Heart of the Rose - Re-cultivated

[centroid]

Not being too happy about my 2 hrs on the Rosette, albeit under less than ideal conditions, I have re-processed the RAW files, and spent some time, trying to extract some more from them.

Although you can't make a poor image into a good one, spending some time and patience can help to make the best of a bad job.

I found that by removing the 3x15 min subs from the 'stack', using just the 10x10 min subs, and then spending a bit more time on the combined image in P/shop, I was able to make some improvement.

It would seem perhaps, that given the bad 'seeing' last night, the longer 15 min exposures, just emphasised the 'seeing', and actually degraded an already poor image. So, perhaps 'more' isn't always a good thing, and that under poor conditions, the 'law of diminishing returns' starts to apply.

An interesting exercise, from which I've learnt something new.

Attached is the original image as 'posted' under "The heart of the Rose", and the re-worked result.

Dave

[Helen]

That's much better Dave - good one!

Helen

[MartinB]

Wow, that's a big difference Dave. The improved version looks great. I love the colour, it's really showing up the difference towards the core where there's more OIII.

Have you tried combining the 10 and 15 min subs seperately and then combining the 2 resulting files using "sum" as the combine method. I think that's supposed to be the best way of combining different exposure lengths

[CELESCOPE]

Hmmm that does prove a point there Dave , interesting , and an even better image to boot , very nice indeed , love the colour to , just how i would want mine to turn out .

Rog

[steppenwolf]

That's quite an improvement, Dave.

[centroid]

On this occassion, I combined all of the subs in one go, as I've done on several other images in the past Martin.

However, I guess every image is subtly different in respect of what produces the best result, which is why there's no one single answer to this image processing lark. Its probably that challenge that makes it such a fascinating (sometimes frustrating ) process, and one at which we can keep on learning from what we do.

When I was 'playing' around with the recent M42 images, I produced two separate 'masters' from the short and long exposure subs, and then 'layer combined' them 'masters' in P/Shop. There are many ways to 'skin the cat' of course.

I may take the time to go back down the two separate 'master' route with the Rosette subs, as a comparison.

Might even go back and reduce the stars a bit more too.

Just how long is a piece of string?

As Steve (steppenwolf) said only last week, "ain't processing fun".

Dave

[mightymonoped]

That's a fine bit of 'gardening' Dave 8) 8) 8)

Great image.

Tony

[Eddie]

Very nice Dave

Eddie