Nov 11 Full Disc and Prom: PST

[thenews24]

Kind of did some pseudo processing with a full disc image from the PST today. Rouhgly 1,000 frames, AS!2, CS5 for: smart sharpen plus w/more accuracy, duplicated layer->high pass filter->soft light, inverted , noise/median filter->darkened 2 times with curves, adjusted levels, adjusted shadows&highlights, adjusted brightness/contrast, added layer Levels->R:2,G:1.7,B:.2 , adjusted color balance for more red.

[thenews24]

woops, I meant 'Nov 19' in the subject

[luigis]

This is just incredible, fantastic work!

[Daniel-K]

Loving the detail on the surface

[Merlin66]

Your imaginative processing has highlighted the "sweet" spot area.

You may want to consider the PixInsight Dynamic Background Extraction (DBE) as suggested by Kev.....

Great PST image!

[Montana]

WOW! the first image looks like an SDO shot! beautiful colouring I may have a go tonight as I am never quite happy with my colour as it always looks flat.

Alexandra

[sologuitarist61]

Great images and interesting processing routine - will have to try that, thanks for sharing

[VigdisVZ]

Beautiful action shot. Thanks for sharing both the images and the process.

[thenews24]

Well to be honest Merlin, I have tried plenty of other techniques, and of course with the PST, mosaics are the best. But for a full disc image at prime focus, I'm happy with this. Every PST is different, and I know mine. I repesct your experience, but I have been unemployed for over a year and have had the time to fiddle with every single detail with my scope. There is no way to get around the sweet spot unless I use my 2.5x pm and do mosaics. No matter what processing I chose, the sweet spot is always highlighted to the trained eye. If the scope can't capture the detail, how am I suppossed to present it? In my image, I tuned to show more upper half disc detail because of the filaments. I sacrificed the lower half of he disc, for more features of the northern half. Do you guys have maigcal PST's, please I'd like to know?

[Montana]

I'm a little confused, is this a regular PST (not modified)? can you show a close up of what you mean by sweet spot? I thought the sweet spot was just where it was brighter in exposure over one area, or do you mean you have a problem with getting the whole field on band?

Alexandra

[KE400]

Time well spent on the processing giving a great image.

I often think of different processing ideas and as you say, spending time to know your equipment and also knowing how to use the processing tools go a long way towards the results.

I like the result here, congrats

[DrRobin]

That is a really nice full frame shot for a PST, looks like your double stack is sorted as well. The PSTs are famed for having a relatively small 'sweetspot' and from what I understand it means that only a small portion of the frame is on-band. The other part of the frame looks brighter with less detail as the Etalon is letting through more than just narrow band Ha.

The size of the sweetspot seems to change from PST to PST and it looks like yours is a pretty good one.