Flamsteed Astronomy Society

Barnard’s Loop in Orion

A Flamsteed Astronomy Society workshop on Deep Sky Imaging at Mycenae House, Blackheath.

Presented by Rupert Smith. Booking is required.

April 6th will see us offer our first Deep Sky Imaging class. The class will be in two parts, the first part will cover the equipment needed for long exposure deep sky imaging and its setup. Telescopes, mounts, camera types, guiding, filters and use etc. will all be covered. The second part will cover basic processing of an image including calibration, registration, stacking, stretching and some other basic techniques. The class will take the form of a Powerpoint presentation for the first part, followed by a semi Powerpoint / demonstration of processing for the second. A particular image file will be used for the demonstration which will be available to attendees. The demonstration will make use of some freely available software but also paid applications like Photoshop. For this second part attendees may bring laptops to have a go at some of the processing techniques.

The class will be limited to 20 people so we can provide tables for those bringing laptops.

The class will be around 2 hours long, during which there will be a 15 minute intermission before the processing section. A lot will be covered and we will try to include as much on the processing aspect as possible. However, due to time constraints, the processing section will not show a complete start to finish processed image, but will show basic techniques and use ‘one I did earlier’ to save time. At the end of the class, all attendees should be able to process an image.

It is hoped we will offer a follow up course which covers processing in more depth, but it should be remembered that processing normally takes hours and requires you to become familiar with the processing application and experience of how to tackle different images. Don’t let that put you off coming!

Those attendees wishing to bring a laptop should make sure it is pre-installed with the following software;

Deep Sky Stacker – http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html
Photoshop or similar application that allows use of layers
If using Photoshop, the following plug-ins are also worth downloading;
A trial version of Gradient Exterminator http://www.rc-astro.com/resources/GradientXTerminator/ (30 day trial then $50 / £40)
The Nik filter collection https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ (Free)
Annies Actions http://epriseastro.zenfolio.com/astro-actions (Chargeable)

Please note that you DO NOT have to bring a laptop. The Powerpoint will be available after to use as a reference. We suggest that for some aspects ‘doing’ is a better way to learn than ‘listening’ but we will have very limited time.

Mycenae House is located in Mycenae Road just off Westcombe Park Road in Blackheath, SE3. It is close to the Blackheath Standard shops and buses. There is a café selling hot drinks and snacks located on the ground floor.

THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO MEMBERS OF THE FLAMSTEED ASTRONOMY SOCIETY ONLY.

Please do not book a place on this event if you are not a member of the society. Your booking will be cancelled if your name does not appear on our membership database.