Difficult Nth America Nebula

[squeaky]

Yep! Lotsa fun

This one has more iterations put in on levels and curves and less in the way of sharpening...

It looks to me as though all your stars are trailed outwards from the centre...? Maybe a change in collimation or focus due to temperature? Just guessing here.

[badgers]

It's been great seeing so many different ways to process the data!

This was a useful excercise just to see what people do and what people want to get out of their processing.

Here's a random collage for comparison (click to enlarge)

[badgers]

I think 5 is my favourite... Think that's harry's one, not sure any more

[squeaky]

That's a really nice collage. Interesting too.

Question of the day.... If we were sitting in a spacecraft at the same distance as the apparent image view... what would we actually see?

[badgers]

Ahh yes that old chestnut : ) Are we sitting in a spacecraft with Eyes that can take long exposures though ?

My take on this goes as follows:

5 has a lot of visual impact but the colour is more saturated than some of the others.

3 has the most bang-for-buck in terms of detail vs contrast.

6 is nice too in terms of detail for contrast, but I'm not sure about the colour balance

4 and 9 have detail but not enough contrast for my taste.

7,8 and 2 seem to have a good balance between visual impact, contrast and colour balance....

Which one do I prefer.... I've no idea any more!

Image processing is very subjective....

[squeaky]

Yeah... 123456789 is my favourite

So would it still look like a grey fuzz to us in our spaceship? Or would we be able to pick out some colour?

The thing about that collage - unlike the result of a google search, is that they're all renditions of exactly the same data. How the devil can you decide which one (if any) is the most realistic?

What would you get here if you lined them all up in DSS?

[ollypenrice]

The nearer you got to it the less you'd see. We probablly have the best view from here. These nebs are very low in density, almost vacuums, so they only appear at all at a distance.

Great thread. For me it is between 3 and 5. Harry's needs, I think, a slight lift in the greens to kill the magentas. But all the others bar 3 and 5 need PI's SCNR green remover!

What a game, what a game, what brought us to this monstrous endeavour? Ah yes, the beauty of the Universe. I knew it was something important...

Well done to all.

Olly

[GlassWalker]

On #6, since that's the one I did, I processed it like I would for narrowband and I wasn't going for natural colours, more something that looks interesting. I didn't rework the stars carefully as it was a quick process. That means the visual greens/blues are relatively boosted and I didn't take care of that on the stars beyond a quick/slight selective colour de-saturate.

If the skies ever remain clear enough I want to have a go imaging this again myself too

[squeaky]

For me it's been lots of fun, and absolutely fascinating. You'll have gathered by now that I really enjoy this

[Astrosurf]

This has been a great thread. I love your enthusiasm guys!

[steppenwolf]

Awww, I missed all the fun as I have been away on holiday for a week! What a fascinating thread!

[Astrosurf]

Finally got round to reprocessing! I didn't understand everything you all said, but went with what I knew. It's not brilliant, and noisy, but softer than before. I think it's a bit pink rather than red but I'm OK with that for the mo. I did a bit of Unsharp Mask to sharpen some areas without increasing the noise too much.

Waddaya think?

[ronaldo999]

very nice image this is one object i have never imaged to be fair, this gives me an incentive to do it. Nice detail and clarity

[Astrosurf]

Thanks! Let us see your image when you've done it.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Really interesting thread. We have had some students working on aberration detection. I think the initial TIFF showed some textbook coma. Mind if I test our software on it?

[Astrosurf]

By all means! This is my bug bear, but I can't afford a coma corrector yet! Do you want me to email you the full-sized TIFF?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I have downloaded a 60MB tiff from one of the links you posted, I trust that is the full-size one (in which the nebula is all but absent).

[Astrosurf]

Oh, silly me. I forgot about that. Daft sausage I am!

[Astrosurf]

In addition, do you want a processed one with the image and stars clearly visible?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That might well be handy.

[Astrosurf]

I'll post it on here when I get home.

[Astrosurf]

Here's the MediaFire link to the processed TIFF, Michael.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?652zkbqqwrltcgg

Alexxx

[Astrosurf]

Here's another link as I had to move the file.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?652zkbqqwrltcgg

Mind you, the link looks the same!

[mgirdwood]

hope you dont mind - i had a quick play on the IPAD this lunchtime using your starter Tif. not as Pro as some of our esteemed colleagues but it was nice too get so much detail out. if i can sort my tracking out i will have another go at this target myself.

[Astrosurf]

I've been really surprised at how much data is there! Good job!