Stuf1978

1 minute ago, irtuk said:

Cheers Stuf   9am this morning I didnt actually know which buttons to push in APP so its really the start of a new chapter.

Definitely, It all comes together in the end. I really struggled with processing at the start then something just clicked and now I have a defined workflow that somehow seems to work 😁

Stunning work, those star colours 😍

Great work, I echo what has been said above 'you can do this' 😁

33 minutes ago, irtuk said:

Beyond amazing something for me to aim for. I have been shooting IC1396 and finally managed to get something I was happy with that I just posted, but this is inspirational

Ed

Thank you, that's very kind 🙏

1 minute ago, gorann said:

Yes, you clearly have it!

It's pretty small, would never have noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out 😃

Just now, tomato said:

Yes, up there with the best of them👍

Thank you 👍

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Beautiful processing.  The fact that it was a complex processing procedure is totally invisible in the image, which looks blissfully natural and effortless. The nebula is delightfully lit and the powdery little stars let it speak out. This really is an admirable piece of work. Bravo.

Olly

Thank you, it's appreciated. One thing that bugs me with the L-eXtreme is non natural star colour and halos around bigger stars (the Garnet Star in this case). I should really add some RGB stars data into my L-eXtreme images  

47 minutes ago, gorann said:

Yes, lovely image and perfect processing! By the way, your FOV is wide enough to include a very unusual PN (PN G100.4+04.6) to the right of the nebula that recently happened to be highlighted by two independent posts on Astrobin by Gary Imm and Peter Goodhew. See if you can find it:

https://www.astrobin.com/0dolq1/

https://www.astrobin.com/f2pr5t/

 

Thank you, high praise indeed. I still think more data is needed to iron out a little bit of the noise

Wow, I never knew about that PN and looking at the image full scale I do believe I got it. See the attached crop below   

38 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Superb 🙂 

Steve

Thank you  

16 minutes ago, Martin-Devon said:

Agreed, a beautiful version here, looks very natural and not over-cooked, Great job!

Martin

Thanks very much  

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

Totally agree, that is a fantastic version 

17 minutes ago, Mike73 said:

Very striking image, its got an almost hollow/tunnel like effect as it goes into the centre oiii.

Thanks chaps 😁

3 minutes ago, Rustang said:

Very nice 👏

Thanks mate 👍

This is a work in progress as I'd like at least double the integration time. Having said that, the data looks promising so far 😁

Taken with a WO Redcat, ZWO ASI 294MC Pro and Optolong L-eXtreme guided on a HEQ5 Pro from my Bortle 8 garden. 48x300 second subs (4 hours). Stacked in Siril with Ha and O3 extraction. Each channel was autostreched in Siril and transferred to Photoshop. The Ha was assigned to the red channel and O3 assigned to the blue and green. The stars were then removed in starnet++ and the nebula processed as normal in Photoshop and then the star layer was added back in 😃

Critique welcome 😃

I had a quick go with your data in Siril and Photoshop, it's nice data with some nice detail especially in the dark dusy areas  

The sheer number of stars in this area is always going to give you problems and it's really hard to tease out any of the finer details without blowing out all the stars. Anyway I performed a quick photometric colour calibration in Siril and used the autostretch function. The image was then transferred to Photoshop where I used selective colour to single out the nebulosity and performed a slight curve adjustment to bring out a little more detail. I then used the astronomy tools action set to make stars smaller and enhance the DSO. Then it was just a few tweaks in camera raw to vibrance and saturation. 

7 hours ago, cuivenion said:

Hi, you can use a shower cap stop to the light leak at the primary. I use this one:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333526609970

Nice one, simple solution. 👍

1 hour ago, Grifflin said:

Thank you and sorry for the delay in replying.

@Budgie1 Cracking images and a really good comparison.  This is a target I have on my list for the Winter.  Got to say the L-Extreme definitely pulls out more detail.  I have heard that it can create halos and I can see this but is this only for really bright stars and how much can be fixed in post?

@Stuf1978 Love this and I took this target the other week.  Clearly pulling out a lot more detail than I did.  What was your integration time on that?

@tomato  Ok...wow...was that like 1 x 3min sub with the RASA? So Im imaging between f5.6 and f10.  Would the slower scopes create issues here?

Also, thank you for confirming my approach to what to use when.

So far it looks like the L-Extreme might have it but still interested in the L-Enhance as my light pollution isn't too bad.  Also is there any value in looking at tri or even quad band filters?

Neil

Thanks, total integration was 72 x 300 second subs (so 6 hours) 👍

5 hours ago, licho52 said:

The picture is fine as it is but drizzling can reveal more and can also improve star shapes and increase SNR.  It's especially apparent in undersampled material, as I remember when I had 294MC with its relatively big pixel.  Once I started using drizzle it sort of became mandatory for me to do it due to the noticed improvements.  The downside is of course the fact that it's computationally intensive and can take long time and disk space.

The picture really makes me tempted to purchase a Redcat.  I am just worried I won't use it enough as I have 2 other telescopes and there's already not enough clear nights to use them.

That's good information and definitely food for thought. I'll try giving it a go and post the image back in this thread (probably won't get a chance until next week) to see if you can see a difference 😉

I love my Redcat, it's such a nicely built bit of kit and lovely to use. I know what you mean though as I have another two scopes as well, so it's always a dilemma on which one to use on those rare clear nights. 

4 hours ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I have hovered over the buy button several times since they came onto the market.
This really is a great FOV for this target.

Steve

Do it, you won't regret it 😁

Agreed on the FOV, so nice for this target.

Looks great. I echo what Daz said though, I sometimes use Siril for stacking and it's no slower than DSS.

I second the L-eXtreme, I'm using the 2" version on my ZWO ASI 294MC Pro and it really does work wonders from my Bortle 8 location. I've previously used the L-eNhance before I moved over to the ZWO camera with a modified dslr and although good the L-eXtreme is significantly better. However, as Budgie1 mentioned try and choose your targets carefully as I've found these filters are not suitable for every target and can kill the detail in certain objects. Dual narrow band filters for emmision nebula and UV/IR cut for galaxies and reflection nebula and you'll be fine  This was taken with the 294MC Pro, WO Redcat and the Optolong L-eXtreme from my bortle 8 garden:

1 hour ago, licho52 said:

I am wondering if (assuming you dithered your frames) you could use drizzle integration to get more detail out of the picture, considering that Redcat and 294MC give you about 4"/pix.   With my combo that had 2.8" I recovered a lot of detail with drizzle, it really works wonders.

I don't think the image is lacking detail, and although the 294 and redcat combo is in theory significantly under-sampling I was under the impression that for widefield images such as this it isn't such an issue as you're not trying to resolve the finest of detail.

However, as you mention it, it's probably worth a shot restacking with drizzle just to see how it compares  

8 hours ago, Catanonia said:

Try this video - you may be able to get the techniques and apply to the software you are using

 

Thanks, I'll take a look 👍

Yet another reprocess as I've been working on trying to produce bicolour images from OSC data for months without much success until now

I've been wanting to create bicolour images from dual band OSC data for quite a while and tutorials on how to do this are pretty thin on the ground unless it involves PixInsight or to a lesser extent APP, both of which I don't have. There doesn't seem to be much out there for us using Photoshop for image processing. However, I did stumble over this tutorial that uses Siril to extract the Ha and O3 signals from OSC data when using dual narrow band filters and then tweaking the colour balance in Photoshop:

I'm pretty familiar with Siril as I sometimes us it for photometric colour calibration and the autostretch algorithm is really rather good.  However, with this tutorial I found the results pretty underwhelming and there wasn't much distinction between the colours. This may have been due to my workflow but I tried it several times and didn't like the results I got. So in the end I though why not use the extracted Ha and O3 channels from Siril and combine these into a HOO palette within Photoshop. I followed the above tutorial up until the point he moves into Ps.

I then opened a new workbook in Photoshop and assigned the extracted Ha data to red and the extracted O3 data to green and blue and then processed my image as normal. I did find that the stars ended up a bit funky so I removed them with Starnet++ and then re-added them after I reprocessed the stack just for the stars. 

So here is the finished image using this method for the first time. I may go back and try it all again and see if I can get the colour balance a little better as I think some of the reds are a bit harsh so it could may be do with toning down: Anyway please let me know what you think and which image you prefer?

Acquisition details: WO Redcat 51, ZWO ASI 294MC Pro, Optolong L-eXtreme, 72 x 300 second lights with darks, flats and dark flats, from a Bortle 8 zone.

I've included the normally processed data as a comparison.

If anyone would be interested in a full tutorial please let me know and I'll put one together

Also if anyone has any hints or tricks in processing OSC data in this way please let me know. 

Cheers,

Stu

1 hour ago, StuartT said:

no, you are absolutely correct in my case! I have the SkyWatcher 0.77 Esprit reducer.

You just saved me 80 quid! 👍

Haha good to hear it. Happy imaging 😎

17 minutes ago, KP82 said:

Only those designed with a 2" nosepiece for push-fit attachment (e.g. my TS Optics 2" 0.79x reducer). But the more common screw on type can't (e.g. my Riccardi 0.75x reducer).

Ah right, I stand corrected 👍

Can you not screw the 2" filter into your reducer? i.e. the end that you insert into the focusser draw tube? Most flatteners/reducers are designed to accept a 2" filter 

7 minutes ago, Jamgood said:

Thank you. I used @AstroBloke's tutorial on youtube.

Easy to follow and very well explained.

👍

Brilliant, thanks  

13 hours ago, Jamgood said:

Same data as my last post, this time trying out the Hubble palette. Just seeing what I can likely achieve from my OSC camera with a little processing manipulation. I'm very impressed. Astro Pixel Processor was definitely a worthy purchase. Seeing these images come to life though has given me the itch to go mono a lot sooner than I planned. It will happen in the near future.

 

Looks great, I've been trying to replicate this colour palette with my OSC data within Phostoshop without much luck. I have tried the trial version of APP a while back so may have to bite the bullet and buy it.  Are there any good tutorials out there on how to do this in APP?