NGC 1647

[Tinker1947]

I have used "Levels and Curves" but still not getting the really dim stars to come out, any helpers please, the subs only totaled 7 at 3 minutes each 1600 iso ,put a battery in the camera that really needed charging, but i know where the Open Cluster is now so it won't take a hour to find next time. Sykwatcher 250 Reflector, NEQ6 Pro Mount and a Nikon D80 unmodded, E-Bay Camera timer.

[Jannis]

That's a quite nice pic actually

Had a little play in PS with the JPG there to see if i could get out some of the fainter stars, but not much luck. Though i think i managed to get the fainter visable stars to stand out a bit more.

I might have overprocessed it a bit though, especially when trying to add teh star colours.

It looks like you had forgotten to align the RGB channels, and therefor the colord background. Unless you wanted to have the background looking like that?

You do this in levels adjustment. But instead of selecting RGB, you select R, G and B seperatly, and drag the darkness to right before where the data starts on the histogram. Make sure you set R, G, B at the same spot to get the backgrount black.

Then, for the adjustments, you shuold look into working with several layers. I copied the layer a million times (ok, more like 7-8.. ), and adjusted the levels and curves seperatly. then i added the løayers at different settings to increase the brightness mostly on only the faint stars, and then just a little bit on the bright stars.

Another smart idea to make the background black is to do this:

1. duplicate layer

2, adjust curves so the stars look more or less liek the background colour (but try not to adjust the background itself)

3. filter -> blur -> gaussian blur -> set it so all the stars are as good as gone, and you're left with only the background -> OK.

4. set the layer to "difference", not teh background shuold be as good as evenly black, and the stars shuold remain (though they might be slightly dimmer). If you wich, you can adjust layer to lower then 100% opacity/fill.

5. right click on layer and select merge down.

now you have a single layer with dark background and wich you can work futher on. I often do it liek this to get a quick result. There might be better/easier ways of course, as my processing skills are rather poor, but this is what i did with your pic at least.

Not sure if it's of any help, but oh well...

[Tinker1947]

Thanks for the input, new to Photoshop so your ideas are on the pad under "learn how to", thanks again.

[Quatermass]

Check out my blog ive put up 13 pshop tutorials on the lets do astrophotography now section first two cover star selection ;-)

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[Tinker1947]

I have run through them, but know i know which one's to concentrate on i can make a start, ty

[Tinker1947]

Quatermass, run through your Levels and Curves Tutorial and the result is in the picture, thanks for help, its onwards and upwards from now on...)

[Jannis]

Now that's a great improovement! Well done!!

[Quatermass]

Looking good tinker also go through the gradient removal and noise reduction and inverted layer masks tutorials. Gradients are a right pain so i use all the methods at my disposal. Glad the tutorials are helpful

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[Tinker1947]

I will work my way through them all several times, then several times more, thank you for your time and expertise.

[Tinker1947]

Quatermass, just wondering if the tutorials are in a particular order, or what would be the best way to run through them using the same Image....

[Quatermass]

I think after levels and curves just go through them from one to last the most useful skill is using the hide all layer mask levels and curves. The rest are finishing off skills. Best to learn them all though as you will use all of them in the end

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk