Kinch

Thanks Paul......no, I don't think this is imaged all that often because Eagle Nebula (Pillars of Creation) is not so far away and that of course is the attention grabber in this part of the sky.

I will still try for some more OIII on this.....if I don't get it tonight....then I will leave this as is....it is not so bad.

Ha= 5 Hours. SII= 4 Hours & OIII = 5½ Hours.  FSQ130 with FLI ML16200 @ -30°. Astrodon 3nm filters.

Like you, I am working this one and have been for some time. I have not given up on getting the squid just yet....but it is a long way off. Rather than "waste" too many nights on it.....it has become a secondary target for me....just grabbing a few subs whenever it is convenient....e.g. last night I got 3 x 10 minute OIII subs to add to what is in the bag already. (I wonder if I will ever get to show a finished image....it is touch & go 🤔)

You might go back to this at some stage....but be prepared for a long haul if you do 🤭

On 20/06/2020 at 17:18, Rodd said:

this was new to me

....surprised you said that.....I recall telling you (quite some time ago) this was how I worked on my images. I have never seen it written (that I recall) - but fo me it sure is an easier approach and allows more control.

............"but I lost some of the bubble"    😟.

Decisions.............Decisions !  

Rodd.....are you taking the stars out, then putting them back in at the end. Not sure what it is, but something going on here.....

They are similar to my Pulsar Dome keys.

Not sure if this was one of the images that you thought had fat stars - they appear normal to me for this field of view.

Anyway - just wanted to get back to you about using offsets for doing focusing in SGP. That would not be necessary in an LRGB image. One really only needs the offstes for narrow band filters.....to avoid taking 30 or 40 seconds to do each single focusing shot.....making a focus run through maybe 9 focus positions an extremely long, time consuming, exercise.  I think with LRGB you should be able to work fine focusing through each individual filter. For me, my LRGB focus shots are each 5 secs binned 2x2.

To echo what was said above - this is not any sort of competition. For me (as with the majority of imagers), I am my own harshest critic. In fact, I never would have expected some of the comments I got for this image - it is just not that good in my eyes.......🤔

So we post images for two reasons....1) to get that little bit of lift to one's self esteem....if someone else likes the posted image and 2) to get some feedback....reegardless if that is a positive comment or a constructive criticism. Nobody gives or takes anything other than either of those type of postings under an image. So thinking about it....it is win/win. Either we get a little lift or we learn that there is something that we could improve on. In either case we should not be afraid to post our work...our hobby....our passion. We are all at different stages in improving our imaging and no matter where we are on that learning curve, rest assured we all started at the same level.......and we are ALL still learning.

Brendan.

To my eye - adding the RGB in as Lum did indeed improve the image.....quite a bit!

39 minutes ago, carastro said:

would you say that the Takahashi is responsible for those tiny stars?  

For me....no doubt about it. I can see a huge difference now working with the FSQ130ED - much better than the FSQ106ED. Of course, focus, focus, focus is also a factor. I use SGP as many do here....I refocus every 1.5°....but in the meantime, the temp compensation is adjusting focus between subs if necessary.

39 minutes ago, x6gas said:

I like it just as much this morning as I did last night!

I think the Irish Whiskey last night coloured my vision some 🤣

13 minutes ago, x6gas said:

I would love to know how you approached stretching this data and how long your subs were.

1st - the easy question:  The subs here are

Ha 17 x 10 min.               OIII 11 x 10 Min.                SII 10 x 10 Min.

This is way way less than I would normally do and only put it together yesterday....because I had time and because I wanted to see how the NB data was coming together. It was never meant to be a final image.

Re actually processing the data (by the way - this is at f/5 with 6 micron pixels giving me 1.9 ArcSec/Pix).....my general way of doing things is to do an actual stretched image with each filter. I then combine them in PixInsight pixelmath......not necessarily exact 1:1:1.  In this case I also added in the Ha as a Lum layer.....I did first try SHO combined to make the Lum layer but was getting into trouble with a very dark and noisy result. Remember, this was not supposed to be a finished image - so in truth I was playing with the data with regard to colours etc. But when I do the combination in pixelmath the histograms for each sub are identical (or nearly) so that they come together OK.

My FSQ130ED is a joy to use because I rarely have to touch the stars - as in this case, there is no star reduction or other manipulation. They just came together this way....including the colour differences you see. At times, I may have to reduce stars in the OIII & SII subs before combining them with the Ha.....but that does not happen too often.

To finish I just play with Histogram & curves. Some noise reduction and sharpening is generally used - but little & more than once is my rule for the noise reduction....e.g. the three finished master subs will each have had a very slight noise reduction before I combine them. As was the case here.....sometimes I end up with different "finished" images. I might like the colour in one but the detail in another.....so I end up mixing them (at times in varying proportions....e.g. (2X + 1Y ) / 3  ). This is the part of the processing that I love - 3 'finished' subs - to be put together in any of a hundred ways.....something is bound to work OK 🤣

As for your comment "I find a lot of the difficulty in this astrophotography lark is settling on exactly what you actually like"....I think we are all the same. This actual image on my FaceBook page was altered twice more since this one went up.....(it is easy to do on FB). Just because we are never satisfied....even now, this morning, I don't particularly like the colours on this image as much as I liked them last night. What to do ! 

Thanks JOC. I will probably make a right mess of it when I gather more data. I never thought that 6 hours of NB imaging would come out so strong.....but it really is an amazing part of the sky that I have not imaged before.

2 hours ago, JRM said:

Brendan,

 Totally awesome, beautiful imaging work, mind if I us it for my pc background?

 

Thanks

Thanks for the comment Rick. As is the norm here, my latest image is always used as my desktop background.....and this one is there now on my new 27" 4K monitor.  You are quite welcome to use it also. (I am really 'chuffed' you asked ....hope it lasts at least a week.  🤣).

3 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

If you were getting "ripped to shreds" for previous pictures, your technique has obviously improved dramatically and that is an achievement.

Thanks for the comment......it was a long time ago but it was something that stayed with me....."watch how the stars look!". It also affects how I view other images - sometimes loudly praised images do nothing for me if the stars are bloated or have very obvious artifacts. (I no longer frequent AstroBin by the way.....but nothing to do with the , let's say, the constructive criticism of the early days).

Hi Magnus,

Thanks very much for those comments. When I was starting out, I was "ripped to shreds" on AstroBin because my stars were somewhat bloated and most definitely not correctly focused. It is something I have carried with me for years now......my 1st priority is always the stars (with hopefully no artifacts surrounding them) and then the detail of the nebulae (which is what I normally image). My colours are generally lacking - well not strong anyway (because I like "subtle" colours) and as such my images don't grab attention of those that flick through one after another online (on FaceBook for example). 

So, with the above in mind - you may better ubnderstand my appreciation of your comments.

Brendan.

We are all different and no two NB images will get the same response.....so it is hard to win the day with one's own preference....unless one is lucky enough to have everything come together just perfect. Contrast can be good and indeed necessary but like everything else in life....I think doing things in moderation will last the distance. I liked the first rendition and I like this latest....both outstanding images 👍.

Thanks guys.

34 minutes ago, x6gas said:

To my eye and on my monitor you have the colours absolutely spot on

Thanks for that comment.....I am sure it looks different on the many different monitors that the group use here....and although I am happy with the rendition of the data so far....I always wonder how it looks on other people's screens!

Just looking at what I have so far on IC 1318....a total of only 6 hours 20 minutes. I'll be aiming for 20 hours or more....if I don't need to spend weeks looking for that much. It will interesting to see if the extra time will be worth the trouble....but I'll try for it anyway.

Great products......I am sure you are onto a winner here. We, the astro community, with your involvement in the business, are also .... I would say 👍.

IC-342 really stands out here as the best processing...Rodd. Hope that is one of the ones YOU are best pleased with 🤔

Looking at an area like this -the image on the left looks far more natural and to my eyes - a better image overall. 

When looking closer in at a nebula, then at times, a good reduction of the stars helps divert attention to the nebula (rather than the stars)- exactly as we want. I use Starnet on occassions to achieve this  - but I do not actually remove stars from my working image to put them in later - but rather use starnet to make my star mask. (Maybe it is the same difference....but I just prefer to work that way!)

Forgive me for playing with your image (I might be permantly banned for doing that 🙄)....but I think the hint of green does help the depth....but so many people just erase it. (Of course this is a personal oponion - but I wanted to show what I was talikng about in my previous post). I have also just enhanced the dark areas a tad.....again helping to show that the detail that you have captured really does you proud!

Personally I hate over processed.....and have I not done that also in the past!          BUT....nowadays I would much prefer the light touch.....for me it shows a muturity and contentment with working the data.  I like detail more than colour (not that you can't have both, of course). This one, with a hint of green leaking into the image (giving more depth) would be my ideal.......but of course, we are all different and others will disagree.

Going too far is so easy to do and one lesson I have learned from Sara Wager - but never practice 😏 - is don't publish an image until you have looked at it for several days  and have dispelled any of your own doubts about the image.