Well I have finally managed to have a go at processing my attempt of M16 the Eagle nebula, not that good I reckon, I need to have another go at processing methinks.
Details
SW 120ED with WOIII flattener/reducer, Vixen Sphinx Mount, Canon 1000D @ 1600 ISO
36x1min 39x2min guided with a finderscope/QHY5 and PHD- no darks or flats.

Pete

Not that good ? Not that good?
Looks pretty good to me, me old!

David

Thanks David for your kind words, I think I need more subs, it just looks over processed to get some of the detail out to me.

I see where you are coming from Pete. You have alot of subs there and I bet alot of detail. What might let it down a bit is you have no darks or flats.

But it is still a lovely piece of art that you should be chuffed with.

Don't be so hard on yourself Pete...

Longer subs would have brought out more of the nebula but theres no doubt what the target is...

Peter...

super shot with lovely colour...one of my favourite objects....you could do a little star reduction to help bring out the nebula

How do I do that Peter?

That's a decent image Peter, and what looks like very good data so you always have the opportunity to go back and 'have another go'.

All the best
Iain

here is a step by step method i use....there are other ways

1) export your image it into photoshop
2) select all and copy
3) paste onto a new document
4) convert to grayscale, select all and copy again
5) paste onto the original image
6) with the grey image selected in layers, go to select colour range, set the fuzzyness to about 100, and click on one of the bright stars.
7) go to select modify and expand set it to 2 pixels
8) go to feather and set it to 1 pixel
9) ok now you have your stars selected switch to the rgb layer
10) go to filters, others and minimum set it to 1 and click ok
11) edit and fade it until you like the result
12 delete the gray layer

the reason for making a grey layer is so you select all the stars rather than just one of a specific colour

this can be useful when narrow band imaging to get your star sizes equal in each channel...it helps with pink stars!

I just use a Photoshop action.... I guess it probably does something simillar to Peter's method but with a single mouse click...

There are a few free star reduction actions to be found on the web ...

Peter...

Q - How many Peter's can you get posting on a single topic....?

At this rate I may have to revert to "Billy..."

Peter,

Great post - hope you don't mind but I have copied and pasted your "recipe" into an "imaging how to" document that I keep on my PC.

Thank you

Mike

Sorry Pete, how rude of me .... great image. Don't be so hard on yourself.

Mike

noels actions is slightly better, i think he uses certain filters to help select his stars, it tends to get more of them rather than just ones that have saturated pixels but i cant be sure as i dont have his actions!

nah no problem use it....there may be a better way of selecting stars though this has always worked for me

Noels Actions are money well spent... one of the first things I bought when I started processing images... GradientexTerminator is another favourite find it much easier to use than DBE in pixinsightLE but tend not to need it so much now I have an essentially "fixed" setup and take skyflats...

I did go through your workflow thoough

Peter...

ive just been playing around....you can use the "find edges" filter to help select stars too...seems to work well

ive just written an action for PS for reducing star size

follow the link

star reduction action

cheers peter

Cheers Peter

Peter...