White balance

[willcarney]

I've had problems with getting good pictures using wide angle lenses.  Mostly due to the light pollution.  I started a thread in CN about this.  Any way I took over 70 pictures of various WB settings.  It would have been easier to use the program to change the values instead of doing it manually.  I started a thread in Cloudy Nights if your interested in looking at the pictures.

William

[admin]

Post the link to the CN link please

[dts350z]

Wouldn't it be easier to fix the WB in post processing than messing with it in the camera?

 

E.G. automatic color correction in Photoshop is one click. Or Google's Picasa if you need something free. I'm sure other astro image programs would do it too. 

 

You can do it after stacking so there's only one image to correct.

[astroman133]

I am not sure that you can use White Balance to remove light pollution from wide angle images.  It may be better to use a clip-in LPS filter and then fix the color balance in post processing.

[dts350z]

It didn't occur to me that that was the goal. I was only focused on fixing WB in post processing (not fixing light pollution with WB).

 

Yes, a light pollution filter is critical and the correct way to deal with light pollution. I shoot through a CLS filter for that reason. Mine isn't clip in, because I also occasionally do narrow band, so my CLS filter is filter #1 in my filter wheel.

[willcarney]

The only LP filters I have are visual and I can't buy anymore.  PhotoShop is too expensive for me being out of work.  Even my last job did not pay enough to buy it.  Picasa does not seem to work on my system.  I have DSS and Nebulosity4 and that's about it.  Normally I set the WB on the D5100 to Auto.

 

This forum is not letting me copy and past the web link.  Just go to Cloudy Nights.  In the astrophotography section under DSLR look for a thread titled "White Balance on D5100 for wide angle shots".

 

I'm also going to post an interesting thread on WB balance on a full spectrum D40x.

 

Still it would be nice to set WB on the program.

William

[astroman133]

I don't believe that white balance adjustment is the answer to light pollution. The Astronomic EOS clip-in CLS light pollution filter is about $130, which is about what Photoshop costs per year.

If you are limited to what equipment and software you already have, I would suggest looking at Nebulosity for tools to do background neutralization and/or gradient removal.  I tried to find info about its capabilities but apparently they want you to download a trial version to get the manual.  Since I already have CCDStack, ImagesPlus, and Photoshop I decided not to go through the exercise of downloading Nebulosity.

 

Otherwise I would try to find a dark sky site for imaging.  Before I moved to a dark area, I was limited to imaging at star parties because of the light pollution near where I lived. I also bought a CCD camera and did some narrowband imaging; which is immune to light pollution.