Horsehead and flame HaRGB

[Pompey Monkey]

More exposure time than I'm willing to disclose on this one and I'm a little disappointed, to say the least.

However, there are some positives to come out of the process:

I split Alnitak ,

I like the colour of the Flame,

I now know that, unless the sky is very transparent, there's almost no point in imaging below about 30-30 degrees altitude from where I live. I will plan my targets carefully from now on.

I also now know where the internal reflections are in my 'scope. How many Alnitaks can you spot? *

 

*And I cropped out the worst!

 

[steppenwolf]

There's much to like, tight stars, subtle colours, good tracking, well controlled Alnitak and an iconic subject. The reflections are a pain for you, do you know why you are getting them?

[Pompey Monkey]

12 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

There's much to like, tight stars, subtle colours, good tracking, well controlled Alnitak and an iconic subject. The reflections are a pain for you, do you know why you are getting them?

Well, the big blue one above Dobbin's head is pretty symmetrical about the optical axis, so I'm guessing it's a bit of lens flare from my SW CC;

There was a big distorted image of the primary, complete with secondary shadow, that I cropped off the top. That must be an internal reflection increasing the path length somewhere;

I'm not sure about the one in the Flame though. I'll have to think about that one

[Starlight 1]

Just spend 5 mins looking and I do like this a lot, very nice Stars what not to like a lot of time have been taking .

[Martin-Devon]

I like the transparency you've achieved with this one, many examples we see are block-solid and very heavy with the colours - this is delicate and smooth, a very effective outcome.

Martin

[StargeezerTim]

Restrained and classy! The blue reflection should be easy to deal with through 'replace colour' ot hue snd saturation. 

[Uranium235]

Yep, its the SWCC giving you the internal reflection on Alnitak. Switching to the Baader MkIII would eliminate that, downside is that it offers no reduction factor. But, you have achieved a very clean image regardless.

[Pompey Monkey]

45 minutes ago, Uranium235 said:

Yep, its the SWCC giving you the internal reflection on Alnitak. Switching to the Baader MkIII would eliminate that, downside is that it offers no reduction factor. But, you have achieved a very clean image regardless.

On reflection (pun intended), I am happier with the result than my immediate reaction. For a laugh, I raised the black point, without clipping, and it looks a lot less washed out. Still, a 900 m altitude gain and a location in Western Haute Provence would make all the difference

With regard to the internal reflections, rather than chase all of the limitations of my 150 pds*, I am currently looking for a good APO with filled flattener or reducer. I just missed out on a SV80S at a bargain price today...

 

*Excellent starting AP scope that it is! 

[Uranium235]

Actually, thinking about it - you could probably clone brush that reflection out in Ps. Worth a shot!

[Pompey Monkey]

14 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Actually, thinking about it - you could probably clone brush that reflection out in Ps. Worth a shot!

I tried that. And failed miserably!

I also tried running the stretched image back through PI, with some DBE, to get rid of that awful colour gradien,t and then SNCR. I also tweaked the black point up a couple of notches, but really that's just hiding the awful colour noise - I really haven't seen the Ha wisps at the top look brown in any other image.

As "they" say, you cant polish the proverbial, but this is slightly more pleasing on the eye now.

 

[PeterCPC]

Very nice - a great improvement.

Peter

[Uranium235]

Well, it looks like the reflection is in the blue channel. All you need to do is separate out that channel and work on it with the clone brush or with a combination of magic wand, levels and clone.

Like so:

 

Lost a couple of small stars, but this is just a quick n' dirty fix. As I thought, it was mostly in blue, but a bit in green too.