2hr9min Iris from last night

[Dannyefc87]

Longest image I've done since I started AP a few months ago, 2 hours and 9 minutes in 180s subs at ISO 400. Equipment used - SW Equinox 80, HEQ5, Canon 100D, stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop CC

Its not the finished article by a long way, looks a very grainy to me, probably down to my inept processing skills haha. Any constructive criticism is very welcome.

Thx for looking  

[Astroboy239]

The blue channel is very dominant. But a nice capture! Try and reduce the blue. 

[cardconvict]

As astro boy said very blue but great start, this is difficult to capture and needs alot of data.

[Dannyefc87]

The blue is definitely a little strong, was a quick process at 2am was eager to see what I had captured. I'm going to have another crack at the processing shortly. Hopefully get some more data tonight if the weather is cooperating.

IIRC I upped the blue to bring the nebula out more, still learning on the processing definitely my weak point

 

Thx for the input guys !

[andyo]

Nice capture,I would just use levels and curves to reveal more of the nebula and leave the individual colour channels for balancing colour in conjunction with the histogram. It looks like you may have clipped the black point which could be whats causing the grainy look you refer to. When you open levels in photoshop keep an eye on the left side of the histogram, when you move the left slider(adjusting the black point) be careful not to move it past the foot of the histogram (the base of the histogram where it starts to rise) or you will be clipping the data 

[Dannyefc87]

Took everybody's advice on board and came up with this, just not sure if its better or worse.

I think the colour is much better but it hasn't got as much detail?

Thx for the input :) 

[Dannyefc87]

Got a sneaky hour or so worth of data to add to this tonight. Made a quick stack and process of it.

3rd time lucky hopefully, 3 hr 30 mins of 180s subs 70 in total, 15 darks, 30 flats. I think there is a lot more data hiding in this image than I'm able to bring out.

Criticism welcome

[andyo]

Hi Dannyefc87

Yes this is a big improvement a lot better colour balance and there is certainly more data to be extracted however it has still had the black point clipped more so on the red and green channels and slightly on the blue,this makes it difficult to get the best out of your data as some of it has been lost when the black point was clipped.

The best bet would be to restack the subs you have taken then when you open the image in photoshop go to levels and a histogram will show with three sliders below it.(Make sure that in the channels box you have RGB displayed).The right slider  adjusts your white point the left slider adjusts your black point and the middle slider is for your greys.The middle slider is the one you will use to stretch the data by moving it towards the histogram not to far and it may be best to do this gradually over a few iterations while also moving the left slider(black) towards the foot of the histogram be careful not to move this past the very start of the histogram(the foot) or you will clip the data,that is you will be mapping all the pixels below this as black. Do this over a few iterations to gradually tease the data out.

You can then use curves to get more contrast and  target specific areas of your image,again the data can also be clipped with curves so open the histogram and keep an eye on it,its always best to do small increments at a time and no big leaps.Hope this helps 

[Dannyefc87]

Thanks for taking the time to explain things for me, maybe I'm doing something wrong but when I stretch the data there always seems to be a little bit of data at the left hand side that I cant help but clip if I want to move the left slider

[andyo]

20 hours ago, Dannyefc87 said:

Thanks for taking the time to explain things for me, maybe I'm doing something wrong but when I stretch the data there always seems to be a little bit of data at the left hand side that I cant help but clip if I want to move the left slider

There may be some slight data like a very small spike before the histogram caused by the stacking procedure.I would perform a slight crop of the image before stretching the data and see if that removes it.If you are still finding that when you move the sllider you have to clip the histogram then I wouldn't move it as its likely the black point is fine where it is. You may find that you can move the blackpoint later after further processing such as noise reduction but always keep an eye on the histogram to ensure that you don't clip the data. 

[Dannyefc87]

On ‎08‎/‎06‎/‎2016 at 19:08, andyo said:

There may be some slight data like a very small spike before the histogram caused by the stacking procedure.I would perform a slight crop of the image before stretching the data and see if that removes it.If you are still finding that when you move the sllider you have to clip the histogram then I wouldn't move it as its likely the black point is fine where it is. You may find that you can move the blackpoint later after further processing such as noise reduction but always keep an eye on the histogram to ensure that you don't clip the data. 

Thx a lot for the advice, I think the simple act of cropping the stacking artefacts out of the image helped a lot with the processing, I had a feeling it was something simple I was missing.

So after taking your advice here is my latest attempt at processing  Ive got two different stacks as I'm still experimenting as to what works best on that side of things so heres the two attempts.

I think I prefer the first one, but am still undecided. There is still a lot more faint stuff in the data that is beyond my processing skills to bring out. I can see it while I am pulling it this way and that but getting it into the final image is proving difficult, I think I need to learn how to select different parts of the image and stretch them independently of the rest to get the most of it, I suppose that's the next tutorial on the list

Any criticism you guys have is very welcome.

Thx for looking :)

 

 

 

[andyo]

Hi Danny I prefer the bottom one its a big improvement upon your first post looking a lot more natural(background doesnt look clipped and much better colour balance) yet still showing detail around the iris. I think you have got a fair bit of detail showing for this object more data is the way to go maybe increase the ISO to 800 (i think thats possibly the best setting but maybe someone who uses a DSLR could give more info on that, I only used one for a short time).Keep up the good work  

[Dannyefc87]

1 hour ago, andyo said:

Hi Danny I prefer the bottom one its a big improvement upon your first post looking a lot more natural(background doesnt look clipped and much better colour balance) yet still showing detail around the iris. I think you have got a fair bit of detail showing for this object more data is the way to go maybe increase the ISO to 800 (i think thats possibly the best setting but maybe someone who uses a DSLR could give more info on that, I only used one for a short time).Keep up the good work  

Thx Andy, your help and praise is really appreciated.

Just had another crack at the first stacking technique.

This is probably my favourite so far, it looks vaguely like some of the much better attempts from this forum that inspired me to try capture this target in the first place. I tried making the adjustments in much smaller increments this time and I think it worked well. Although my processing still needs a lot of work I think I will take your advice to capture some more data on this next time we get some clear sky.

Again I cant thank everyone enough for the help

Thx for looking.

[andyo]

Thats looking very good Danny you can just start seeing the red dust surrounding the nebula certainly a very big improvement upon the first post, back ground sky is looking a lot more balanced although might be just slightly clipped all the same well done

[Galactic Wanderer]

I've just looked through the thread and you have made some great improvements. Very nice final image!

seb

[Gina]

As has been said, this is a difficult object to image and your efforts show great promise   Image processing takes a lot of learning and experience to get right also I think that processed image is good for the equipment you are using   Goes to show that the DSLR can be used for DSO imaging!  When I was imaging with an 1100D I generally used ISO 1600 or even 3200 so I certainly think you can increase your ISO setting.

Welcome to the great world of DSO imaging

[Dannyefc87]

12 hours ago, Galatic Wanderer said:

I've just looked through the thread and you have made some great improvements. Very nice final image!

seb

Thx Seb

5 hours ago, Gina said:

As has been said, this is a difficult object to image and your efforts show great promise   Image processing takes a lot of learning and experience to get right also I think that processed image is good for the equipment you are using   Goes to show that the DSLR can be used for DSO imaging!  When I was imaging with an 1100D I generally used ISO 1600 or even 3200 so I certainly think you can increase your ISO setting.

Welcome to the great world of DSO imaging

Thx Gina, I have tried using higher ISO but the images look really washed out and lacking detail, I had wandered if they would look better when stacked and processed? If so will definitely try the higher ISO when I get round to capturing more data on this target. Think I'm going to try to get at least 5-6 hours total on this before I move onto something new. The difference from 1.5 hours to 3.5 hours was very noticeable, I'm anxious to see what it would look like with twice the amount of data.

[Gina]

Oh yes, you'll want plenty of data on that one.