M5 - Globular Cluster in Serpens

[gnomus]

Another one from DSW.  It is a mix of various sub lengths captured over February and March 2017.  Data as follows:

• Luminance: 9x60" bin 1x1
• Luminance: 25x600" bin 1x1
• Red: 24x60" bin 1x1
• Red: 13x600" bin 1x1
• Green: 12x120" bin 1x1
• Green: 16x600" bin 1x1
• Blue: 12x120" bin 1x1
• Blue: 21x600" bin 1x1

For a total of 13.9 hours.

Tak FSQ 106; Paramount MyT; QSI 683; Astrodon Filters

 

[mikeDnight]

Gosh that's beautiful! 

Mike

[Skyline]

M5 very nice, but the core looks a bit blown out.

[gnomus]

10 minutes ago, Skyline said:

M5 very nice, but the core looks a bit blown out.

Thanks for commenting.  I did a masked stretch on the RGB data and this gave me a fairly flat M5 right to the core. I did a HT stretch on the Lum which was much more contrasty. The straight LRGB combination was slightly blown out, so I overlaid the plain RGB image in PS, applied a mask, painted in the core, heavily blurred the mask, and then dialled back the opacity so that I had some details in the core whilst keeping the core nice and bright. On my screen the core does not appear blown out. I would certainly be interested to hear what others think though. It would be an easy fix if the consensus is that the core is blown.

[Barry-Wilson]

Lovely processing Steve.  With this data from DSW, it's like 'famine to feast'.  Keep the images coming .

[barkis]

Love Globulars, and this is a very fine image of M5  Steve, and the star field is  a delight too.
Terrific sight, and I bet it looks magical projected onto a big screen.
Well done sir .

[wimvb]

Excellent!

A processing tip that may be of use (although in my opintion not needed for this image), in PixInsight:

Process the Lum data to get the best star definition. (Maybe use a MILD dosage of HDRMultiscaleTransform, to get better definition in the core)

Mask stretch the RGB data, and process to get good colour. Don't care about luminance in this image.

In L*a*b mode, replace the L of the RGB data with the luminance image (drag the new instance to the RGB image)

Sometimes it makes sense to process the colour and luminance data separately, and this workflow is one way to achieve this.

Cheers,

[gnomus]

On 3/10/2017 at 12:32, Skyline said:

M5 very nice, but the core looks a bit blown out.

Now that I have had a closer look at it, I agree with you.  My original technique for maintaining core detail was insufficient.  Following some suggestions above, I tried some HDR_Transformation on my Lum stack.  This did bring out considerably more detail in the core.  

[andyo]

Very nice shot second one is certainly showing great detail in the core 

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[Maximidius]

That's a real beauty. Very nice indeed. 

[wimvb]

Great. HDR did the trick.

[Skyline]

Very Nice - My hat off to you. Most definitely a better process of the core. 

[gnomus]

18 minutes ago, Skyline said:

Very Nice - My hat off to you. Most definitely a better process of the core. 

Thank you, and thanks again for forcing me to go back and take another look.  

[PatrickGilliland]

Running out of adjectives....fizz, pop?  Nice work, well controlled stars, just as well when processing a cluster.

Paddy

[wimvb]

5 hours ago, PatrickGilliland said:

fizz, pop?  .

Paddy

As if describing candy. Well, I guess that one could call this image eye candy.

[Rodd]

On 3/10/2017 at 11:38, wimvb said:

Excellent!

A processing tip that may be of use (although in my opintion not needed for this image), in PixInsight:

Process the Lum data to get the best star definition. (Maybe use a MILD dosage of HDRMultiscaleTransform, to get better definition in the core)

Mask stretch the RGB data, and process to get good colour. Don't care about luminance in this image.

In L*a*b mode, replace the L of the RGB data with the luminance image (drag the new instance to the RGB image)

Sometimes it makes sense to process the colour and luminance data separately, and this workflow is one way to achieve this.

Cheers,

I find extracting the lum from the RGB, linear fitting it to the new lum and reinserting it prior to inserting the new Lum as described above works well.  According to the tutorials, the first step would be making sure there is even RGB levels in the RGBworking space tool.  And if you want to get crazy, you can use the LRGB combination tool to insert as that allows for manipulation of the lightness and saturation (opposite use of sliders though-down means more).  

Rodd