Horsehead and Flame - 1st real attempt

[malc-c]

Other than the single long exposure I took whilst gathering tracking data, this is my first attempt at the Horse head nebula. I've waited 26 years to get this... my previous attempts with my old 102 Vixen refractor and film based camera always failed...

10 x 5min exposures + 5 x 5min darks all at 1600ISO

Stacked in DeepSky Stacker, and curves and colours tweaked in Photoshop.

EDIT:

Why is it that the pictures always look different on the forum then when saved and viewed locally. Heck even the thumbnail has better coloration than the full size image !

[Simms]

Hi Malc,

lovely image - however with regards to your comment about colour shift between Photoshop and viewing on the web - the `fix` is easy. The easiest way is to `softproof` your images in Photoshop, what this does is shifts the colour palette to simulate what you will see when uploaded and viewed on the web. Its easy to setup. In Photoshop click on VIEW -> PROOF SETUP then make sure Monitor RGB is checked. Then all you need to do is turn on Softproofing by pressing CTRL-Y - you will see the colour shift and you can now work on the image knowing what you see will look exactly the same on the web (in the majoirty of modern browsers).. Try it out and let me know if it works for you, if not I am sure we can sort it somehow.

[malc-c]

Hi Malc,

lovely image - however with regards to your comment about colour shift between Photoshop and viewing on the web - the `fix` is easy. The easiest way is to `softproof` your images in Photoshop, what this does is shifts the colour palette to simulate what you will see when uploaded and viewed on the web. Its easy to setup. In Photoshop click on VIEW -> PROOF SETUP then make sure Monitor RGB is checked. Then all you need to do is turn on Softproofing by pressing CTRL-Y - you will see the colour shift and you can now work on the image knowing what you see will look exactly the same on the web (in the majoirty of modern browsers).. Try it out and let me know if it works for you, if not I am sure we can sort it somehow.

Thanks for the advice. I've changed the setting from WORKING CYMK to MONITOR RGB and pressing CTRL-Y does change the image slightly in photoshop, but no where near the colour changes when the CYMK image was uploaded to the forum ...

I've uploaded an image where I've adjusted the curves slightly whilst in RGB Monotor mode - lets see if it make much difference

EDIT: Uhmm not much...

The image in PS looks like the thunbnail only full sized, somewhat magenta in colour, but when opened in full it turns Orange / Brown

Also looks fine in Paint.Net and other viewers

[malc-c]

Lets try one more

Not much - lets try a JPG with the colour biased to the violet

Better - now to tone down the brightness a tad (have no flats at the moment)

[Simms]

Out of interest, why are you working in CMYK mode? CMYK will not display correctly at all as it is really for Print work - the pixels on a monitor are made up of RGB as are the photosites in your camera sensor - you gain nothing from converting/working with CMYK. Unless I am missing something, you`d be best to convert your workspace to RGB. The images look fine in Paint.net because I believe that isn`t a colour managed application (it ignores any colour profiles applied to the image) so what you see will probably mimic the non-soft-proofed versions of your images - most modern browsers are colour managed.

[Zul]

Nice image.

[drumsolo]

Very nice image, shame you had to wait so long but worth the wait!! I tried to image this last week for the first time but Alnitak was too bright and blowing the picture out. How did you keep the brightness down?

Stuart

[malc-c]

Out of interest, why are you working in CMYK mode? CMYK will not display correctly at all as it is really for Print work - the pixels on a monitor are made up of RGB as are the photosites in your camera sensor - you gain nothing from converting/working with CMYK.

I have no idea. It either used that as default when it was installed, or I changed it some time back when I wanted a quality printed output and never changed it back. I'll still play about with DSS / PS etc and see what comes out, but it does seem as if the images get stretched when uploaded and the colours become false

Very nice image, shame you had to wait so long but worth the wait!! I tried to image this last week for the first time but Alnitak was too bright and blowing the picture out. How did you keep the brightness down?

Stuart

Stuart,

Thanks, for the compliments. I'm guessing in that keeping the exposures down to 300s meant that Alnitak didn't get over exposed ?? - other than that, just luck I guess

[Viv]

Lovely image Malc !!

All the hard work, of building is paying off nicely.

[malc-c]

It's getting there and I'm having fun learning

[malc-c]

Ok have just re-processed using some flats and making sure the RGB settings are set to monitor. Not sure if this is an improvement or not ?