Gina

I think I'll have to Blink all those Ha subs again but I thought I'd dumped all the poorer subs. Now I have calibrated and registered frames I guess it's best to use Blink on those rather than the originals. I'll do that...

Well... the result of integrating 419 Ha subs of the Heart and Soul is absolute RUBBISH!!! The result from the other night with just 35 subs was very much better!

Been processing the Ha data. BPP crashed at the integration stage so I'm running ImageIntegration separately on the calibrated and registered frames - all 419 of them - it's taking hours!! On the last phase of pixel integration now. I looked that the OIIIs too after collecting them all together - don't know how I managed to capture so many - the total is around 1200!!! Quite a percentage of these are dud, unusable due to bad framing or just poor. With so many there's no point in using any but the best. I've been through several hundred in Blink and dumped a lot. There's still more to do.

Been sorting out all my data - I think I now have it organised. I'm putting source files on my USB3 2TB external drive except those found to be poor or duff in Blink - they get deleted. Now processing the Heart and Soul in Ha - I find I have 419 lights of 60s with gain of 440 and mostly -30C. The data looks good so I should have a good Ha result. Nearly 7 hours of data

Thick fog now!

It's misty here too so doubt there'll be any imaging tonight but I live in hope

There are gaps in the clouds now and the moon is showing

Just popped out and turned the rig 90 degrees. Also, capturing 8s g300 t-30C darks. There is a sign that the clouds might part

Just seen that myself and was going to suggest this coverage

This screenshot shows the coverage when rotated 90 degrees.

Thanks Ken OK I can go for shorter exposures as well as lower gain. I'll take some more darks in readiness Here is the current result with matching darks but the amp glow is still showing. BPP followed by BDE then into Photoshop where I applied levels and "Enhance DSO and Reduce Stars". I'm thinking of rotating the rig 90 degrees so that I can cover this area while cropping out the amp glow. OTOH I'm wondering why the amp glow hasn't been calibrated out.

I could probably reduce the gain further or even the exposure time and increase the dynamic range to help capture M42. This is quite a bright area of sky in Ha This area would be better captured with a narrower FOV though.

22 was the number of subs captured and of those one failed registration leaving 21. I'll grab more any time there a few minutes of clear night sky Currently capturing 80 15s g440 -30C darks.

Same but with "Enhance DSO and Reduce Stars" from Noel's Actions. This shows great promise considering it's only 22 subs of 15s - just 5m 30s integration time.

I've saved this as TIFF and transferred it to Photoshop - levels and curves only and saved in PNG format for upload. Here's the result Using wrong master dark - I'll grab some matching ones shortly.

That worked - including rejection 22 15s g440 -30C subs. Here's a screenshot.

I guess the next idea would be to use the separate ImageIntegration process.

Yes, just looked at one of the registered subs and it's fine. So the problem is in the integration stage. Here's a screenshot of a single registered sub auto-stretched in PI.

Same result except that for no rejection images.

Yes, I could do that.

To clarify above... captured a couple of dozen lights and checked them in Blink then used BPP as usual. Data in the rejection_high integration but nothing other than a few dots where M42 should be in the main image. I don't think BPP likes M42 with present settings

That doesn't work !!! Result - blank frame!

The sky has cleared again so I'm imaging. Didn't know what to image as I think I've covered all I want ATM at this FOV so I'm trying something different. Gone over to Orion and the Flame to M42 area. With M42 having an enormous dynamic range I'm trying a lower gain and short subs. 15s at a gain of 440.

In that half hour or so of clear sky just after dark this evening I managed to capture 35 60s Ha subs after rejecting bad frames in Blink. Calibrated these with the appropriate masters and simply saved the result in PNG format. Here is the result. No post processing no background leveling etc.