The Witches Head gazing up at Rigel

[swag72]

I think the detail that you've pulled out of this is very good. The framing has worked as well, something that I find is probably now the hardest thing to do! The colour that you have introduced words well with the witches head. A very pleasing image all round Martin

[Martin-Devon]

Thanks Sara - the framing was very tough on this one - to get Rigel in the top corner I had to have just the smallest slither of overlap between the panels of the mosaic, otherwise it was chopped off. A few times the overlap between the panels was not completely square and I messed up here & had to throw those subs out. I learnt a lot doing this image!

[GlassWalker]

I'm not familiar with Maxim's options, but I also mainly use a winsorised sigma clip in PixInsight. Seems to reject brighter trails very well, although very faint ones (close in level to the subject) can sneak through if I'm not careful.

[themos]

It's a tough target alright, well done! My memory of it was that one end of the nebula was a lot brighter than the other but it looks pretty even in your image.

[ollypenrice]

Very well done indeed, Martin. This is a terror to get right! And I think Rigel's a worse problem than Alnitak, which is saying something.

Satellites - oh boy, yes. Ruddy things. Tom and I were each working on this around the same time and I'd just upgraded to AstroArt 5 while he was still on V4. We found that V4 didn't lose the satellites in its Sigma stacking routine but V5 did. Like Mark I didn't ditch a single sub. I find, also like Mark, that about a dozen subs really makes the Sigma routine work.

Anyway, bravo for a great result.

Olly

[x6gas]

Well done Martin - that's an absolute stunner.

I'm jealous...

[Steve 1962]

Absolutely fantastic and creatively framed image Martin.

[Chris]

Wow! thats stonkingly good! congrats

[TakMan]

Low down, faint, a blazing star to contend with AND multiple satellites - what were you thinking!

Great result Martin and a fine choice on the colour tone - gives it a very fetching 'etherial' look.

Would love to inspect a hi-res version as Mark72 mentioned earlier... get that (free) AstroBin account sorted asap!!!!

I use Nebulosity3's Standard Deviation stacking routine to loose the trails and find it works fine.... I only leave out frames that have dropped focus or show 'iffy' guiding (technical term there!)

Thanks for posting....

Damian

[Martin-Devon]

I really appreciate the additional feedback - thanks everybody!

Damian, you're quite right about this target being low in the sky. The area in the garden where I image from has some high trees due South from my portable set-up and Orion just peeps over the top of these. I did the Horeshead a couple of weeks ago, and that was OK, but the Witches Head being much lower (Rigel area) only just about scrapes over the top of these trees so I was lucky here - any lower & I would not have been able to do this one. Being low as well adds to the extent of murk & haze that's down there, many times mist & fog started to creep up during the imaging runs and everytime it's the low-ish areas of the sky (just where I'm imaging) that suffered first!

Following encouragement from Mark72, I'm now going to learn PixInsight so I'll be interested to see the stacking/rejection systems in there and how they compare to Maxim. I looked through a few of Harry's PI tutorials last night and they were very good indeed.

[Uranium235]

Splendid image, id like to have a go at this one next year.

[Itabot]

Stunning

[Tom OD]

As Olly said, AstroArt5 has a much better rejection routine in the stacking and it works very well. I've been toying with PI stacking and while you need to play about with some of its settings to get the best result (which ends in a lot more time spent on the stacking). I found PI equals AA5 for removing sat trails and baad pixels, but in PI the stars came out a little tighter and sharper. AA5 looked a touch soft, but I think had a touch more contrast in it. The biggest thing though was to make sure that the darks and flats for the AA5 test were made in AA5, while the darks and flats for the PI test were made in PI.

Tom.

[harry page]

Hi

I use AA5 for capture and quick stacking ( it is fast) and does give good results and might be good enough for a lot of people

But then I use Pixinsight to do my proper working stack as it does give slightly better results , and every bit counts to me

regards

Harry

[knobby]

Man thats sweet ! really nice job, very eerie !

I can't begin to imagine how much work / patience went in to creating that, but thankyou for sharing it

[fwm891]

Keep coming back to view this - probably the best image on here. Evokes the 'Old Grey Whistle Test' (well that dates me...)