Cone Nebula LRGB

[Rodd]

I hadn't planned on this, as I need to fix some things- a spacing issue with the FSQ 106 and the ASI 1600 (hopefully it IS a spacing issue), and I am having halo issues with my luminance filter (not sure why--maybe a spacing issue as well), and focus motor issue (focus motor housing abutts the mount plate--can't move scope forward to balance it--ok now, but at F5 or with STT-8300, I will need to push the scope forward in saddle). Besides, I really want to switch to galaxy mode (and Lunar too) for the next few months.  But after I finished M78, which was supposed to be the last image before maintenance and switching of OTAs (and possibly cameras), bitterly cold weather descended on New England.  With day time temperatures around 0F (-18C), I could not bring myself to fiddle with difficult to unscrew little metal parts and tinker with getting the scope just right in the dark (where temperatures dropped even lower).  So I decided to shoot what I could until the cold spell broke.   I got lucky and was able to shoot 1 filter per night over 4 nights (5 actually--one was a wash) This is the result.  Of all images I have processed, this one seems to be the most screen dependent.  On my 4K processing screen it looks pretty good, but on my LCD computer screen, and my iPhone, it really looks terrible.  I just don't understand it.  Aside from that, I realize that the data simply won't support a tremendously deep, beautiful image--there is just not enough of it for my skies.  My goal was to render a respectable image--nothing fancy or over processed.    Perhaps it's a split decision--depending on the screen one uses for viewing.  Ha might help things--I have seen some beautiful HaLRGB images of the Cone region.  then again, I have seen some pretty good LRGB images too, so no magic bullet.  As an example--on my processing screen it looks pretty dark--any more and it would be clipped, while on my other screens it looks washed out and bright, though the histogram is balanced and in perfect position for textbook processing, so I am mystified.  So, without further adieu....My attempt at the Cone Nebula Region

FSQ 106 with .6x reducer and ASI 1600

Lum-205 1 min (made super luminance with 205 L, 224 R, 223 G, and 205

Red-224 1 min

Green-223 1 min

Blue 205 1min

 

 

[tooth_dr]

That’s nice Rodd, subtle, but detailed. I tried this too one night recently but I was underwhelmed in RGB. I think Ha might be a help

[ollypenrice]

Very nice indeed as far as it goes but a good Ha layer will take you into another world.

Olly

[peter shah]

really nicely balanced.... lovely natural colour

[Rodd]

36 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

That’s nice Rodd, subtle, but detailed. I tried this too one night recently but I was underwhelmed in RGB. I think Ha might be a help

Thanks Doc--I suppose Ha is must.   

Rodd

[Rodd]

26 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Very nice indeed as far as it goes but a good Ha layer will take you into another world.

Olly

Thanks, Olly--provided I know how to use it.  For galaxies no problem, but for nebula, I have not had the best of results.  

Rodd

[Rodd]

26 minutes ago, peter shah said:

really nicely balanced.... lovely natural colour

Thanks, Peter.  Much appreciated.

Rodd

[gorann]

Great RGB but I agree that Ha will make a huge difference and bring much more detail. So unfortunately - you may have to endure another cold night.....

[Rodd]

2 hours ago, gorann said:

Great RGB but I agree that Ha will make a huge difference and bring much more detail. So unfortunately - you may have to endure another cold night.....

Thanks, Goran.....done.  My luck continued last night and I was able to capture 38 5min Ha subs.  Not too bad.  May need more to really do it justice but the stack looks pretty good.  It will take me a few days to process the HaLRGB.  I guess my goal of creating a nice LRGB fell short.  Maybe with 3x the data.  

Rodd

[carastro]

Looking forward to seeing the image with Ha added.

Carole 

 

[Rodd]

23 minutes ago, carastro said:

Looking forward to seeing the image with Ha added.

Carole 

 

Thanks, Carole--I will work on it tonight.  Still perfecting a method for adding Ha to nebulae using PI.  

Rodd

[MartinB]

Lovely Rodd.  There is fantastic Ha in this region, as has been mentioned, but Ha is all ego and tends to want to dominate everything!  What I like about this image is that the other features of the region have now  come to the fore, especially the dark stuff.  The reflection nebulosity has been given full rein and I love it!

[Rodd]

8 minutes ago, MartinB said:

Lovely Rodd.  There is fantastic Ha in this region, as has been mentioned, but Ha is all ego and tends to want to dominate everything!  What I like about this image is that the other features of the region have now  come to the fore, especially the dark stuff.  The reflection nebulosity has been given full rein and I love it!

Thanks Martin.  My thoughts exactly--I did not want to do another narrow band image of this region--so I got the LRGB frames to see if a visible spectrum image was tenable.  I think to make this image really nice, I will need about 3 times as much data, which won't be possible before the Moon comes out.  A sense of depth is starting to appear.  I haven't started my reprocessing frenzy yet and hopefully, I can deepen it some and manage the colors a bit better--get rid of some of the subtle, greenish "heavyness"-- Meanwhile,  I broke down and captured some Ha to add to this.  We'll see which I like better.  I definitely do not want to give into the hamania!

Rodd

[Rodd]

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:23, tooth_dr said:

 

That’s nice Rodd, subtle, but detailed. I tried this too one night recently but I was underwhelmed in RGB. I think Ha might be a help

 

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:34, ollypenrice said:

Very nice indeed as far as it goes but a good Ha layer will take you into another world.

Olly

 

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:36, peter shah said:

really nicely balanced.... lovely natural colour

 

17 hours ago, gorann said:

Great RGB but I agree that Ha will make a huge difference and bring much more detail. So unfortunately - you may have to endure another cold night.....

 

14 hours ago, carastro said:

Looking forward to seeing the image with Ha added.

Carole 

 

 

7 hours ago, MartinB said:

Lovely Rodd.  There is fantastic Ha in this region, as has been mentioned, but Ha is all ego and tends to want to dominate everything!  What I like about this image is that the other features of the region have now  come to the fore, especially the dark stuff.  The reflection nebulosity has been given full rein and I love it!

Here's my first attempt at adding Ha.  I added 38 5min subs.  I used a method I have not tried before--a rather complicated pixel math procedure.  Ha is supposed to be added to the Lum channel in the same way, so that when the lum I added to the HaRGB it gets the Ha as well--but it didn't look very nice.  I probably botched something.  Anyway--I kept it on the subtle side--at least I tried to, so that the Ha wouldn't take over.  I will try the  methods of adding Ha and see if they work better (there are a couple of scripts for this, and a method similar to what I use when adding Ha to galaxies, which is what I used for M78.  I probably should revisit that image and add the Ha like I did here.  CC welcomed as usual.

Thanks for looking

Rodd

Here's a crop

[fireballxl5]

Nice reprocess with the Ha but I much prefer the original LRGB?

I have a similar set of subs that I've been struggling with for some time, I just can't figure out how to use the Ha without it dominating the scene. Really like your first image.

[ollypenrice]

You're paying the price for putting Ha into lum and that's the 'pink effect.' It will also greatly subdue the nice blue reflection nebulosity because, being blue, it isn't present in the Ha.

Thinking from first principles, Ha is red, deep enough into the reds to be all but excluded by many normal daytime cameras.  Luminance is intended to be the full visible spectrum. The two are far from equivalent.

Don't you have Photoshop now? If so, why not try adding Ha to red in blend mode lighten?

Olly

[MartinB]

13 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

You're paying the price for putting Ha into lum and that's the 'pink effect.' It will also greatly subdue the nice blue reflection nebulosity because, being blue, it isn't present in the Ha.

Thinking from first principles, Ha is red, deep enough into the reds to be all but excluded by many normal daytime cameras.  Luminance is intended to be the full visible spectrum. The two are far from equivalent.

Don't you have Photoshop now? If so, why not try adding Ha to red in blend mode lighten?

Olly

As Olly says re adding Ha to the red channel, however you can also use Ha in the luminence channel with good effect but if you are doing this you must add light from other channels where this contains information independent of Ha.  If you are adding an Ha/Ha+ luminence you do need reduce the opacity otherwise you will never be able to regain the ha colour.  50% is typically a good compromise but you will still need to do some colour manipulation, the selective colour tool in PS is useful for this

[ollypenrice]

9 minutes ago, MartinB said:

As Olly says re adding Ha to the red channel, however you can also use Ha in the luminence channel with good effect but if you are doing this you must add light from other channels where this contains information independent of Ha.  If you are adding an Ha/Ha+ luminence you do need reduce the opacity otherwise you will never be able to regain the ha colour.  50% is typically a good compromise but you will still need to do some colour manipulation, the selective colour tool in PS is useful for this

Martin, how do you 'add light from the other channels?' I'm not clear about this.

After adding Ha to red in blend mode lighten I do sometimes apply it as luminance but I never get as high as 50%. More often it's about 15%. One bonus with Astrodon Ha used this way is star reduction.

Olly

[MartinB]

With the cone as an example you can blend in blue using lighten to create a blended luminance.  Blended luminance layers are particularly useful for narrowband targets with a lot of OIII such as planetary nebulae.  I agree 50% will usually be a bit too much.  My recently posted auriga Dso image used 45%, the Flame turned out duff but that is another story!

[Rodd]

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

You're paying the price for putting Ha into lum and that's the 'pink effect.' It will also greatly subdue the nice blue reflection nebulosity because, being blue, it isn't present in the Ha.

Thinking from first principles, Ha is red, deep enough into the reds to be all but excluded by many normal daytime cameras.  Luminance is intended to be the full visible spectrum. The two are far from equivalent.

Don't you have Photoshop now? If so, why not try adding Ha to red in blend mode lighten?

Olly

I didn't put Ha into the lum.  I added a lum without Ha into the HaRGB to make it an HaLRGB.  But no Ha in the lum.  Without the lum it was indeed very red.

Rodd

[Rodd]

3 hours ago, MartinB said:

As Olly says re adding Ha to the red channel, however you can also use Ha in the luminence channel with good effect but if you are doing this you must add light from other channels where this contains information independent of Ha.  If you are adding an Ha/Ha+ luminence you do need reduce the opacity otherwise you will never be able to regain the ha colour.  50% is typically a good compromise but you will still need to do some colour manipulation, the selective colour tool in PS is useful for this

I didn't add Ha to lum.  Just a straight lum into The HaRGB image.

Rodd

[Rodd]

2 hours ago, MartinB said:

With the cone as an example you can blend in blue using lighten to create a blended luminance.  Blended luminance layers are particularly useful for narrowband targets with a lot of OIII such as planetary nebulae.  I agree 50% will usually be a bit too much.  My recently posted auriga Dso image used 45%, the Flame turned out duff but that is another story!

I don't use PS--just PI.  

[Rodd]

3 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

After adding Ha to red in blend mode lighten I do sometimes apply it as luminance but I never get as high as 50%. More often it's about 15%. One bonus with Astrodon Ha used this way is star reduction.

Olly

That's what I did at first--but it turned things pink--so I did not use the Ha in the lum.  I did use the Ha subs when I made my superluminance--but I don't think that is the reason.

[Rodd]

OK--I managed to get Ha into lum.  I thought this was too red, but maybe that is ok?  Anyway--here is a fully processed vrsion HaLRGB….any better?  Maybe a bit oversaturated?

 

 

 

 

 

[Rodd]

On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 05:30, gorann said:

Great RGB but I agree that Ha will make a huge difference and bring much more detail. So unfortunately - you may have to endure another cold night.....

 

16 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

After adding Ha to red in blend mode lighten I do sometimes apply it as luminance but I never get as high as 50%. More often it's about 15%. One bonus with Astrodon Ha used this way is star reduction.

Olly

 

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:23, tooth_dr said:

That’s nice Rodd, subtle, but detailed. I tried this too one night recently but I was underwhelmed in RGB. I think Ha might be a help

 

On ‎06‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:11, MartinB said:

Lovely Rodd.  There is fantastic Ha in this region, as has been mentioned, but Ha is all ego and tends to want to dominate everything!  What I like about this image is that the other features of the region have now  come to the fore, especially the dark stuff.  The reflection nebulosity has been given full rein and I love it!

 

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 15:36, peter shah said:

really nicely balanced.... lovely natural colour

Am I moving in the right direction?