Blown out stars with 414EX

[silversilk]

Hello, I have recently purchased a new setup which includes the following:

Atik 414ex color
EdgeHD 8" w/ Adv VX mount
Hyperstar

I am brand new to imaging but had a different expectation of what images should be looking like.

I am finding that no matter what I do my stars are quite large and blown out as well as being overrun with stars that steal the show away from the nebula I am trying to capture.  I understand this is a highly sensitive setup (very fast) but even taking short exposures down to 5 Sec Subs did not solve the issue.  I use a Bahtinov Mask and Bahtinov Grabber software to make sure I am in focus and have also used the FWHM technique to confirm fine focus.  Comparing my examples to others I have seen within the Atik Gallery shows a completely different result. I am overrun with stars across the field of view and when I attempt to stretch the image to bring out the nebulosity of the object, there is almost no space that does not contain stars.  I can see in some cases where this would be desirable but I would like to know what I can do to tone this down so that I can get more nebula and less stars as well as smaller stars all together.   

Is there anyone else out there with a 414ex that can show some examples of what they are getting?

Is there something wrong with my camera?

Attached is an example of one of my images.  I know focus is not perfect on this image but no way should slightly bad focus cause me to get soooo many stars.   

Thanks in advance for everyone who provides feedback.

[SoCalJohn]

Hi silversilk,

I may be able to help as I have a 414EX color also.  My scope is a Celestron Evolution 9.25 and I also use HyperStar.  Living in a very light polluted area in Southern California, I use an IDAS D1 filter.  The stars seem to be a little less blown out using it.  The filter may be your answer.  Just recently I have tried a H-Alpha filter as a luminance layer in Photoshop over the RGB.  The HA method of processing that I use is method #2 in this link.   http://starizona.com/acb/ccd/software/ps_hargb.aspx .  The photo with a lot of stars was taken using just the D1 filter (40x20sec exposures).  The photo with less and smaller stars was taken using the new Baader f/2 H-A Highspeed filter (40x20sec RGB and 40x20sec HA).  The HA method really makes the objects stand out.  Give at least a light pollution filter a try and go from there.

Regards,
John

 

[SoCalJohn]

Here is the photo using the Badder f/2 Highspeed H-A filter as a luminance layer.  I also used the IDAS D1 filter on the RGB shots.