M42 - second attempt

[dannybgoode]

Hope people don't mind me bombarding with lots of reasonably poor efforts.  However the purpose it twofold - first so I can track my progress and second so other people don't get discouraged when they are not producing images like some of the super talented people on hear straight of the bat.  I am pretty pleased with what I have produced even though it is still fairly horrid.  I really wanted to produce a really nice image first time but there is just so much to learn and to get right.

Happy with the progression on this one - yes the collimation is still off (can't do anything about that until I replace the focuser - it wobbles like jelly) and the focus itself still isn't perfect but it's better than my first effort and I have now managed an LRGB image.  Data is still limited - 1x30 seconds for the L and 10x30 seconds 2x binned for the RGB.  Captured, stacked and stretched in Nebulosity and the combined and tweaked in Affinity.

Again, the data isn't brilliant so whilst I spent longer editing I still only took 30-40 mins or so.

Other positives from the night - my set-up time is much quicker and I solved the problem with my filter wheel.  Simple really, a 7 filter magazine doesn't know what to do if it's told it's only a 5 filter one!  And I learned how to LRGB channel merge in Affinity Photo.

This to work on - collimation and focus obviously.  My PA is agricultural at the moment but once I have the guidescope set up I will use SharpCap's PA routine and of course guiding itself.  Ah well, Rome wasn't built in a day...

[ollypenrice]

That's very good. You have a strong green imbalance, I think, which could be addressed in various ways, the simplest being to adjust the green channel in Layers. Moving the black point to the right or the mid point to the right or a bit of both would probably sort it.

Olly

[dannybgoode]

8 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

That's very good. You have a strong green imbalance, I think, which could be addressed in various ways, the simplest being to adjust the green channel in Layers. Moving the black point to the right or the mid point to the right or a bit of both would probably sort it.

Olly

Thanks Olly . Yes, the processing is fairly rural at this stage but will try and fix the green. I still have the green layer accessible so will start there. I want to work out how to channel merge in Nebulosity to see if that is easier to control. 

Found some great macros to do it in Affinity but would like to try and do more initially in Neb. 

Good fun this AP malarkey isn’t it?! Quite addictive- I just want to keep trying again to improve further. Having an impacted wisdom tooth surgically ripped from my jaw tonight though so I’ll not be doing anything for at least a couple of nights!!

[dannybgoode]

@ollypenrice - is this better?  I've tweaked the green channel as suggested.  So much to think about and get right!

[ollypenrice]

Way better! Looks great.

Olly

[hornedreaper33]

Amazing work @dannybgoode. Much better than my attempt from a couple of nights ago. I don't suppose you have any idea how one might create an image that has the correct exposure both for the nebula and the bright stars in the centre?

[dannybgoode]

8 minutes ago, hornedreaper33 said:

Amazing work @dannybgoode. Much better than my attempt from a couple of nights ago. I don't suppose you have any idea how one might create an image that has the correct exposure both for the nebula and the bright stars in the centre?

Thank you for you kind comments. It is a much harder discipline than I imagined. I didn’t think for one minute it was going to be easy but there is a lot going on at once .

I know the theory behind sorting the core but am a little sketchy on exactly how to process - you shoot some much shorter exposures for the core and then, most possibly using layer masks, somehow blend the shorter exposure in

I have done this to some extent as to get quite the extent of nebulousity at the fringes I totally blew the core - way more so than in the finished image so I reprocessed for a more coherent core but at the expense of finer detail and then used a mask to blend the two. 

[dannybgoode]

40 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Way better! Looks great.

Olly

Thanks Olly. Didn’t even notice it until you mentioned it but saw straight away the difference. 

Now to get the imaging sharper and the subs longer. 

As an aside I’ve just had a look through your gite website and have begun the long process of wearing Mrs Danny down

[AKB]

7 hours ago, dannybgoode said:

I want to work out how to channel merge in Nebulosity to see if that is easier to control. 

 Found some great macros to do it in Affinity but would like to try and do more initially in Neb.

It’s there under Image > LRGB Color Synthesis, which has an RGB-only mode.

I started out doing a lot in Nebulosity, but eventually moved on to PI, but you could also transfer to PS or Affinity if necessary.

[dannybgoode]

6 minutes ago, AKB said:

It’s there under Image > LRGB Color Synthesis, which has an RGB-only mode.

I started out doing a lot in Nebulosity, but eventually moved on to PI, but you could also transfer to PS or Affinity if necessary.

That much I found out but when I add the red frame and then try to add the blue or green it tells me the images are of different dimensions and I need to stack and align first. 

I will get round to looking up what I need to do - only got the data last night so haven’t spent a ton of time on it. 

I can see myself progress to PI at some point but there’s a lot to like with Nebulosity so will stick with it for now. 

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, dannybgoode said:

Thanks Olly. Didn’t even notice it until you mentioned it but saw straight away the difference. 

 

This might sound obvious or not worth saying but, in truth, I really do think that learning to look at your images and see what is there is the most important single skill and the most tricky to learn. One thing that helps is to have a small piece of good neutral background sky saved for reference. Or you can measure your background sky in each channel. In Photoshop I aim to have neutral backround sky at 23/23/23 in RGB. One setup really just won't let me get there so I settle for a darker background of 20/20/20 but it's the parity per channel which counts. Some imagers prefer to have a higher blue value, some a higher red but, whatever your preference, keep a sharp eye on it.

Olly

[ollypenrice]

3 hours ago, hornedreaper33 said:

Amazing work @dannybgoode. Much better than my attempt from a couple of nights ago. I don't suppose you have any idea how one might create an image that has the correct exposure both for the nebula and the bright stars in the centre?

If you have Photoshop this is the method. http://www.astropix.com/html/j_digit/laymask.html

It can be done by other means in Pixinsight (HDR wavelets I think) and I dare say any commercial HDR package would have a good go at it. (I do use such a package for fun daytime photography but use the Jerry Lodigruss method for astrophotography.)

Olly

 

[feilimb]

On 31/01/2019 at 16:00, hornedreaper33 said:

Amazing work @dannybgoode. Much better than my attempt from a couple of nights ago. I don't suppose you have any idea how one might create an image that has the correct exposure both for the nebula and the bright stars in the centre?

@hornedreaper33 I used a very useful YouTube tutorial by David Aldrich for this, the first YouTube link in my M42 post here:

 

[dannybgoode]

On ‎31‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 19:02, ollypenrice said:

One thing that helps is to have a small piece of good neutral background sky saved for reference. Or you can measure your background sky in each channel. In Photoshop I aim to have neutral backround sky at 23/23/23 in RGB

Thanks Olly - really useful advice.  It's interesting as I am so used to editing daylight photos and can spot a colour cast a mile off.  This is a whole new ballgame though and it's as much about recalibrating what I already know and applying it to very different material.

I have just fitted my Baader SteelTrack focuser and the collimation was still miles out so that is all sorted now and I no longer have a floppy tube :).  Hopefully the forecast of clear skies is right and I can try again.  Nice thing about a big obvious target like M42 is that it is really easy to compare and contrast ones progression so whilst it is still there and accessible I will give it another go.  I think guiding will be on the menu too.

[hornedreaper33]

Thanks for the link @feilimb. We have cold temperatures and a couple of clear nights coming up so hopefully I can get some good data.