Dingdong

Andromeda M31 shot with Pentax K3II and William Optics ZS 71ED APO 20th Anniv. edition.
Stacked in Beta of Starry Sky Stacker finished in Affinity Photo and Lightroom.
Made from 11 images x 3 minute exposures, ISO1600, f5.9, 418mm
 
 
GREG6874-compositewhite by Greg Murray, on Flickr

Haha, IanSG !
To start with astrophotography, you need to stash away about 3000 to 4000 Euros clandestinely from the control of your spouse or bank.
Advertizing tells you slightly different things. "300 Euros for this brilliant telescope including sturdy mount of the professional grade - and you're all set."
Accompanied with various photos taken by the Hubble telescope, of course.
You're indeed set. For a heart attack after having a look at your first pictures.

Typical novice dialogue in expert forums:
Me: I've got [SUPERPRO-EXPERT-ALL-IN-ONE-PACKAGE] for 300 Euros. Can't get into focus.
They: [facepalm] Throw away that sh... Buy a real telescope. Everybody knows that. Except you.
300 Euros plus.

Me: Got the real scope. Can't see much in the pictures.
Theys: [facepalm] Buy a larger scope. Everybody knows that. Except you.
500 Euros plus.
Me: Got the larger scope. Mount does not hold it, always tips over. Makes funny crunching and grinding sounds. I guess that's normal?
They: [facepalm] Forget that sh... mount. Buy a real one. Everybody knows that. Except you.
1500 Euros plus. Should have tried the Scotch mount.
Me: Got that real mount, bank is after me. Can expose up to 30 seconds. After that, stars become lines.
They: [facepalm] Two options: Buy a pro mount for just 15.000 Euros. Or buy an autoguider. Everybody knows that. Except you.
800 Euros plus for the autoguider, 150 Euros plus for the smaller scope the autoguider needs.
Me: Got the autoguider. Can expose for centuries. But stars outside the picture's center get blurred, look like comets.
They: [facepalm] You need a coma corrector, stupid! Everybody knows that. Except you.
200 Euros plus.
And so on ...
It's an endless story. But at least you've got something to do and to burst out in tears about after having a shy look at your bank statement.
But it still is a real fascinating hobby. Nothing compares to freezing four hours in the backyard protecting the blinking and whirring, that way shouting "steal me!" equipment from theft. Shotguns get pretty cold in winter.
I'll have a look into the LAB thing.
And will try my first milky way pictures as soon as the eternal German rain (you can tell the seasons by the rain's temperature, only) starts to fade.
Thank you.

Ive been experimenting with Astro Photography over the past several moths and now the night sky has come almost full circle. 
I'll post some more...
Rosette Nebula 

Trust me, you won't be bored!  Here's a thought for you - half the things that are visible to an experienced observer are within 0.5 Mag of the limiting magnitude of the 'scope - you've barely started!  Enjoy!

I managed this one of the Orion Nebula three weeks ago. Pretty washed out in the centre but still beautiful.
 
I stacked this in DSS and edited with Affinity Photo.
 
D

This is Carina Nebula. 04/03/18
 
Completely stacked and edited in Affinity Photo from 12x180sec RAW guided images from same kit as above. I do know that proper stacking software does create a cleaner sharper image but takes about thirty minutes. Affinity all done in about a minute.
 
Edit Settings:
Vibrance up all the way
Brightness up 24% - increased nebulosity
Contrast up 41% - reduced the noise (blackened black)
 
Thats it! Just mucking around finding out what adjustments suit. 

OK second try
 
This was my first crack at guided astro - Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
 
Mount:        SW EQ6R
Telescope:  SW ED 80 APO Esprit
Camera:     Canon D760
Image:        5x60 sec
Software:   Affinity Photo
 
So all the editing that I did was to increase the exposure setting and the Brightness and contrast settings - very minimal.
 
 

I managed this one of the Orion Nebula three weeks ago. Pretty washed out in the centre but still beautiful.
 
I stacked this in DSS and edited with Affinity Photo.
 
D

OK second try
 
This was my first crack at guided astro - Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
 
Mount:        SW EQ6R
Telescope:  SW ED 80 APO Esprit
Camera:     Canon D760
Image:        5x60 sec
Software:   Affinity Photo
 
So all the editing that I did was to increase the exposure setting and the Brightness and contrast settings - very minimal.
 
 

Thank you all for the greatly appreciated input. I tried both methods and they both work with a nearly identical outcome (at least to my eyes).
The only thing I stumbled upon is that my Macbook gets seriously slow when I use the manual alignment in a live stack method by owenr. Maybe thats just my machine, but it seemed to me, that using separate layers like John does is somehow easier on the hardware resources, because not all images need to be visible at the same time.
Here's what I ended up with after stacking 50 shots and some final fiddling around =)
 

.
 

Hi
 
John
 
WOW it really does work and looks good too. Thanks
 
So far everything in astro forums seems to be based around PS, LR and the likes. I simply could not justify forking out the dollars and looked around to find Affinity Photo that ranked about ten in photo editing programs OTHER than PS - for Mac. But like all things cheaper you wonder if its gonna be a lemon... I'm glad I chose the software. As it is turning out, it is more than capable and the forums are full of all this wonderful stuff I never knew you could do. I thought I'd start an astro thread to see what others may be doing and how to do it - BOOM - its working.
 
Thanks again
 
h_d
 
My son used all my download and cannot watch the linked video but trust me I'll be looking as soon as I am able. There are a few methods in astro to reduce unwanted noise. But I think that the best way is to gather as much data of the noise you want which means longer or more exposures. Its great to learn of these new methods.
 
Thanks

Dion

Hi,
 
If you zoom in on the darker areas of the image there's a lot of luminance noise: green and red speckles, for want of a better word, One of official Affinity tutorial videos shows a method of toning this down by converting the original to LAB colour and blurring the two colour channels. The relevant section of the video starts at around 6 minutes 30 seconds in. It's a fairly advanced technique, but I think when combined with a curves adjustment it can improve the (already amazing) image when viewed at full size.
 

 
 

Here is @Dingdong's original image:

This has had the Levels Adjustment as shown below:

This shows the Levels Adjustment itself:

This has had the Curves Adjustment as shown below:

This shows the Curves Adjustment itself:

John

I was at Mottisfont Abbey in Hampshire, UK, a couple of days ago and took a few photos. This pic is from two photos taken with very different exposures, as I wanted to see what I could do a a tone-mapping job. I cranked up the tm and the local contrast all the way and increased the vibrance to exaggerate the colours. The dark patch in the middle of the sky is an artefact of the processing; I decided to leave it that way rather  than even it out.

 
These are the originals. I haven't edited them at all, just converted them to jpegs direct from the raws.

 

Created this from scratch in Affinity Designer. Zero pixels, all vector. Not finished yet, but progressing nicely. Used a lot of swatches, transparency, blurring on areas and custom vector brushes. This is my first attempt at a realistic vector portrait. Original drawing 40 x 50 cm. Progress sequence will be posted in my portfolio blog once completed.

Thought I would just share this one...took a little break from vectors 
 
Created in AD pixel Persona at A4 (300dpi) with a little help from some texture brushes

Bashed out on Saturday. Hope someone likes this weak ass stuff it was fun to do. Note on brushes: when I originally bought AF I loaded a bunch of PS brushes into it.I admit I've never used any of them. Chimping with the defaults and the Daub brushes seems to get you anything from smoke to details.
y

OK second try
 
This was my first crack at guided astro - Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
 
Mount:        SW EQ6R
Telescope:  SW ED 80 APO Esprit
Camera:     Canon D760
Image:        5x60 sec
Software:   Affinity Photo
 
So all the editing that I did was to increase the exposure setting and the Brightness and contrast settings - very minimal.
 
 

OK second try
 
This was my first crack at guided astro - Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
 
Mount:        SW EQ6R
Telescope:  SW ED 80 APO Esprit
Camera:     Canon D760
Image:        5x60 sec
Software:   Affinity Photo
 
So all the editing that I did was to increase the exposure setting and the Brightness and contrast settings - very minimal.
 
 

OK second try
 
This was my first crack at guided astro - Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
 
Mount:        SW EQ6R
Telescope:  SW ED 80 APO Esprit
Camera:     Canon D760
Image:        5x60 sec
Software:   Affinity Photo
 
So all the editing that I did was to increase the exposure setting and the Brightness and contrast settings - very minimal.
 
 

Welcome to the forum Dingdong.
It would be nice to see the image in the forum itself, rather than having to download it and open the software, although it might not look as good in the forum as it would in the application.
Maybe you could give some information about equipment used - telescope, mount, camera, etc. - and how you modified the image.

OK second try
 
This was my first crack at guided astro - Flame Nebula and Horsehead Nebula in Orion.
 
Mount:        SW EQ6R
Telescope:  SW ED 80 APO Esprit
Camera:     Canon D760
Image:        5x60 sec
Software:   Affinity Photo
 
So all the editing that I did was to increase the exposure setting and the Brightness and contrast settings - very minimal.
 
 

This is a very low res version of the Orion nebula taken by my brother which I liked (I've emailed him for the full res one) and thought it was pretty impressive considering it's not particularly dark around here. But I know nothing about astro photography so it might not be. Is the blue bit above it the Running Man nebula?
 
He has a Skywatcher 200P telescope on an EQ5 Pro mount and took it with a Canon 550D. Looks like the mount costs as much if not more than the scope. Not sure of other details I would have to check with him.