Orion Nebula in LRGB

[tooth_dr]

Orion has drifted too far west for me to image now, so this is my result of a winter's worth of imaging on this target.

Over several nights I've acquired and stacked (in total from different exposure lengths) from two cameras:

LUMINANCE = 8 hours 20 minutes

RED = 1 hour 33 minutes

GREEN = 1 hour 34 mintes

BLUE = 1 hour 34 minutes

 

Total exposure time = 13 hours

 

Captured in APT, integrated in APP, processing in PS.

 

Thanks for having a look,

Adam.

 

 

[alexbb]

That's a lovely Orion!

[geoflewis]

Superb...!!

[Allinthehead]

Beautiful Orion. There's a great depth to it achieved by the brightness of those blue stars. Excellent.

[Craney]

3-dimensional !!!!

Great work.   ?

 

[orion25]

Wow! It's like a painting. Good job, Adam! ?

Reggie

[x6gas]

Absolutely fantastic image Adam, nicely done!

[tooth_dr]

10 hours ago, alexbb said:

That's a lovely Orion!

Thanks Alex ?

10 hours ago, geoflewis said:

Superb...!!

Cheers Geoff. Thanks for commenting! 

10 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Beautiful Orion. There's a great depth to it achieved by the brightness of those blue stars. Excellent.

Thanks Richard, there is a little bit of blue coming through below the running man which I particularly like ☺️

9 hours ago, Craney said:

3-dimensional !!!!

Great work.   ?

 

Thanks Sean ????

8 hours ago, orion25 said:

Wow! It's like a painting. Good job, Adam! ?

Reggie

Cheers Reggie, thanks for looking. 

4 hours ago, x6gas said:

Absolutely fantastic image Adam, nicely done!

Thanks ? it wasn’t easy to process but I got there. 

[carastro]

Excellent result Adam.  Looks so large I thought it was a mosaic.

Carole 

[AstroAndy]

It looks like a painting came to mind as soon as I saw it, before I saw Reggie's comment, awesome job, Adam.

 

[Scooot]

Fantastic image Adam! Worth every visible Gold Star  

[Barry-Wilson]

Very good image Adam - I hope you are pleased.

You'd think that this image would be easy to process, right?  Lots of signal to work with.  However, the dynamic range does make it difficult to keep every element of the frame in balance.  You've done a fine job.  Well done ?.

Mmy only comment as an aid - please ignore me completely if you wish - is I wonder if a very small contrast adjustment curve would help deliver just a little more structural relief?

[tooth_dr]

11 hours ago, carastro said:

Excellent result Adam.  Looks so large I thought it was a mosaic.

Carole 

Thanks Carole. It would make a nice mosaic but it was hard enough 

10 hours ago, AstroAndy said:

It looks like a painting came to mind as soon as I saw it, before I saw Reggie's comment, awesome job, Adam.

 

Thanks Andy, much appreciated. 

10 hours ago, Scooot said:

Fantastic image Adam! Worth every visible Gold Star  

Thanks Scooot ?

7 minutes ago, Barry-Wilson said:

Very good image Adam - I hope you are pleased.

You'd think that this image would be easy to process, right?  Lots of signal to work with.  However, the dynamic range does make it difficult to keep every element of the frame in balance.  You've done a fine job.  Well done ?.

Thanks Barry. This was certainly challenging and I am pleased with it! Thanks for commenting. 

[gorann]

Very nice and balanced Adam! Since you are using PS (like me) I think you could bring out a bit more detail in the brighter parts, for example using HiPass filtering or Unsharp Mask, while keeping the darker sky as it is (since that would only bring out more noise there). So I would do it selectively by adding it as a layer and only apply it a brighter parts using the brush tool.

[Xiga]

That's a gorgeous M42 Adam, well done! The amount of dust on show is unreal, it really looks the part. The dual rig is paying off big time. Even with the rubbish winter we've had, you've still managed to get 13 hrs on this, which is no mean feat! (i could only manage 1 hr ? )

Just to add to Barry's and Goran's CC above, i also agree that the dust near the bottom could take a bit more contrast enhancement. The signal in this area is so strong, that you can push it a lot more than is normally the case. The added benefit will be that it should add more depth, and give the image a bit more of a 3D feel to it. Of course, as Goran says, you will need to use a mask to make sure the darker areas of the image are left unaffected.

I also see a bit of a green tint, albeit subtle. If you run HLVG on a Colour layer in PS you should see an improvement (i tested it in PS and it definitely helps). I also think a smidge of Color NR would help too. If you use the Camera Raw filter you can apply a small amount (~15) of Color NR only (note, NOT Luminance) and it will help clean up some of the colour noise. 

Cracking image ?

[tooth_dr]

Thanks @gorann and @Xiga

I've made the changes to the best of my ability.  Definitely was a green cast, thanks for pointing that out Ciaran.

 

Here it is, V2!!

 

Adam

 

[Xiga]

On 18/03/2019 at 22:45, tooth_dr said:

Thanks @gorann and @Xiga

I've made the changes to the best of my ability.  Definitely was a green cast, thanks for pointing that out Ciaran.

 

Here it is, V2!!

 

Adam

 

Nice one Adam, it looks great! As you say, the green cast (most noticeable in the core) is now gone. ?

ps - I would still be tempted to apply a small amount of Color NR if it were me. But then everyone's tolerance for such things are different, so please feel free to ignore me at will ?

[tooth_dr]

6 hours ago, Xiga said:

Nice one Adam, it looks great! As you say, the green cast (most noticeable in the core) is now gone. ?

ps - I would still be tempted to apply a small amount of Color NR if it were me. But then everyone's tolerance for such things are different, so please feel free to ignore me at will ?

I did do 20 on the colour reduction on the whole image and then another 20 on masked off areas!

[Xiga]

6 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

I did do 20 on the colour reduction on the whole image and then another 20 on masked off areas!

That's strange, 20 is quite a high setting but i can still see quite a lot of Color noise throughout. When i applied just 15 to the jpg it seemed to make a much bigger difference than what i'm seeing in your version above. I was going to suggest that it must be down to the mask that you applied (i would guess it was quite a strong one) but then you said you applied it to the whole image first, before then doing it a 2nd time on the masked areas, so something isn't quite working as it should. 

I've shown below a tight crop of a small section which shows the difference in Colour Noise between your V2 image, and one i edited myself based on the original image and applying a Colour NR setting of just 15. In hindsight perhaps 15 is a tad too high, but it shows that you are definitely doing something different with the filter than i am:

Do your settings look like this?

Also note, Colour NR is different to Lum NR. The Colour Noise exists pretty much throughout the whole image, not just the darkest areas, so it needs done almost everywhere (although you may still need a light mask in a few areas). Lum NR on the other hand will need a much more careful mask, so as to not ruin the sharp detail in all the bright areas (of which there are a lot in M42).