M101

[emyliano2000]

Even though The Moon was very bright, last night I collected around 4 hours worth of subs (50×300sec @ 400ISO)  with 30 flats , 30 dark flats and 100 bias on M101 just too see if I can get something out of it. I will be using DSS to stack them and PS and Lightroom for processing. 

My processing skills are not that great but I have found some tutorials on how to remove the light pollution.

Any advice on processing and even for stacking in DSS would be highly appreciated.

Tonight I will try to see what I can do with them and post the result later on.

Emil

[emyliano2000]

Well with my novice experience in processing this is my result

Emil

[Astrosurf]

That's a very nice image! Don't bother with any pre-processing in DSS. Just use it for stacking. What's your processing workflow in PS?

Alexxx

[wimvb]

That certainly looks good, especially considering that most of us stand howling at the full moon. As Alexxx noted, don't bother processing in DSS, leave that to PS.

Thanks for sharing.

[rockinrome]

3 hours ago, Astrosurf said:

That's a very nice image! Don't bother with any pre-processing in DSS. Just use it for stacking. What's your processing workflow in PS?

Alexxx

I ditto this. Spent ages faffing around in DSS to no avail. Use PS/GIMP/Lightroom. Levels and Curves are your friends.

[emyliano2000]

 

8 hours ago, Astrosurf said:

That's a very nice image! Don't bother with any pre-processing in DSS. Just use it for stacking. What's your processing workflow in PS?

Alexxx

Thank you all for the lovely comments. I would like to say that I have used a Master Dark made out of the Dark Flats I have taken that night and saved the file as 16 bits.

I never do any processing in DSS. When I asked about settings in DSS I meant these settings. I'm not sure if I'm using them right.

As for the PS work flow what can I say.

1-First of all, if it's not already saved as 16 bits, I make the file 16 bits, after that I try to reduce the light pollution with a method from a tutorial I found: Layer/ New Adjustment Layer/ Levels, I give it a name and I pull the left pointer for Red, Green and Blue close to the histogram peak. The tutorial doesn't say what to do afterwards so I just presumed I have to "Merge Visible".

2- Image/ Adjustments/ Levels and I pull the middle pointer towards the Histogram peak so I can get some details of the target.

3-Image/Adjustments/ Levels and I pull the left pointer all the way to the right to find the brightest point and then I pull the right pointer all the way to the left to find the darkest point

4-with the Eye dropper tool I create 2 new color samplers for the brightest and darkest points of the image

5-Image/Adjustments/Curves then CTRL+Click on the 2 samplers created, CTRL+Click on a part of the image that I wanna brig out more detail of and press the UP Arrow on the keyboard 5 times then press OK. I only do 5 at a time.

6-If I'm not happy with that I play with the Curves and Levels a bit more until I'm satisfied

7-Image/Adjustments/ Match Color to bring out some color in the image. I usually increase the color intensity to 130-150

8-Filters - GradientXTerminator (it's only the trial version)

9-Filters - HLVG (I keep it strong)

10-Filters/ Solar Screech/ Color Correction

I sometimes play a little with the Brightness/Contrast,  Exposure and Hue Saturation

The order might not be exactly the same every time but that are the settings I play with. I'm not advanced enough to play with Layers and other settings in PS just yet.

I had another go at it but this time I used a Master Dark made out of the Bias frames, I saved the image in DSS as 32 bits and made it 16 bits in PS.

It didn't need that much work this time, Light pollution removal, HLVG, GradientXTerminator, Match Color, Color correction, a little bit of Levels, nothing in Curves.

I think it looks better than my first attempt.

If somebody wants to have a go at it here is the 32bits TIF file. It's quite a large file, 207mb.  I'm just curious what else can come out of it in Pixinsight or Startools or even PS with different methods and workflow.

M101 (Bias Darks).TIF

Emil

 

 

 

 

 

 

[emyliano2000]

I just had a look at it on my phone and it looks worse ?

I callibrated my monitor, so on my desktop they look quite good.

[Astrosurf]

I haven't done processing for ages. I got a lot of detail but also a lot of noise! How did you keep the noise down? And what HDR setting did you use when converting to 16 bit?

I prefer your first one!

[Adreneline]

Hi Emil

Hope you don't mind but I took your tif file and had a quick play in PixInsight. I am no expert - I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve - but this is what I achieved. No doubt if I spent a lot more time it might have been better. What do you think?

M101_Bias_Darks__ABE.tif

[wimvb]

Processed in PixInsight:

background extraction (removed vignetting)

colour calibration

noise reduction

stretching

contrast boost

chroma noise reduction

slight star reduction

There is a considerable amount of noise in this image, and the aggressive stretch I applied revealed it. To get rid of the noise, you'd need to collect more data while the moon is not around. As it is, much of the detail and colour variation in the galaxy is too close to the noise floor to pull it out.

[emyliano2000]

8 hours ago, Astrosurf said:

I haven't done processing for ages. I got a lot of detail but also a lot of noise! How did you keep the noise down? And what HDR setting did you use when converting to 16 bit?

I prefer your first one!

Hi Alex. I used the exposure and gamma HDR setting to convert to 16 bit. And about the noise, I probably didn’t stretch it enough to expose to much of it. I did use a little bit of clarity and noise reduction in Lightroom too.

5 hours ago, wimvb said:

Processed in PixInsight:

 

5 hours ago, Adreneline said:

play in PixInsight.

I need to save myself some money and get pixinsight or maybe I'm not using PS as I should. I can never get the colors right in PS.

Do you think the flats are doing their job properly? 

How much data would you say you need to have  to get a final image with no noise or just a little bit when you stretch it to get all the detail exposed?

Emil

[Adreneline]

Hi Emil. I have used PS for years for none AP work and I think I know my way around it pretty well. I tried PS with AP when I started and never really got results I thought were anywhere close to what I should be able to achieve. Buying PI has made a huge difference to me even though I am still a novice at using it. Compared with the cost of my gear it equates to about 15% of the money spent but I htink it has saved me money in the long run because I now get more from my hardware investment and am less tempted to spend more money on better(?) / different equipment to produce better results. I know my results will never compare with the mono/LRGB user but I generally pretty happy with what I am getting now. But there is always room for improvement

I recently imaged M101 with 50x300s subs (plus 50 dark/flat/bias) and got comparable result to your own. Olly advised that some collect up to nine hours of subs. Personally I would be delighted with the result you have achieved - I wish it was in my collection of images

Adrian

[wimvb]

The number of subs is less important than sky quality. If you have too much light coming from the sky (moonlight, light pollution, sky glow), this will increase the noise level. You'll need a LOT more subs to cancel this increased noise. This is one reason why the 'rule of diminishing returns' doesn't work.

Proof:

M81 taken March 2016 from a dark site, 10 x 300 seconds at ISO 800 (50 minutes integration time):

M81 taken April 2017 from a light polluted, moonlit site, 43 x 300 seconds at ISO 800 (215 minutes integration time, that's more than 3.5 hours)

Both images were processed the same: DBE to remove background gradients, background neutralization, colour calibration, stretch

Differences:

the first image didn't have a light pollution filter, no coma corrector and no guiding, and was taken with an EQ3 tracking mount. The second image had all of these, but on an AZ EQ6 GT mount. In all fairness, temperature was higher in April than March.

[alacant]

Hi. There is a 300px stacking artefact along the left and bottom edges which I missed but anyway, here we are in StarTools... 

 

[wornish]

Had a go with Pixinsight and then tweaked a little in PS.

 

Wish I could get data as good.

[emyliano2000]

5 hours ago, alacant said:

 

 

18 hours ago, wimvb said:

 

 

18 hours ago, Adreneline said:

 

Thank you all for your efforts. This is what I would like to be able to do with my photos at some point in the future. I see that all of you used PixInsight to process the photo. I'm just wondering if PS and Lightroom or Startools are able to get similar results or something close to it.

After having some sort of success in processing a few images in Startools, I decided to buy it but I don't seem to get any decent images out of it anymore so I stopped using it

This is why I made a subscription to PS and Lightroom. I know over time it's more expensive than Pixinsight but after spending quite a lot of money on my imaging setup I can't really afford to buy pixinsight but at the same time I want to have a strong processing tool. I can't really feel the £8.50/month coming out of my account but €300 in one go would have a big impact at the moment.

So if somebody with great knoledge of PS or Startools wants to have a go too please do so. I'm so curious what can be done with it with what I already have.

Emil

[wimvb]

I think that you should be able to get results with PS that are similar to the PixInsight processed images. The workflow is different, though. So I can't comment on that. One common method in PS is to process the galaxy and background with stars as separate layers. Then blend using a mask.

As for which software to use; people manage to create both great images and garbage with either software. In the end it's the driver and not the car that gets you to your destination.

Good luck

[alacant]

2 hours ago, emyliano2000 said:

see that all of you used PixInsight to process the photo

No, I used StarTools. IMHO it has the best gradient and noise handling of the lot. Please post your workflow and we may be able to help. HTH.

[emyliano2000]

12 minutes ago, alacant said:

No, I used StarTools. IMHO it has the best gradient and noise handling of the lot. Please post your workflow and we may be able to help. HTH.

Wow. I will give it a try on startools too. My main problem is that I don't understand most of its features. OK, turning the PC and startools on.

[happy-kat]

It's a learning thing with practice, each time I use StarTools I get to understand it a bit more, like most things it's use and practice that improves results.

[alacant]

22 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

give it a try on startools too

Ok. If you're gonna work on this image, don't forget to lose  the stacking artefacts to the bottom and  left edges: AutoDev with a rectangle to include most of the galaxy, then crop the anomlaies. Bin to 71% (1 bit) then wipe 80% with dark anomalies 8. A second stretch using Develop to 80%. Deconvolution with an inverted star mask to 2px. That's the boring bit over. Now let the artwork begin.... HTH. 

[emyliano2000]

It would be so great if this forum would have a live chat

[happy-kat]

For. StarTools in DSS you need to output autosave as fits file.

[emyliano2000]

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

For. StarTools in DSS you need to output autosave as fits file.

Ok, thanks

[wornish]

Here is a version I did with a demo version of Startools, with a final tweak in PS.  

I had to crop it somewhat to keep Startools happy.