Flaming Star and Tadpoles - first attempt at guiding

[Barry-Wilson]

Well done Ken with a great image.  Clearly you are increasing your confidence with your equipment, software and processing - good for you and top notch.

[Filroden]

57 minutes ago, Barry-Wilson said:

Well done Ken with a great image.  Clearly you are increasing your confidence with your equipment, software and processing - good for you and top notch.

Thank you. I couldn't have done it without all the support, advice and inspiration I get from here.

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice work Ken - some lovely detail showing through

Paddy

[Filroden]

10 hours ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Nice work Ken - some lovely detail showing through

Thank you Paddy. I still can't believe the huge difference guiding made to overall resolution. Now I just need another clear night to add the data needed to really bring out the dust between the two nebulae.

[swag72]

A fine post showing the benefits of guiding - It's really not as scary as it appears  A great image  - Well done

[Filroden]

13 minutes ago, swag72 said:

A fine post showing the benefits of guiding - It's really not as scary as it appears  A great image  - Well done

Thank you Sara. It really isn't! I plugged in two leads, fiddled a little with the OAG to get a rough focus (and I do mean rough) and then pressed three icons in sequence. Job done, I was guiding.

[Tommohawk]

Very nice image - and nicely processed too.

The ASI1600 certainly seems to do the business. I've been drooling over these for some time now - trouble is, by the time the price comes down to a level I can sensibly stretch to, there'll be a newer model to lust over.

 

[Filroden]

Well, to break my promise, here's the final version which corrects the green background tint using BackgroundNeutralisation, adds some sharpening (Unsharp in PI and a Clarity boost in Lightroom), a contrast boost using LocalHistogramTransformation and an application of Noel's actions to the star colours.

[Filroden]

Well, I haven't seen a cloud and moon free night since 25 March so I've added an additional 50 minutes of colour data to this image. The second session went well, successfully reframing the original to within a few pixels and also using dithering. The only downside was dithering and the additional settling time really extended the time needed to capture each frame, pushing me to probably try longer subs! I also imaged later into the evening and the target was getting close to a street light so the gradients became increasingly visible, even with the Ha filter. The seeing was also much worse so I didn't use the Ha subs as they degraded the overall image quality.

I'm not sure if the orange isn't a touch acidic/green but I've run SNCR and even at a setting of 1 it has no impact on colour balance.

Celestron AVX + Skywatcher Esprit 80 + ZWO ASI1600MM-C + ZWO RGB filters + Astrodon 3nm Ha filter

30x 120s Ha (as luminance), 39x 60s R, 40x 60s G, 31x 60s B

Processed in PI, PS (colour) and Lightroom (final adjustments)

v2.7: addition of 50 minutes of additional colour data and reprocessed to blend v2.5 with the new colour version (unpublished v2.6)

[Tommohawk]

Very nice!

I like that you've managed to capture the reflection elements - though maybe the blue a tad strong esp in the background? Maybe not!

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice work Ken - looking at the image overall it's well processed nicely coloured and plenty of detail.  Doe's not matter what data you have there can always be slight issues (our job is fix them after all!) but I would not sweat the points you have raised.  In the grand scheme of things they are not detracting from the image.

[Allinthehead]

That's a lovely result Ken.

[Filroden]

19 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Very nice!

I like that you've managed to capture the reflection elements - though maybe the blue a tad strong esp in the background? Maybe not!

Thank you. Yes, I was surprised the reflection showed up as there is only a small blend of the RGB into the Ha luminance. There are spots of blue background...I was unable to totally clean the background gradients but I got it down enough for me to no longer worry. Only more data is going to help now!

12 hours ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Nice work Ken - looking at the image overall it's well processed nicely coloured and plenty of detail.  Doe's not matter what data you have there can always be slight issues (our job is fix them after all!) but I would not sweat the points you have raised.  In the grand scheme of things they are not detracting from the image.

Thanks Paddy. Agreed. I was never quite happy with the original colour renders as everything was too red. I like now that the colour adds to the depth rather than just tones it.

11 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

That's a lovely result Ken.

Thank!