kirkster501

Wow, magnificent Goran!

Takahashi FSQ85 at native FL with Atik 460 and Baader RGB filters. 25 minutes each of RGB of 5 minute exposures.

Thanks for the detailed description Johannes, I get it now about the superlum Can you explain this line? "Linear combination of masters using SHO-AIP script to create RGB-master for tone mapping." So you created the "RGB" by HOO combination with that script?

I think I need to do a masked stretch on this to tone the galaxies down a bit. They are too dominant.

Nice result!

Very difficult to process and keep the IFN with out blowing out everything else.... would really do with more data next year. FSQ85 reduced and Moravian G2-8300 about 6 hours of integration with LRGB.

Bravo. Well done and great service from ADM.

Ha channel gathered last year, RGB last week. FSQ85 + Moravian G2-8300 and Astrodon RGBHa (3nm). 9 x 5 minutes each RGB and 12 x 10 minutes Ha. Everything binned 1x1. Would have liked more RGB but got clouded out. RGB capture completely automated early in the morning.

This is an interesting thread and I am a billion percent in agreement with Carol. I am frustrated at having six projects near completion but desperate for a channel in each one of them - some of these objects are now setting so looks like they are gone for another year unless we get some clear sky and, by the looks of the forecast, that is not happening any time soon in the UK. Sure I researched Deep Sky West and could subscribe to a data pool off of the FSQ106 and QSI683 scope there. $1200 is not that bad really when you think of the fortune of kit in my observatory that spends more time as a towel rack. The cost per picture would be a fraction of what we spend on our own gear considering the almost total cloud out we live under in the UK. I could afford it too. But I won't. It's "cheating" in my (probably worthless) opinion if you do not declare the data to be acquired as such. Getting all the incredibly complex bits working to make a picture, my picture, is the name of the game to me. Now, my pictures are rubbish compared to Olly's and some others. But they are my pictures. That I made with my gear under my skies with my blood, sweat and tears on them. If that gear is yours, that you set up in Spain [insert none 95% clouded out country], that still qualifies in my mind as your picture. You ran the gear and had to get it all working in order to download those subs. Processing data on scopes someone else runs, that you never touch, does not qualify as your picture in my mind. I will never like such a picture unless expressly declared as such (and many people don't). If, say, Sara gave me access to her data pool and free time on her scopes and sent me the subs, I could not consider the resulting pictures to be mine. It is a fine art and skill to get the scopes, mounts, cameras, software and everything else working in unison. That AND the processing contributes to the picture as yours. But then who cares what I think. If it makes you happy then go for it, I'm not impugning anyone. Just sharing my opinion. And not everyone will agree. And that's fine!

Really? OK will investigate a bit more then. Thanks.

Great work! How did you create the superlum? I have not heard of that before. Say hi to Denmark for me. My brother is married to a Dane and lives in Roskilde - beautiful place. Drove there many times.

Best way to separate them is to get two trainers, put the two cold welded spacers between the heels of the two trainers press hard with your hands inside the trainers whilst twisting. This will separate almost anything.

Layering in this way was on the PI development team's list of asks for many years but they abandoned it. The only way I can think of in PI to achieve a similar result to layers is to use masks and range masks and the history explorer. It is nowhere near as visual as what Photoshop is. PS is a result of 25 years of development work and billions of dollars of investment by Adobe as their Crown Jewels. I am starting to incorporate PS more and more into my workflow now.

I've worked it out how to use masks and blur, yay!

I think these actions are fantastically powerful. They just have to be controlled by layers and masking because you want to refine where the action is applied to and how much of the action to apply. You can do that with masks and layers and opacity. I am sure you can edit the actions themselves if you were knowledgeable enough but there is little point when you can use in built Photoshop tools to adjust the effect of an action on your subject. I can't work out how to generate a range mask with fuzzy edges in PS.

I think what you'd need to do is to use an action as the latest layer then "brush out" with a reduce opacity brush the parts of the action layer the areas you want to reduce the effect of the action. I don't know though how to make what an action did as a layer... I need to work that out. Seems Olly already has.

Yeah I find that too. You can't CTl-Z and go back.....

Hi Olly, but you have to use Noel's action as a stand alone process and then use PS layers to adjust the amount of effect of that action - i.e. blend/lighten/curves on what the action just did? You cannot intrinsically manipulate within a Noel action? I am quite new to Photoshop with astronomy processing. It is a mighty powerful piece of software. Steve

Also, I found that you have to flatten all the previous layers in order to get the actions to work or else it says "not found" or words to that effect. I find that annoying as I have to do a PSD save before using an action leavign me two or more sets of PSD files for the same subject. Am I missing something please guys?

I spoke too soon, it’s totally clouded out in the space of 15 minutes 🙄

Scopes’ a-imaging whilst I’m observing

Well done - a very good effort and a nice picture You have to get the guiding sorted out to progress this because you have to get more data to get the image to sing out more. Guiding at that FL is a none trivial matter, even with the reducer. There's a strange noise effect in there.... I think you may be oversharpening to compensate for the guiding difficulties.

Nearly everything I know about practical astronomy is from SGL and tinkering from the hints I received by reading from here ...

Skiing trousers - definitely. You can pick these up at Outdoors places at out of town shopping places and they do not cost much.

Super set up. Congratulations!