My workflow for C/2019 Atlas processing

[Whistlin Bob]

This is my shot of the Atlas comet from back on 11th April. My workflow steps to create it were:

1. Capture data- 90 x 1 min L, 15 x 1 min each RGB using SW200p & asi1600
2. Realise that I don’t know how to stack comet data and leave for 2 weeks.
3. Try and stack using PI but find that Pixinsight Comet Alignment won’t stack DSS calibrated FITS files. Swear. Leave for another 2 weeks.
4. Relearn how to calibrate in PI and start processing only to discover all subs are slightly out of focus and quite a few are spoilt by cloud.
5. Reduced to 28 mins of RGB frames and stack to create the starfield- stars are OK but the comet is a disco smear (unsurprisingly).
6. Use the PixInsight comet alignment tool on the L data. Looks completely pants. Swear again, delete it and give up.
7. A couple of days later remember that DSS has a Comet alignment tool in it. Bit of a faf (you have to tell it where the comet is in each frame) but gave a much better result.
8. Use GIMP to clone and blur out the worst of the stacking artefacts and layer into the starfield in lighten mode.

So- here it is- It feels like I’ve cheated a bit as this is a mono comet with RGB stars, but after the difficulties in processing it I’m actually really pleased to have got something!

 

[Scooot]

Great result and the processing history is very interesting too