NGC7000 and the Pelican

[DMouse]

Hi, here is a quick 10x 300sec in HA on the NA nebula and the Pelican. Not sure if the framing is good but it came out ok.

 

Clear Skies

 

Paul

[appyaardvark]

Looking forward to seeing 20-30 min exposures

[Rodd]

I love the framing!  The Pelican looks like he is soaring above.  If you drop the black point a tad I think it will pop out a bit more.

Rodd

[wimvb]

Lovely image. But I agree with Rodd; the black point can be moved in a tad and a half.

Personally, I would also increase local contrast somewhat to make the neck of the Pelican stand out a bit more.

[ollypenrice]

Another for bringing in the black point. Good catch.

Olly

[RichLD]

I agree with the comments above - lovely image but a bit more contrast would make it even better! 

[DMouse]

Ok, I agree on the black point but I didn't do that for one very good reason, NOISE! With only a relatively small data set, if you push the stretch of the image the noise increases significantly. Anyway, here is a new version with the black point brought in a little.

 

Clear Skies

 

Paul

[PatrickGilliland]

Nice work - plenty of data in there to play with.  Practice on it and find the detail and contrast

[wimvb]

On 2017-07-04 at 16:01, DMouse said:

Ok, I agree on the black point but I didn't do that for one very good reason, NOISE! With only a relatively small data set, if you push the stretch of the image the noise increases significantly. Anyway, here is a new version with the black point brought in a little.

 

Clear Skies

 

Paul

Which software do you use for processing? In most software packages, there are several ways to reduce noise and keep detail. In PixInsight I commonly do noise reduction before stretching (tgvdenoise) and as one of the last processing steps (acdnr). In PS there should be similar processes. Just use a mask to limit the reduction to low snr areas.

[AKB]

On 04/07/2017 at 15:01, DMouse said:

Ok, I agree on the black point but I didn't do that for one very good reason, NOISE! With only a relatively small data set, if you push the stretch of the image the noise increases significantly.

Fair point, but I think it's more than just a black point adjustment that you can use to advantage.  Tweaking at both ends and the middle can give some drama, without pushing the noise too far, I think?  I've given that a go here, if you don't mind:

In this case, I've used a combination of MATLAB and Nebulosity to apply some histogram equalisation and then curve stretching.

––––––––––––––––

PS: I wish I'd taken this image... I haven't been able to anything like that good yet.