Question on processing Leo Triplet

[smashing]

Hello All,

So after many years of living in flat shares and other unsuitable locations I finally have myself a garden and a house which has allowed me to get the scopes out and back online.

Anyway one from the other night, Cannon 200D unmodified , skywatcher 80 pro 80 x 90seconds iso800 along with 15 darks and 60 bias frames from a Bortle 6 site.

Processed in PixInsight....although most of my stuff I have been doing in PS. I am pretty chuffed with the result tbh but my processing skills need a lot of work! 

Couple of questions if you wouldn't mind. 

b) I am assuming more subs to reduce noise? - If i do this on another night how do i stack if they are in different orientations...could you do it in photoshop as another layer and rotate until matched or is there a nifty plugin/software that could help.

c) I am obviously doing something in the processing to make it very grey but I am not entirely sure what, pointers would be grand!

 

Thanks

 

Autosave007_DBEand crop.tif

[Aramcheck]

I could be completely wrong here, but it looks like the Master bias hasn't been applied correctly (Either that or no noise reduction has been applied?).

Try applying the Superbias procedure to the Master Bias & use that & the Master Dark when calibrating the Light frames. It's also worth taking flats, so that a Master Flat can be included too.

Pixinsight has some Procedures to help reduce noise, both in the Linear an Non-Linear phases of the workflow. More subs will increase the Signal to Noise ratio, but I would expect that you'd be able to get something pretty decent with 80 x 90 secs. The Star Alignment procedure will cope with images taken in different orientations, but it's likely that you'll need to crop more as a result. (Worth looking into Astro Photography Tool, which has plate-solving and Framing masks to help align scope to precisely the same bit of sky / orientation on successive nights).

Did you use the Debayer process after image calibration?

Once ABE or DBE has been applied, the Colour Calibration steps (Background Neutralisation + Colour Calibration or Photometric Colour Calibration) seem so have a large bearing on the final colour in the image.

BTW There's a very good book on Pixinsight by Warren A. Keller. ("Inside Pixinsight" - 2nd edition), which is well worth getting & is a handy reference.

Cheers
Ivor

PS: Worth looking at using Masks as well, to apply different processing to the Galaxies. eg to enhance the colour saturation (Curves Transformation) & structure (HDR Multiscale Transform & Local Histogram Equalization)... Likewise Curves Transformation applied to the background to make it darker.

PPS:  Welcome to the SGL!

 

 

Edited April 26, 2020 by Aramcheck
Forgot to say welcome...

[smashing]

Hello,

Thank you for such a detailed response, I have been reviewing the bias files and i think you're right...i was stacking them in DSS but my lights are portrait and my bias files are landscape...cann DSS handle that? the final image is landscape so I am assuming it can.

I am also having a look at the option in Pixinsight as suggested

Thank you!

[Aramcheck]

Might be an idea to check whether your camera is set to automatically alter the picture orientation between portrait & landscape.

I don't use DSS, but there's a good video on manual calibration with Pixinsight:- https://youtu.be/zU5jJgjKuQQ

Good question about whether the orientation of the Bias matters, I'd guess it does because otherwise how would the software know to rotate it 90 deg clockwise or anti-clockwise in order to match the top and bottom with the light frames?

Cheers
Ivor

[ollypenrice]

The best way to avoid orientation issues is to use the same orientation every time. Unless you really can't frame the object except at a particular angle, align your camera with RA and Dec, either in Landscape or portrait mode (Landscape being long side parallel with RA.) Do this roughly by setting the camera parallel with the dovetail or counterweight bar and perfect it by taking a sub of a few seconds and slewing slowly during the exposure. You'll get a star trail sowing your present camera angle. Ajust and repeat. It takes little time and means you can easily come back to a target to add more.

The Rolls Royce of alignment/resizing software tools is Registar. Brilliant but not cheap.

Olly

 

[alacant]

On 26/04/2020 at 12:36, smashing said:

different orientations

Hi

IIRC, Canon default is autorotate on. As the camera tracks the sky, it will trigger a change from landscape to portrait or vica versa.

Rotation is simply a setting in the exif. For the set of images you already have, most imaging software will allow you to ignore the autorotate flag  whereupon all your images will be the same orientation. If you're stuck, this will do it.

For future frames, just turn off autorotate in camera.

HTH

Edited April 27, 2020 by alacant