Back at it! Veil Nebula Mosaic - Off to a start :-)

[Xiga]

After more than 4 months of being out of the game due to various factors (lack of astro dark, a house move, turning 40 – yikes! – amongst other things…) it’s finally good to be back in the saddle again.
Last season was my first full season of imaging, and by the time I got going I was too late to capture the Veil Nebula, so this time around I’ve put it at the top of my list. The plan is do a mosaic (my first one) consisting of 2 panes to capture both the Eastern and Western parts, and do Ha and OIII on both. Dedicating a full night to each pane and filter means it will take a minimum of 4 nights (assuming each one stays clear for the full duration) so it’ll be the biggest project I’ve done to date.
 
So last Thursday night (Aug 30th) it was clear the whole night so I made a start and managed to grab 15 x 1200s of Ha on the Eastern Veil. I’d really like to get this up to 21 but due to time constraints I’m calling this one done and moving on to the next pane/filter (hopefully tonight!).
 
Taken with the usual gear, 80ED, Nikon D5300, HEQ5-Pro. Calibrated with Bias and 30 Flats and Bias. Stacked in APP and then just a quick and dirty processing done in PS (some NR, selective sharpening, and some fairly hefty star reduction). I'll leave the proper processing until i have all the data available. 
 
I’ll update the thread as and when I capture the other panels.

Quick question - should i shoot Ha on the Western Veil tonight, or do OIII on the Eastern? I'm at 54 degrees North, and a 48% Moon will rise at midnight. I aim to be shooting from about 11pm until 4am. Is that too much moon for OIII? Ha is the safer bet i know, but then how often are conditions perfect (or even borderline acceptable) here in the UK to shoot OIII? 

[Xiga]

So i wimped out and decided to just shoot the Ha for the Western Veil last night, and go for the OIII next time. Here's hoping i get a couple of clear moonless nights over the next month so i can finish this one off properly, otherwise it's going to start setting behind the neighbour's house before i can get 5 hrs worth of subs. 

As before, this is 15 x 1200s subs. Although i actually took my time processing this one, unlike the Eastern Veil above, which looks pretty dank now that i look at it again. I've been playing around with the Topaz Labs plugin suite in PS, and there are some very powerful tools in there, especially the Shadow Recovery tool which, if used along with a good mask, can really help reduce the grain effect that comes with shooting NB on a DSLR. So hopefully this one looks pretty decent, although i have been looking at it for a few hrs now so i'd be grateful for some feedback from you fine folk. 

I'm excited to get the OIII for this now. Next up will be creating the Ha 2-panel mosaic in APP, which i hope to do tomorrow night. 

[Xiga]

Okeydokes, so i created the mosaic of the 2 Ha panels in APP. It was surprisingly easy i have to say! And afterwards i couldn't find any trace of a seam or any uneven illumination near where the borders would have been, so APP gets a big thumbs up from me as far as mosaics are concerned (okay okay, i know it's only 2 panels, lol, but still...). 

I'm trying a slightly different approach to processing my Ha data now, so the version below should look quite different to the Western Veil image above. I've been using several passes of Topaz Labs' Shadow Recovery tool, together with a carefully-made mask to preserve the high-signal areas, with the aim being to reduce the graininess of the data and try and give a smoother CCD-like appearance. The tool doesn't appear (to my bleary eyes at least) to be as harsh as using typical NR routines (such as Noel Carboni's ones, which i do use). NR is too destructive and can only be applied in small doses to DSLR NB data otherwise everything just turns to mush, but early indications are that this tool seems to fare much better, albeit i need to use it a bit more to be sure. 

C&C most welcome please. I'm experimenting a bit here so all feedback is good in my book, you can't offend me! Does it look over-processed or too un-natural, or is it alright? 

Roll on the OIII now! ?

Edit - Forgot to say, i resized this down to 50% of the original mosaic. With the extra FoV there's no need to get quite so up and personal ?

[tooth_dr]

Wow Ciaran that’s a super mosaic. Interesting that app does mosaics. I done mine by ‘hand’ and the join is obvious.

Congrats on turning 40! I thought from you FB profile you were about 27!!!!

Any astro treats from the OH?

 

[Xiga]

7 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Wow Ciaran that’s a super mosaic. Interesting that app does mosaics. I done mine by ‘hand’ and the join is obvious.

Congrats on turning 40! I thought from you FB profile you were about 27!!!!

Any astro treats from the OH?

 

People do tell me I don’t look my age (or act it either sometimes, lol) but 27 might be pushing it a bit! Believe me I don't look quite as young in person, lol.
My family did give me a very nice astro-related gift for my 40th. They had one of my pics (the funky California Nebula one, see below) printed out for me in a big 1m by 1m format. Not sure what material it is, think it might be some sort of acrylic, and it’s looking great in the new house so I was well chuffed ?

APP is great for doing mosaics. There’s a great video tutorial on their website that explains how to do them (the example they go through is big and complex, but the methodology works for any mosaic). You should give it a go. It also summarises the major settings too, if you don’t fancy watching the video all the way through.
 

[tooth_dr]

3 minutes ago, Xiga said:

People do tell me I don’t look my age (or act it either sometimes, lol) but 27 might be pushing it a bit! Believe me I don't look quite as young in person, lol.
My family did give me a very nice astro-related gift for my 40th. They had one of my pics (the funky California Nebula one, see below) printed out for me in a big 1m by 1m format. Not sure what material it is, think it might be some sort of acrylic, and it’s looking great in the new house so I was well chuffed ?

APP is great for doing mosaics. There’s a great video tutorial on their website that explains how to do them (the example they go through is big and complex, but the methodology works for any mosaic). You should give it a go. It also summarises the major settings too, if you don’t fancy watching the video all the way through.
 

Well thats fabulous, wouldnt look out of place in W5 beside all the hubble images.  PS we have a very similar floor in our house, you wife must have similar good tastes to mine lol

[gorann]

I am surprised you have not got more responses to your post but SGL seems very quiet right now - I just logged in. Your project looks very promising to me. You are clearly doing the best you can with regard to capturing the data so I would not worry to much about processing yet. I do not think I have heard of the Topaz Labs plugin suite for PS. Had a quick look at it on the web and there are many options (packages). For controlling NR I use a PS filter you can buy called Neat Image (if I do not use Nigels or Annies actions). More controllable that Nigels action at least.

[Allinthehead]

Looking good. App really is well worth the money. I have Pixinsight too and find that App does a better job stacking.

[Xiga]

5 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Well thats fabulous, wouldnt look out of place in W5 beside all the hubble images.  PS we have a very similar floor in our house, you wife must have similar good tastes to mine lol

☺️

1 hour ago, gorann said:

I am surprised you have not got more responses to your post but SGL seems very quiet right now - I just logged in. Your project looks very promising to me. You are clearly doing the best you can with regard to capturing the data so I would not worry to much about processing yet. I do not think I have heard of the Topaz Labs plugin suite for PS. Had a quick look at it on the web and there are many options (packages). For controlling NR I use a PS filter you can buy called Neat Image (if I do not use Nigels or Annies actions). More controllable that Nigels action at least.

Noel's actions are great, i still use some of them, even the NR ones, which most of the time are sufficient (along with a good layer mask). But when it comes purely to DSLR NB data (whilst still in greyscale format) normal NR routines just turn the background noise to mush, so you can only use a tiny amount of it. It appears though that the Topaz Shadow Recovery tool does something else, more akin to attempting to fill in the background noise, ,rather than smear it. I still need to play around with it some more though to be sure. 

1 hour ago, Allinthehead said:

Looking good. App really is well worth the money. I have Pixinsight too and find that App does a better job stacking.

I've never used Pixinsight myself. I keep thinking of requesting a trial, but then i remember how horrendous and un-intuitive the GUI looks, lol. There's no denying it's power though, in the right hands it can do anything. 

I love APP though. I had previously tried Startools but hated it. It was too simple and automated in my humble opinion, too much of a black box, so i couldn't get the hang of it at all. APP is simple, but completely intuitive whilst being powerful at the same time. I'm a convert now for sure!

[gorann]

But there are so many Topaz packages to chose from. Which one did you get, see:

https://topazlabs.com/downloads/

[Xiga]

1 hour ago, gorann said:

But there are so many Topaz packages to chose from. Which one did you get, see:

https://topazlabs.com/downloads/

The on i have is Topaz Adjust v5. The Shadow Recovery tool is in there. It's basically just a preset of all the settings, so you are free to amend them yourself, but as i've no idea how most of them work i just use the defaults, but then i apply a layer mask and mask out the high signal areas. If needs be, i can always target those specific areas with regular NR routines later.