Fireworks again

[cotak]

http://www.astrobin.com/411386/?nc=user

New one above. Old one below with supernova 2017eaw.

http://www.astrobin.com/360954/?nc=user

 

[Demonperformer]

Initially confused me with the different orientations! Just goes to show what a difference the Ha makes to galaxy shots.

[MarsG76]

Nice capture....

well done.

 

[cotak]

8 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

Initially confused me with the different orientations! Just goes to show what a difference the Ha makes to galaxy shots.

In this case it is the difference between APP and DSS+startools. Which is why I wouldn't recommend anyone use ST today.

 

Otherwise it's the same camera and LP filter.

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by cotak

[jager945]

On 23/06/2019 at 22:43, cotak said:

In this case it is the difference between APP and DSS+startools. Which is why I wouldn't recommend anyone use ST today.

 

Otherwise it's the same camera and LP filter.

 

Hi,

I'd love to know why you wouldn't recommend anyone use StarTools any longer? Is there a dataset you are having trouble with? (happy to do a personalised tutorial if so!)

Thank you!

EDIT: I also noticed on astrobin the difference in exposure time between the two images is 5h50m for the new image vs just 1h15m for the old image?

Edited June 28, 2019 by jager945

[cotak]

Just a matter of time vs results.

I find the results from ST to be more pastel colored than with just APP + PS. Since I will do final touch up in PS, and APP has more control over its faster gradient removal tool. There is very little reason to go into ST at all.

 

[bottletopburly]

3 minutes ago, cotak said:

Just a matter of time vs results.

I find the results from ST to be more pastel colored than with just APP + PS. Since I will do final touch up in PS, and APP has more control over its faster gradient removal tool. There is very little reason to go into ST at all.

 

Post your data set and see what result Ivo gets from the same 5hrs of data , 👍

[jager945]

43 minutes ago, cotak said:

Just a matter of time vs results.

I find the results from ST to be more pastel colored than with just APP + PS. Since I will do final touch up in PS, and APP has more control over its faster gradient removal tool. There is very little reason to go into ST at all.

 

Thank you for the explanation. I'm still holding out hope there this may just be a simple understanding or maybe you are confusing StarTools with another application or action sets for PS?

In the case you are indeed talking about StarTools, something appears to be terribly wrong. Have you ever processed an image from start to finish in StarTools in the past, or have you been using it for just one or two features?

With regards to coloring, it appears you may have missed the Style and LRGB Method Emulation settings and/or the Saturation Amount slider in the Color module? If you don't like the default Color Constancy rendering style, it's a single click to change it to the style of other applications (e.g those of PI or APP) or even effortlessly emulate the LRGB compositing styles/techniques of Kredner/Kanevsky or Gendler with another click. Color calibration can only be performed on linear data, so perhaps that's where things are going wrong?

Are you are aware StarTools performs other - for astrophotography - useful things like deconvolution, local contrast optimisation, local dynamic range optimisation, wavelet sharpening, color constancy and more, none of which are currently - by my knowledge - offered by either PS or APP? Are you familiar with ST's noise propagation Tracking feature?

You are certainly not obliged to do so, but if you wish to share your dataset/stack with me, I'd love to prove StarTools' worth in your workflow. Indeed, especially in the area of noise mitigation, the present image may benefit greatly. Depending how challenging the gradients are, Wipe may also be able to clean up the red and green gradient remnants currently visible in the background.

Do let me know!

[dave_galera]

On 23/06/2019 at 14:43, cotak said:

In this case it is the difference between APP and DSS+startools. Which is why I wouldn't recommend anyone use ST today. 

 

I am not familiar with these software packages but don't any of them have an image geometry facility so you can flip/rotate the image

Edited June 28, 2019 by dave_galera

[cotak]

Knock youselfs out

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkohAodcrTbmnyscZdCoexnO95l0

 

[jager945]

Thank you for uploading the dataset. It is much appreciated.

I don't see anything immediately problematic, that would have prevented you from achieving the same result in StarTools only. The dataset is fairly bright, almost as if it has been pre-stretched and is no longer linear. I could be entirely wrong here though.

Regardless, here is a simple workflow that was meant to emulate the coloring and result you produced and - presumably - are happy with. Simultaneously, it should hopefully demonstrate the major reason why you would want to include StarTools in your wokflow; superior noise mitigation and signal fidelity.

If time vs result is a measure you are primarily concerned with then processing the image took ~10 minutes on a 6-core Xeon from 2010 with an SSD drive. Your mileage may vary obviously depending on hardware and how comfortable you are with operating the software. However, many default parameters and presets applied. StarTools 1.4.352 was used.

--- Auto Develop
To see what we're working with.
We can see the image is quite bright, has a strong green bias + severe gradients, and is oversampled.
Noise is already visible. Some stacking artifacts are visible.
--- Bin
To convert oversampling into noise reduction.
Parameter [Scale] set to [(scale/noise reduction 50.00%)/(400.00%)/(+2.00 bits)]
Image size is now 2329 x 1782
--- Crop
To remove stacking artifacts and frame the galaxy better.
Parameter [X1] set to [97 pixels]
Parameter [Y1] set to [79 pixels]
Parameter [X2] set to [2180 pixels (-149)]
Parameter [Y2] set to [1711 pixels (-71)]
Image size is now 2083 x 1632
--- Wipe
Vignetting preset.
Parameter [Dark Anomaly Filter] set to [6 pixels] in order to help Wipe ignore dark noise better.
--- Auto Develop
We're doing a 2-stage stretch here to achieve a similar stretch to your current image.
Parameter [Ignore Fine Detail <] set to [3.3 pixels] to make AutoDev ignore noise
Parameter [Outside RoI Influence] set to [5 %]
Parameter [RoI X1] set to [755 pixels]
Parameter [RoI Y1] set to [568 pixels]
Parameter [RoI X2] set to [1336 pixels (-747)]
Parameter [RoI Y2] set to [998 pixels (-634)]
--- Develop
Second stage, bring brightness down again.
Parameter [Gamma] set to [0.58]
--- Deconvolution
Attempting some modest deconvolution. The earlier binning will have created some small areas that now have a high enough signal-to-noise ratio.
Parameter [Radius] set to [2.6 pixels]
--- HDR
Reveal preset.
Totally optional, but demonstrates the value of having these sorts of local optimisation tools in your arsenal.
Parameter [Detail Size Range] set to [1000 pixels]
Parameter [Strength] set to [1.7]
--- Color
Final color calibration, emulating the style of your current image.
Parameter [Style] set to [Artistic, Not Detail Aware]
Parameter [Dark Saturation] set to [2.00]
Parameter [Bright Saturation] set to [2.30]
Parameter [Saturation Amount] set to [365 %]
Parameter [Blue Bias Reduce] set to [1.01]
Parameter [Green Bias Reduce] set to [1.09]
Parameter [Red Bias Reduce] set to [1.42]
--- Develop
I noticed you prefer a pedestal in your background.
Parameter [Skyglow] set to [4 %]
--- Wavelet De-Noise
Final noise reduction - StarTools has now had the longest time to track (see Tracking feature) noise propagation and is ready to autonomously snuff noise out with per-pixel accuracy.
Default parameters, except parameter [Smoothness] set to [82 %]

After this short workflow, you should hopefully end up with this;

(full res image here)

Any questions, do let me know! I hope this short example has helped demonstrate the value of using StarTools in your current workflow, or at the very least demonstrates StarTools to be capable (and lower cost) alternative to other software.

Clear skies,

 

[dave_galera]

.......and the StarTools version has very little noise, unlike the original........

[bottletopburly]

Good work definitely looks less noisier Ivo nice example of startools capability 

[dave_galera]

1 hour ago, bottletopburly said:

Good work definitely looks less noisier Ivo nice example of startools capability  

Yep, I am so impressed have just download the demo and processed an image I have had problems with.....works fine so I am going to purchase StarTools later today

[bottletopburly]

Nicely explained Ivo, when you use develop and not autodev typically what percentage do you go to without saturating the image 

Edited June 29, 2019 by bottletopburly

[bottletopburly]

1 hour ago, dave_galera said:

Yep, I am so impressed have just download the demo and processed an image I have had problems with.....works fine so I am going to purchase StarTools later today

I like startools it is a very powerful program once you get your head around how it works quite simplistic really 

[cotak]

Well the general difference for me is just noise. Which i noticed some people here are very keen to squish. However, for me I prefer to keep a bit in because otherwise it ends up seeming artificial and overly mushy. And when I print even at large sizes the noise disappears.

Another thing is the color of stars. I don't find it to be as natural looking as when I do color calibration in APP.

So for me the amount of time spent in ST to get to that point as it does take a while to process, is not justified. And that's just a personal choice as similar results can be had in photoshop and I actually find it's quicker that way for me in absolute processing time. And we are not talking a dog slow old computer, I am doing all this on a i7-4790 with SSD and 32 gigs of ram.

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by cotak

[jager945]

1 hour ago, cotak said:

Well the general difference for me is just noise. Which i noticed some people here are very keen to squish. However, for me I prefer to keep a bit in because otherwise it ends up seeming artificial and overly mushy. And when I print even at large sizes the noise disappears.

Another thing is the color of stars. I don't find it to be as natural looking as when I do color calibration in APP.

So for me the amount of time spent in ST to get to that point as it does take a while to process, is not justified. And that's just a personal choice as similar results can be had in photoshop and I actually find it's quicker that way for me in absolute processing time. And we are not talking a dog slow old computer, I am doing all this on a i7-4790 with SSD and 32 gigs of ram.

 

No problem - at the end of the day it's all about what gives you the result you are most happy with!

While it is of course futile to argue aesthetics, it is important to understand that noise and signal fidelity are physical properties of a dataset (as well as its intermediate states towards a final image). Workflows, tools and filters all affect noise propagation in different ways as you process your image. Noise and noise propagation, in turn, directly affect how much you can push a dataset; as you know it is far easier to dig out more detail with a cleaner dataset and signal. For that same reason, we endeavor to get longer exposure times - so we can show more detail. Us deep sky AP'ers deal with very faint signal. Noise is the bane of our existence.

Noise mitigation is an extremely important part of signal processing. The speckles are just a visual manifestation, whose presence can indeed be left to personal taste. However its mathematical significance is omnipresent with far reaching consequences for the effectiveness of processing steps and their cumulative behavior.

TL;DR Noise mitigation strategies employed by your software and its algorithms while you process, allow you to dig out more detail in your final image - it's not just about leaving or removing the speckles in your final image.

3 hours ago, bottletopburly said:

Nicely explained Ivo, when you use develop and not autodev typically what percentage do you go to without saturating the image 

Glad it helped someone! There is actually a 'home in'  button that, once clicked a few times, will bounce between a range suitable for your image.

Personally, I rarely use the Develop module (I use AutoDev with an RoI instead), except in cases where I really need to correct something or where AutoDev fails entirely. The latter can happen in the presence of noise, or when data was already stretched prior (AutoDev assumes a linear dataset).

Clear skies,

[bottletopburly]

1 hour ago, jager945 said:

No problem - at the end of the day it's all about what gives you the result you are most happy with!

While it is of course futile to argue aesthetics, it is important to understand that noise and signal fidelity are physical properties of a dataset (as well as its intermediate states towards a final image). Workflows, tools and filters all affect noise propagation in different ways as you process your image. Noise and noise propagation, in turn, directly affect how much you can push a dataset; as you know it is far easier to dig out more detail with a cleaner dataset and signal. For that same reason, we endeavor to get longer exposure times - so we can show more detail. Us deep sky AP'ers deal with very faint signal. Noise is the bane of our existence.

Noise mitigation is an extremely important part of signal processing. The speckles are just a visual manifestation, whose presence can indeed be left to personal taste. However its mathematical significance is omnipresent with far reaching consequences for the effectiveness of processing steps and their cumulative behavior.

TL;DR Noise mitigation strategies employed by your software and its algorithms while you process, allow you to dig out more detail in your final image - it's not just about leaving or removing the speckles in your final image.

Glad it helped someone! There is actually a 'home in'  button that, once clicked a few times, will bounce between a range suitable for your image.

Personally, I rarely use the Develop module (I use AutoDev with an RoI instead), except in cases where I really need to correct something or where AutoDev fails entirely. The latter can happen in the presence of noise, or when data was already stretched prior (AutoDev assumes a linear dataset).

Clear skies,

Always learning Ivo , thanks ,your input and knowledge greatly appreciated