assouptro

5 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Agree with the observations so far.  It is quite saturated and at full size (only) you can see that more within the noise, but it looks good.  I'm a fan of a bit of colour especially the variations and transitions that a narrowband image can offer. While I wouldn't have pushed my own this far on saturation, it doesn't stop me enjoying yours!  Perhaps you've done what I always want to do with the colour... 🤣

I'm not sure about the purple though.  If I hadn't got rid of that quite early I would take a step back and wonder where it's coming from - perhaps some left over gradient in one channel, or some general background issue.  Perhaps some masks could be used to balance this part of the background out if you can't step back.

Great job.

Thank you for your comment and your advice

This is probably the most saturated image I have produced to date.

This is probably the most saturated image I have produced to date.

I got carried away with the selective colour script And the purple is, in fact, Green nebulosity that I chose to turn up the red and blue on!

Green nebulosity that I chose to turn up the red and blue on!

I appear to have a bit of an issue with my laptop screen and I’m finding it difficult to get the right luminosity and colour balance without saving it, uploading to OneDrive then viewing on my much smaller but better corrected phone screen 🙄

I think l’ll have a few steps back (I’ve saved the project) and reassess 

Thanks again 

Bryan 😊

58 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

I tend to agree with you and am also a bit slow to learn and change with the times, I also like understated  images too and not much for heavily processed and over saturated colours, I like to see the more natural look, if there is such a think for images like these.

As for your image it’s very nice, and the golds are just about right, the blues IMHO are a tad over saturated for my liking…but I think you have left just the right amount of green in the image, as many seem to remove most of this…

Its a stunning image..👏🏻👏🏻

That’s a really useful comment Stuart 

I appreciate you taking the time to comment 

I may reprocess this one and tone the blues down a bit to see what I get 

Thanks again 

Bryan 😊

58 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

It is a spectacular image, and although i also tend to prefer more natural looks, I would not call this overcooked. The amount of contrast and saturation preferred is ultimately a matter of taste, so what counts is what you like.

Thank you for the input 

I understand, it really does come down to personal taste 😊

I have a question regarding this image 

I have always been a fan of understated quality images, ones that don’t make your eyes hurt with saturation and contrast, however, the internet seems to prefer these?

I have been imaging for 20+ years now, I am a slow learner, tend to stick with what I know for a long time before trying something radically different

Recently though, I have adopted Nina and automated things like plate solving, autofocus and filter changes party down to the help and information freely available from sites like this and it has been a revelation! So, I just wanted to say thank you to all the helpful stargazers out there that contribute to the community! 
 

now I can achieve a dataset of all filters in a session, I can even switch targets whilst I sleep! 
 

As a result of this, I have acquired more useable data and I have been delving deeper into the amazing features available in Pixinsight (although I haven’t even scratched the surface) 

Anyway, I’m completely off topic now, What I really wanted was some advice.

Am I going too far with images like this? 
is it over processed? Too much colour? Should I tone it down and be a bit more subtle? 
 

I value your opinions and I don’t want to get cornered into a workflow that is detrimental to the original data

Is the purple in there a mistake? 

This is around 15 hours HSO with a bit of RGB for the small amount of stars I’ve left in 

Thanks for looking and please don’t hold back if it offends your eyes, let me know 

Thanks 

Bryan 😊

That's one of the most eskimo resembling eskimo nebula shots I've seen!

Fab job!! Well done!

Thanks for sharing 

Bryan

Lovely job! 
This isn’t a target I’ve ever attempted and your version makes me want to! 

can I ask, what brand RC8 are you using? How do you rate it? 
I have always been tempted to consider an RC scope but they seem to come with certain issues 

Thanks for sharing 

Bryan 😊

12 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Brilliant image! The only thing I might change is making the background a shade darker, but that might depend a lot on the monitor I am using

Thanks for the comment Michael 

I totally agree 

I think my laptop screen is loosing brightness, the first version looked black on the background but I soon saw it wasn’t when I posted it and viewed it on my phone screen! 
 I’ll have to take this into account going forward 

Thanks again for the comment 

Bryan 😊

33 minutes ago, geeklee said:

These are fantastic Bryan, but it's the colour and depth that really stands out for me - I'm guessing the colour is helping feed that depth.  That subtle red/pink within the central area helps loads.  I was always aiming for something like this when I shot it in 2022 but never managed.  Was your 10h balanced across all three filters?

Thanks for the comment and the kind words 

The 10 hours was around 200min per channel 

The fine detail was stretched out of the image using generalised hyperbolic stretch in many small titrations  and the selective colour script (I think that’s its name?) 

Thanks again, glad you like it 

Bryan 😊

3 hours ago, Roy Foreman said:

Excellent.  Great colour, not overcooked and good detail. Nice work.

Thank you 🙏 

I appreciate your kind words 

I’m glad you like it 😊

Bryan 

1 hour ago, Mal22 said:

Excellent image! And very delicately processed. You should be very pleased with this. 

What have you been using to learn PixInsight? I’ve been at it for about 6 months now and steadily getting there, but still a lot to learn and I can’t quite achieve what I’m aspiring to. Mostly YouTube tutorials so far and recently bought Warren A Keller’s book Inside PixInsight, which is good and easy to follow. 

What’s been working for you? Inevitably, I think I’ll end up buying the Adam Block videos as everyone says they’re a game changer….

Thank you for the comment I really appreciate your kind words 😊

I’ve been trying to get my head around pix for a couple of years now, slowly chipping away at it, up till now, I used to register and stack in APP which was a massive leap from deep sky stacker but this last 6months or so I have been, like you, watching a lot of tutorials, Adam Block is great but I’ve only used his free content so far, he has appeared on The Astro Imaging Channel a couple of times which I also watch/listen to, Lukomatico, james lamb, another Astro channel, astro biscuit and many others, 

The YouTube clip below  is the main influence in this image 

this is after I have registered, stacked in wbpp combined an rgb image, created a star mask ( not sue I could repeat that in exactly the same way) gently stretched the rgb, then removed the stars 

Then followed this, up to the point of replacing the stars 

I have, in my arsenal, graxpert, blurxterminator, starxterminator, noisexterminator this tutorial helps use them at the right time 

Thanks for the comment, I hope you find something here useful 

Bryan 😊

Just now, Sunshine said:

Oh WOW! this is one of the most beautiful images of the rosette I have ever seen! the range of colour, contrast, detail, and perfect stars make for a sublime image.

Wow! 
that’s an amazing first comment! 
I wasn’t expecting that! 
You are very kind 

It has been a long process getting this far with my image and I was worried I had really overdone it!

Thanks again 

Bryan 😊

Edit 

my laptop screen must be dark 

Viewing it on my phone it looks a bit washed out

A quick tweak, star reduced and sky darkened a tad in curves

Hi Stargazers!

well, I've had a lot of fun getting this far with Pixinsight, This is one of the first images I have processed from start to finish in the program 

Camera Qhy268m

Telescope Revelation astro ED100

Tsflat2 flattener

Off axis guided with an Atik 314l+

Bortle 5

There is about 10 hours total HSO (5 min subs Mode 1 gain56_offset26)

Only 7 min each RGB (30s subs Mode 1 gain 0)

It's probably one of the most saturated images I've processed to date but I kinda like it

Any suggestions or criticism welcome, There is always more to learn!

Thanks for looking 

Bryan 

Stunning job Dave! 
Lovely processing!

Kudos!

Thanks for sharing 

Bryan

After some more research, I’m going to give this a go

it looks promising! 😊

Hi folks 

I have been learning more and more about pixinsight and now I’m able to register, align and stack an image, with the added bonus of star colour correcting with SPCC 

When I have removed the rgb stars subsequently try to add them  to a narrowband starless image I loose the star colour on bright parts of the nebula 

I’ve used the screen stars pixelmath recommended in starxterminator and I’ve also tried image blend (fantastic newish script!) but I get the same results 

Would I be better screen blending in photoshop? or do I need to learn new pixelmath methods? 
 

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I want to retain the colour of the stars over the bright parts of the nebula rather than just have them white 

Thanks 

Bryan 

2 hours ago, Martin-Devon said:

That's an excellent image, well done...

Thanks Martin 

I appreciate the comment 

Bryan 

Hi Stargazers! 
 

I recently imaged Thors Helmet, between the trees and houses and whilst checking this region I realised there was another Nebula I haven’t ever attempted!

The seagull nebula doesn’t get above 25° from my location at this time of year so I wasn’t hoping for much but even with the short Integration time of less that 2 hours per channel I’m reasonably happy with the results for my first run 

anyway 

here is my image so far 

Thanks for looking 

Bryan 

4 minutes ago, gorann said:

Can anyone explain why USB cables are such sensitive devices and why they fail us repeatedly?

Mass production at the lowest cost I guess? 
if you had one made by hand with the best materials (if that was a thing!) it would probably work better and last a lot longer? 

1 hour ago, tomato said:

Yes, +1 for Bern at Modern Astronomy, he selflessly pointed me in the right direction 10 years ago when I had a wad of cash and not much idea.

As for the errant temp control on my camera, I took it off the scope, brought it in the house this morning and let it warm up to ambient as it was still 0 deg C in the dome. I powered it up with the QHY supplied 12V power supply, connected to EZCAP and wouldn't you know it, the temp control is working fine! It cooled to the set point, would warm back up when I raised the set point and then cool back down when I lowered it, all the values making sense.

I warmed it back up to+5 deg C then connected to NINA, all good except for this short lived spike in cooler power:

It quickly recovered, and continued cooling to the set pt and is controlling rock steady from then on. I have seen a couple of these spikes in the past, anybody else  seen them?

So, is it my dome PS? I doubt it, all the other kit runs off it OK and I've never seen a problem with this camera before or the QHY268M for that matter. OK the camera started off at a positive temperature this morning, rather then -1 or 0 deg C in the dome, but the camera has seen these conditions several times in the past without a problem. I'll put it back on the scope now and see how it behaves...

 

I’ve seen spikes in the cooling power similar to your graph 

cheers 

Bryan 

43 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

Looks great to me. Well done.

Thank you Peter 

😊

37 minutes ago, Elp said:

I think it's a pretty fantastic result. I've imaged it at 15-20 degrees.

Thanks Elp 

Really appreciate your comment 

15-20° must have been a real challenge! 
I can’t get that low due to houses and trees! 
 

Thanks again 

Bryan

 Nice image Rodd

I agree, the first one has a slightly more natural look to it but the second one isn’t overcooked and if that was the only one you had posted I wouldn’t have criticised it for being too sharp

I also love the muted colour, I’ve noticed over the years Astro photos have become brighter and more saturated to the point where they become more like a painting than a photographic record, that’s just my opinion fwiw

Thanks for sharing 

Bryan 

4 minutes ago, geeklee said:

That must still be a hard one to watch/think about, even months later!

Great result from the challenging elevation - strong colour and good detail coming through.

Thanks geeklee

I almost decided to quit Astro imaging especially when 6 months of hard earned data vanished with a HDD failure shortly after this disaster. 
 

But this hobby has always been a series of hurdles and challenges to overcome for the reward of an image of the ancient universe around us you can share or just stare at again and again in wonder! 
 

Thank you for the comment 

Bryan 

16 hours ago, Skipper Billy said:

Better than Starnet2 ??

Hi Skipper! 

Glad to see you imaging again and more importantly your health is better! 
 

In answer to your question, yes, I find it better than starnet, it is processor hungry so if you have an NVIDIA graphics card it’s worth the effort to try and involve it in the job by adding Cuda and tenserflow etc, there are many vids and instructions online, just make sure you follow each step carefully, it took me a couple of years to finally achieve but reduced my star removal from 15-20 min down to 2 min (old laptop) 

Great image! Btw keep them coming!! 
 

kind Regards 

Bryan