NGC 6823 Bicolor

[Rodd]

 

FSQ 106 with .6x reducer and ASI 1600 with Astrodon 3um filters.  Not the palette I wanted to use for this target.  I had planned to render a straight HOO image in order to get that nice crisp reddish color--like the veil HOO compositions.  That would have been closer to the actual color of the nebula.  But try as I might, I could not eliminate the noise, or what ever it is, associated with the OIII stack.  And believe me I tried.  So, I played with percentages and ended up finding a green channel comprised of 50% OIII and 50% Ha to give the cleanest result (I tried 90% OIII and 10% Ha, too).  One surprise was star color.  I usually replace my narrowband stars with Ha stars which tightens them up and removes [removed word] (not halos though).  But in this case, I found that the stars sort of resemble RGB stars so I have left them as is.  Another pleasant surprise was the planetary nebula near the bottom center of the FOV.  To end, I must say that I have never been pining for an SII channel more than I am for this image.  Except for a couple of rare exceptions (Veil and Heart), I have never been overly enthused with my bicolor attempts (note the use of the work "my").  

Ha: 149 5min

OIII: 90 5min

Warning: Full resolution viewing may be disturbing (edit:  not as bad as I thought.  You should have seen the HOO versions though).

Edit-2:  The forum will not let me print the word [removed word], for some reason.  It means the colored rims of stars are overly saturated, in narrowband usually with magenta. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rodd]

Here's with progressive amounts  of green removed.  Not sure which I prefer.

[Rodd]

Really?    

[wimvb]

I think I prefer the red version. The first one reminds me of the Hubble palette, but it lacks the blue. I think that with S added, it will turn out great.

Really what?

[evil_yoda]

Also the red one for me, though they're all very very nice!
To my eyes the red one has the appearance of more fine detail in the darker areas.

[Rodd]

6 hours ago, wimvb said:

I think I prefer the red version. The first one reminds me of the Hubble palette, but it lacks the blue. I think that with S added, it will turn out great.

Really what?

 

2 hours ago, evil_yoda said:

Also the red one for me, though they're all very very nice!
To my eyes the red one has the appearance of more fine detail in the darker areas.

Thanks guys

Rodd

[Rodd]

Here's a drizzle integrated version--no upscaling--just to round out the stars, which I think it did wonderfully.  A bit subtler, but more realistic I think.  A bit less Roger Rabbitish.  2 versions--the original, and one with a .3 exponential boost to give it a bit more brightness.  Not sure which is better.

[wimvb]

Tighter stars in the drizzled image (top one), but more of the whispy stuff in your first red version. Difficult to please everyone. 

Do you save the PixInsight process, or just the images? Even though the process takes up a LOT of disk space, it allows me to change just one step in a process. Saving the process container of an image is an alternative, but it doesn't save the masks used.

[Rodd]

I botched it-  here is a drizzle version with less blue halos.  I think better.  I forgot a step.  But you are right--I can't seem to get a version with everything.  Maybe the SII is the snawer.  To answer your question--I don't save projects.  I work on an image for a week or so--hard.  then when I want to come back to it, I start over from scratch (actually from having the integrated aligned stacks).  

[wimvb]

I do that too. But I still save as a project. This means I can have multiple projects of the same target. Now THERE'S a way to fill a hard drive.

But most of the time I take an earlier version of an image, reset a number of steps (eg after deconvolution or linear noise reduction), clone the image and put the clone in a new workspace. This way I can reuse masks and process steps that I was pleased with. This saves some time, as I don't need to recreate the masks.

[Rodd]

42 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I do that too. But I still save as a project. This means I can have multiple projects of the same target. Now THERE'S a way to fill a hard drive.

But most of the time I take an earlier version of an image, reset a number of steps (eg after deconvolution or linear noise reduction), clone the image and put the clone in a new workspace. This way I can reuse masks and process steps that I was pleased with. This saves some time, as I don't need to recreate the masks.

I will try this when I get a new external drive (mine broke)--and now I am left with using about 75 gigs--that is enough for me to finish collecting and processing until the image is complete, then deleting the non calibrated subs, the aligned subs and basically everything but the integrated stacks so I can re-process at will.

Rodd

[Rodd]

Well--I was finally able to same some of the interference from the plethora of tiny stars--there are so many!  They were bothering me a bit.  This is the best I can do--a histogram  tweak, a reduction in saturation of the stars an a tiny boost of the nebula .  I am calling this it.   I don't think its possible to cover all the bases with 2bchannels of data.  But this I can live with.

[Miguel1983]

Thanks for putting my own efforts in the trash ?

no really, this is awsome, congrats ?

[gorann]

The Ha data for this image that you have recently posted on Astrobin have been really outstanding Rodd! Now there is something about your blue (Oiii) data that messes up the stars and kind of spoils it. Have you tried some really aggressive star shrinking on the Oiii data?

[Rodd]

36 minutes ago, Miguel1983 said:

Thanks for putting my own efforts in the trash ?

no really, this is awsome, congrats ?

Thanks Miguel.  It took me long enough!

[Rodd]

10 minutes ago, gorann said:

The Ha data for this image that you have recently posted on Astrobin have been really outstanding Rodd! Now there is something about your blue (Oiii) data that messes up the stars and kind of spoils it. Have you tried some really aggressive star shrinking on the Oiii data?

I can live with the last iteration until I get the SII data.  Its not the stars per se--its between the stars--noise or maybe clouds.  Not sure.  I find that with some targets HOO images have a blue haze.  OIII is used for blue and green.  I think this happens with very faint OIII targets.  The veil did not exhibit this--but SH2-129 did.  SII is the answer--or, LRGB of course.

Rodd

[Rodd]

18 minutes ago, gorann said:

The Ha data for this image that you have recently posted on Astrobin have been really outstanding Rodd! Now there is something about your blue (Oiii) data that messes up the stars and kind of spoils it. Have you tried some really aggressive star shrinking on the Oiii data?

I jut took a look--the stars in the OIII stack are actually smaller than the Ha stack.  I had better conditions and the FWHM values are less over all.

Rodd

[gorann]

1 minute ago, Rodd said:

I jut took a look--the stars in the OIII stack are actually smaller than the Ha stack.  I had better conditions and the FWHM values are less over all.

Rodd

Then we are all looking forward with great excitment toward the complete version with Sii!

[wimvb]

1 hour ago, Rodd said:

I jut took a look--the stars in the OIII stack are actually smaller than the Ha stack.  I had better conditions and the FWHM values are less over all.

Rodd

I like your latest version. It's great.

I think the blue stars are a result of having to stretch the Oiii data more. Ha is strong, so it needs less of a stretch. I'm not sure if masked stretch of the Oiii master could be a solution.

[Rodd]

25 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I like your latest version. It's great.

I think the blue stars are a result of having to stretch the Oiii data more. Ha is strong, so it needs less of a stretch. I'm not sure if masked stretch of the Oiii master could be a solution.

Thanks Wim--yeah I think its the one.  Regarding the masked stretch, I did use masked stretch to start off--then I modified it as I grew the image.  that was on the non drizzled versions.  Most of the non drizzled versions (there have been many beyond what I posted here) were started using masked stretch--something I don't use very often.  That's probably why I don't use it very effectively--not much practice.

Rodd