re processed M101 in Startools

[red dwalf]

was not happy with my previous processing of M101 so tonight  i had another go using Startools and i think it looks a lot more natural.

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by red dwalf

[MarkAR]

Very nice, though there is a bit of redness to the stars and background on my screen.

[red dwalf]

More thann likely, I'm a little red green colour blind, drives me made at times and so frustrating especially in this hobby.

 

[MarkAR]

I bet that really is a challenge when processing.

[jager945]

Nice going! The star halos are likely caused by chromatic aberration. You can use the Filter module in StarTools to kill those fringes; create a star mask with the offending stars in it, then, back in the module, set Filter Mode to Fringe Killer. Now click on different halos and different parts of the halos (e.g. not the star cores, but the halos themselves!) until they have all but disappeared. You'll end up with white-ish stars for the stars that were affected, but many prefer this over the fringes.

Finally, if you are suffering from colour blindness, be sure to make use of the MaxRGB mode in the Color module. It should allow you to check your colouring and colour balance to a good degree, as long as you can distinguish the brightness of the 3 maxima ok (most people can). See here for more info on how to use it.

Clear skies!

 

[red dwalf]

excellent, i love getting tips on how too, loads of videos on youtube but they never cover everything and until you mentioned it i had not notice the halos but they do look a lot better, i really wanted to bring out that faint spiral arm in the galaxy but struggled to do it, any ideas on that ?

[jager945]

1 hour ago, red dwalf said:

excellent, i love getting tips on how too, loads of videos on youtube but they never cover everything and until you mentioned it i had not notice the halos but they do look a lot better, i really wanted to bring out that faint spiral arm in the galaxy but struggled to do it, any ideas on that ?

Glad I could help! With regards to the spiral arms, it depends on your dataset. If you'd like to upload it somewhere I'd be happy to have a look.

For images like these, the HDR module's Reveal All mode may help, as well as the Sharp module from ST 1.6 (DSO Dark preset, overdrive the strength). You'd use these tools specifically as they govern small-medium scale detail.

It's also possible a different global stretch (with a Region of Interest in AutoDev) can lift some more detail from the murk. Much depends on your "murk" (e.g. how clean and well-calibrated the background is) as well

[red dwalf]

it think i still have a dropbox account, i`ll see if i can upload it all, be nice to see what someone else can get from the data