The Big Dipper revisited

With a little help from a friend from the "Canon DSLR Digital Astro" yahoo group, I managed to tweak my image a little bit. I think it looks better :)

The method I used can be found here: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/b.macdonald/gallery/Stars&DSOs.htm. It was a bit tricky at first, but I nailed it in the end (at least at for my current level of absolute beginner).

Thank you Chuck for your help, and thank you Blair for writing the tutorial :)

I've also worked on another photo - The Scorpio. The entire constellation is not visible, only the head and the heart - Antares. This image was taken from my balcony so there's a lot of light pollution. Pretty much the same settings as before.
I've lost a little of the red of Antares in post-processing, but I'll correct it as soon as I know how.

Here it is:

If I thought taking astro-images was a bit hard, well... post-processing seems equally hard. But I'm not giving up :D

The Big Dipper

One of my first tries in taking constellation pictures : The Big Dipper. Right now it's unprocessed because I haven't found a way to process it and be satisfied with the result. Actually, I like the raw file better than I do the processed image.
I'm still reading about how to prcess images, so hopefully I'll come back to this shot soon and post a processed version.

This picture was taken in the center of town, in a park, with a Canon 450 Xsi camera and a tripod.
Settings: ISO 400, 10 sec exposure and f/4.5 with an 18-55 mm lens.

You can see Alcor and Mizar clearly :) I don't have great eyes, so this is the first time I see the two :)