Yeah, the focus is tough. I had created a focus mask for my old camera to make it easier. Stacking multiple images is key.

This guy used to have a bunch of images on his website that you could download in multiple sizes up to really big. Some of his images are amazing. I think his image of "Orion head to toe" is something like 8 hours of exposure and many, many images not only stacked, but also stitched together.

Rogelio Bernal Andreo, Premium Astrophotography - DeepSkyColors.com
Rogelio Bernal Andreo, Premium Astrophotography - Collections - Deep Space

I don't have anything nearly as nice. I was taking mine on an old Rebel XT under Houston's light polluted skies. Someday I'll make it out to some place dark, and I'll try some more, but I'm unlikely to end up with a good tracking mount with a guide scope, etc... which is the kind of gear that's required to end up with that sort of image (besides lots of time and experience and not a little bit of money).