The CWAS Astrophotography Workshop
2-3 February 2008
Conducted by Steve Quirk
at the Parkes East Public School
The workshop was conducted by noted astrophotographer and author, Steve Quirk. It was held in the computer room of the Parkes East Public School.

CWAS Member, Peter Crute, organised the venue and set up all the computing equipment. The CWAS is grateful to him for all his efforts and to the Parkes East Public School for its support of the CWAS in allowing us to use the schools facilities for the workshop. Many thanks.

Steve Quirk, demonstrated how to process digital astrophotographs using the powerful utilities of Photoshop CS2. The programme of the workshop included:

1. Levels

2. Vignette/gradient removal

3. Unsharp masking. (a) from same image using levels and (b) separate exposure images

4. How to make RGB colour images and adding a luminance channel to RGB

5. Making a simulated green channel

6. Colour balance

7. Removing artefacts

8. Multi-field merging

9. Publishing images to a website - sizing and compression.
Scenes from Saturday, 2 February 2008

         
Group Photo on the Final Day.
Back: Roy George, Denis Crute, Chris Toohey, Steve Quirk, Michael Grimshaw, Laurie Crowley.
Front: David George, Peter Crute, Tony Trelford, John Sarkissian, Wal Williams
(Absent were Alex Abbey, John Trudgen, Libby Wilcox and Maria George)
Some of the Worked Exercises
Unsharp Mask (M42)
Underexposed Image
+ Overexposed Image
= Unsharp Masked Image
RGB + Luminance Combined (M17)
Red
+ Green
+ Blue
+ Luminance
= LRGB
Mosaicing (M31)
Left Frame
Right Frame
Mosaiced + Brightened + Unsharp Masked + Background Darkened
Vignette / Gradient Removal (NGC 4361)
Original Image
Background Gradient Removed
Artefacts Removed
Combining Old and New Images (RCW-38)
Original Colour Print (RGB)
Left Image (L-Video)
Right Image (L-Video)
Final Mosaiced LRGB Image
Thankyou Steve Quirk, Peter Crute and
Parkes East Public School
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