NGC1333 amidst a sea of dust

[gnomus]

Steve

Public link to my dropbox file with the script, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32050952/Blend%20Eng.js

I remember I had seen comments from Rick Stevenson on the script and thought he wrote it, apologies Steve if I've sent you on a wild 'google' chase!  Just checked and it is Mike Read and the link above is the same as the PI one here, http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=3902.0.

Thanks again Barry.  Not a 'wild google' chase ..... I'm a Bing man!

[ChrisLX200]

Wow, you captured a lot of dust in this one! Love it :-)

ChrisH

[gnomus]

Steve

Public link to my dropbox file with the script, https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32050952/Blend%20Eng.js

I remember I had seen comments from Rick Stevenson on the script and thought he wrote it, apologies Steve if I've sent you on a wild 'google' chase!  Just checked and it is Mike Read and the link above is the same as the PI one here, http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=3902.0.

A brilliantly simple script to use Barry.  This should come as standard with PI.

[strutsinaction]

That's another remarkable capture, Barry, and thanks for sharing your processing workflow! Most enlightening!

Regards

John

[Barry-Wilson]

Wow, you captured a lot of dust in this one! Love it :-)

ChrisH

Thanks Chris - look forward to seeing your version too.

That's another remarkable capture, Barry, and thanks for sharing your processing workflow! Most enlightening!

Regards

John

I am pleased considering there is only about 50% of the amount of data that the subject warrants.  It's forecast to be clear tomorrow and I hope that low cloud won't persist.

[Barry-Wilson]

A brilliantly simple script to use Barry.  This should come as standard with PI.

Yes it works well, although I don't use PS so I can't compare the results this script produces for each mode with the 'real' PS ones.

[gnomus]

All it lacks is a 'Preview' mode.

Sorry to trouble you again Barry, but I must be being especially useless this morning.  I cannot find that Channel Combination in HSV mode tutorial to which you refer.  Any chance of posting a link?

[ollypenrice]

Good image. My attempt came out much browner and I've always suspected my CB was slewed over towards red. I must go back to it.

For anyone inspired by Barry's image it's worth noting that the central nebula is a real beauty for longer focal lengths, too. Sara!!!

Olly

[Barry-Wilson]

Steve

Links:

http://www.pixinsight.com.ar/en/info/processing-examples/28/maskedstretch-stars-sores.html

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=5149.0

I always use the Unrepaired V in Channel Combination.  You have to experiment with the best settings for your image and star sizes.  However, it really helps boos the core colour once you have carried out a masked stretch.

HTH

Barry

[Barry-Wilson]

Good image. My attempt came out much browner and I've always suspected my CB was slewed over towards red. I must go back to it.

For anyone inspired by Barry's image it's worth noting that the central nebula is a real beauty for longer focal lengths, too. Sara!!!

Olly

Thank you Olly.  I like the brown dust in these images, and agree a longer FL image of the central nebula would be very interesting as there is a lot of drama with the dark dust, bright blue reflection nebula and a splash of red lurking right in its heart.

[gnomus]

Barry

What can I say - thanks again for this - it is extremely decent of you to share your magic with us.

Non-Linear

5. I set the Kernel Radius to 312 and the amount to 0.3, apply.  Repeat with settings of Kernel Radius 194 amount 0.25, Kernal Radius 28 amount 0.17.

I tried your LHE settings out on some data of my own and I thought it worked extremely well.  Do you normally take this 'three step approach' to LHE and are these 'standard' settings that you tend to use?  (I left the 'Contrast Limit' at the default of 2.0 - I assume that is correct?)

Steve

[Barry-Wilson]

Steve

It depends on the target.  If there is large scale structure or it is an extended object, eg Pelican, North America, or even Andromeda, I will use 3 or 4 or even 5 approaches to LHE.  I vary the amount (sometimes as little as 0.1 and even the contrast I move sometimes to 1.5 to lessen the effect.  If the result is too much, I will then blend the LHE frame back with the pre-LHE frame using the Blend script or PixelMath (or start all over again).  The effect has plenty of artistic licence.

If the subject of the target is much smaller in extent, only one application of LHE may be required.  I have found over the last year that less really is often more, and small iterative steps are better than one major application of a PI process.  I'm trying harder to think "what do I want to reveal in this image?".

Barry

What can I say - thanks again for this - it is extremely decent of you to share your magic with us.

I wonder if I'm beginning to turn into a PI 'crusader' with age ?  When I look at PS it is all unfathomable to me (the comment often expressed about PI, I know).  It's all the fault of Harry and his AstroShed . . . his tutorials are just too good for words

[gnomus]

...  When I look at PS it is all unfathomable to me (the comment often expressed about PI, I know).  It's all the fault of Harry and his AstroShed . . . his tutorials are just too good for words

I agree that Photoshop can be difficult when you first start using the program.  There are probably very few people who know how to use every feature of the program - most will develop a certain expertise in the tools that they require to achieve what they want to achieve.  I am very slowly starting to get to grips with a very few of the tools available in PixInsight, thanks to postings like yours, Harry's videos and other tutorials (I must give special mention to those at the Light Vortex site).  My guess is that most people are like me and find PixInsight considerably more 'impenetrable' than Photoshop.  Sometimes things 'happen' to my image and I have no idea why (it is always my fault, but I find diagnosis much more problematic in PI). The chaps on the PixInsight forums appear to talk an entirely different language to me and I have been too intimidated by that language to ask many questions there.  I may be being unfair but it seems to me that there is a slight whiff of 'ideological purity' -  why can't they just institute a Layers feature?  (For one thing it would have saved Mr Read the trouble of having to write his Blending script.)  

I have bought the program and I like it - it does several things really well (once you have been shown how).  I'm not sure I'd ever be able to abandon Photoshop though and I think that an eclectic approach is probably the way to go.

If you can achieve what you are achieving in PI then I am quite certain that PS would very quickly become a breeze for you.  

I am concerned that I might be coming across as a bit of a "whiner".  I really don't mean to be.  I am only one year into this imaging malarkey and most of these things are very new to me.  Who knows - a year from now I could be a PI fundamentalist!!!

Thanks again for your encouragement. 

Steve

[juliangeorgeshaw]

Wonderful image!

Thank you so much for sharing your workflow and script.

My PI processing is so muddled I can never remember what I did last time