M106 LRGB widefield

[SyedT]

This integration had been sitting around for a bit waiting to be processed, I think I've spent enough time on it (mainly staring at/through it trying to figure out how best to control noise whilst bringing out detail and colour). Had to deal with some very awkward Luminance gradients but I think I did ok in tackling them. Colour balance was off as I didn't manage to get as much G and B exposure time. 

I used Pixinsight to blend Luminance directly into the RGB channel after processing them separately. If anyone has a workflow which can help with more accurate blending, dealing with awkward gradients, matching up colour schemes etc, would be much appreciated!

Atik 490EX
Atik EFW2
Chroma LRGB filters
Primaluce Lab Esatto 3” Robotic Focuser
Takahashi FSQ85-EDX
Primaluce Lab 60 mm Guidescope + Starlight Xpress Lodestar
Avalon M-Uno
Pegasus Ultimate Powerbox
Intel NUC Mini PC

Dark, flat , bias frames and bad pixel map applied
Processed in AstroPixelProcessor & Pixinsight
Bortle 5 skies

Imaged over 5 nights

L: 584 x 60s = 9h44min
R: 122 x 60s = 2h2min
G: 59 x 60s = 59 min
B: 60 x 60s = 1h

Cheers!

Edited April 16, 2020 by SyedT

[kirkster501]

Fantastic details.  To my eye a tad too red???  I love the detail and composition.

[SyedT]

22 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Fantastic details.  To my eye a tad too red???  I love the detail and composition.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it! Do you reckon it's more M106 or the background? I've looked at it so much that all I'm seeing at the moment is red! It would make sense though as the red channel is exposed twice as much, although it does take longer for the ADU values to match up to blue/green.

Edited April 16, 2020 by SyedT

[kirkster501]

Yes exactly, the galaxies.  The detail is just astonishing.  I'd create a mask to focus just on the galaxies and try and reduce the red a bit.

Just my opinion of course.  There is no right or wrong.  

[SyedT]

16 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

Yes exactly, the galaxies.  The detail is just astonishing.  I'd create a mask to focus just on the galaxies and try and reduce the red a bit.

Just my opinion of course.  There is no right or wrong.  

Agreed, I really wasn't expecting that many galaxies to pop up in the background as I was just going after M106 for lack of nebulae to image as the season comes to a close, this particular field is incredible.

Thoughts on the re-edit?

[SyedT]

Decided to annotate the image in Pixinsight. To say I'm blown away by the number of galaxies present would be an understatement!

[MarkAR]

Much better with the reduced red.

[wimvb]

I agree, great detail and much better colours in the re-edit. How did you colour calibrate? 

[SyedT]

1 hour ago, MarkAR said:

Much better with the reduced red.

 

13 minutes ago, wimvb said:

I agree, great detail and much better colours in the re-edit. How did you colour calibrate? 

Thanks guys. I think what I needed was to look at it with a fresh perspective today, and that's what did the trick. 

I initially ran Photometric colour calibration which didn't work particularly well, so ended up using Background Neutralisation and ColorCalibration in Pixinsight. Then a lot of fiddling with curves and levels until I got a good background, then dropped the saturation in order for the red colour to disappear.

[wimvb]

I've had similar problems with PCC on occasion and have had to revert to ordinary CC. You could try to use scnr Red at less than 100% with a lightness mask to tame the red. This will leave the other colours in peace. Just an idea. 

[SyedT]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

I've had similar problems with PCC on occasion and have had to revert to ordinary CC. You could try to use scnr Red at less than 100% with a lightness mask to tame the red. This will leave the other colours in peace. Just an idea. 

I did try SCNR, but it threw the balance off completely. It was a lot of trial and error, but worth it in the end!

[HunterHarling]

1 hour ago, SyedT said:

I did try SCNR, but it threw the balance off completely. It was a lot of trial and error, but worth it in the end!

Hello SyedT, I had a go at noise reduction in your image (ADCNR, etc. Also some curves) and it certainly has a LOT of potential. I believe the fast majority of noise was color noise and it would be improved very much with more RGB exposure. Btw, did you try SCNR before or after stretching?

[SyedT]

On 19/04/2020 at 00:59, HunterHarling said:

Hello SyedT, I had a go at noise reduction in your image (ADCNR, etc. Also some curves) and it certainly has a LOT of potential. I believe the fast majority of noise was color noise and it would be improved very much with more RGB exposure. Btw, did you try SCNR before or after stretching?

Forgot to reply to this! Cheers for that, my issue with further curves etc was that a background colour cast appears, so I kept it on the mild side. I'm hoping to get more RGB when I go back to widefield stuff later on. I used SCNR after stretching.  

[Brian28]

On 21/04/2020 at 14:27, SyedT said:

Forgot to reply to this! Cheers for that, my issue with further curves etc was that a background colour cast appears, so I kept it on the mild side. I'm hoping to get more RGB when I go back to widefield stuff later on. I used SCNR after stretching.  

Apply a mask to the background , then apply the curves 👍