Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) in Bi-Colour

[Xiga]

Hi guys

More Mono testing 😀

I was able to nab a small amount of Oiii last week to add to the small amount of Ha i'd already captured the week before. I should be getting my very own Atik383l+ in the very near future (yay!), but for now i am still exploring the virtues of Mono imaging using the Qhy9 that Adam @tooth_dr kindly lent me.

I had balance and guiding issues again this time, despite the fact id' spent a lot of time on trying to get it right. I think after 7 years it may finally be time to get the mount serviced. It has quite a lot of stiction, in both Ra and Dec, which is making getting balance an exercise in pot-luck, so i think a trip to DarkFrame for a Hypertune may be on the cards soon. 

After losing half the (already short) Nautical Dark that was available, i finally got the guiding working just in time to get 5 subs, all 20 mins long each. The last sub was actually shot in Civil Dark! 😬 

So in total this is just 100 mins Ha and 100 mins Oiii using 20 min subs (all 2" Baader filters) using a SW 80ED. Stacked in APP and processed in PS with Starnet used for star removal. Combined as OHO due to the lack of any Sii. 

I tend to like my NB fairly colourful, so this may on the 'over-processed' side of things, especially due to the low amount of data. I'm still learning the ropes of mono imaging so always interested in hearing feedback.

CS and stay safe folks.

[Allinthehead]

You've done very well given the conditions. Lovely colour 

[Xiga]

51 minutes ago, Allinthehead said:

You've done very well given the conditions. Lovely colour 

Thanks Richard. I wanted to go for the electric blue that you often see with this target, which meant having to dial back the Ha a lot, whilst also stretching the Oiii quite hard before combining them.

Normally I wouldn't have bothered processing such a small amount of data, but there's a very real possibility we might lose Nautical Dark now before the next clear night. I'm excited to try a proper deep stack on this now come the Autumn.

[stevewanstall]

I like the way you have handled the stars. It is something I need to really look at. I have tried imaging this but have ended up with stupendous stars spoiling it ! 

[tooth_dr]

I’ll definitely need a few more tips off you lol. That’s a really great job for a slowish scope and only 200 minutes of data. 

[Xiga]

52 minutes ago, stevewanstall said:

I like the way you have handled the stars. It is something I need to really look at. I have tried imaging this but have ended up with stupendous stars spoiling it ! 

Thanks Steven.

It's funny you should say that, as i actually wasn't really that happy with the stars. I think i may have accidentally sharpened them somewhere along the way. The good thing about this target though, is that it is most often portrayed Oiii-heavy, so you can dial the Ha way down, which reduces your star sizes. But you will need to remove the stars from the Oiii in order to stretch it sufficiently.

I really need to look into trying Deconvolution now that i'm doing Mono. I'm going to give the versions in Siril and Images Plus a whirl at some point.

[Xiga]

56 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

I’ll definitely need a few more tips off you lol. That’s a really great job for a slowish scope and only 200 minutes of data. 

Thanks Adam!

I have been trialling the Topaz Denoise AI plugin. I need to evaluate it some more, but early indications are very promising. I used it on this and it did an amazing job of cleaning up the noise without creating the usual smeared look that traditional NR routines do. I'm still working out how best to use it, so more work needed. I definitely recommend downloading the 30 day free trial.

I'll post up a rough workflow for what i did later tonight. I'll also show how the Oiii evolved from Raw to Processed.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Very nice, can just make out jets from Herbig-Haro 555. 

[Xiga]

14 hours ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Very nice, can just make out jets from Herbig-Haro 555. 

Thanks! Yes I can just about make them out. I'm hoping to capture a lot more (and better quality)  subs of this come Autumn time. Will be interesting to see how resolved they will be at just 2.2" but with more exposure time. 

[Xiga]

As luck would have it, the skies unexpectedly cleared tonight, so i am currently in the process of shooting 5 x 1200s of Sii subs. This is the Sii filter's first light, so i'm looking forward to re-processing this with the full Hubble Palette. 

In the meantime, i thought i'd share a gif showing just how much i had to stretch the Oiii to bring it to the fore in the image above. I first took a basic DDP stretch and removed the stars with Starnett, then ran Topaz Denoise AI, and then finally did some Curve adjustments. Even though the data had been through the ringer, i was surprised just how much detail was left over. I only used it for creating the colour map, none of it went into the Lum. I think when i come to do a full re-process, i will try and include a small amount of the Oiii and Sii with the Ha when creating the master Lum layer. 

[Xiga]

Had a bit of a re-think and decided this was too garish, plus i think i processed the Ha Lum layer too aggressively, so i had another go and dialed back the contrast and colour a fair bit, and re-worked the Ha to tease out some more fine detail. 

Too tired to add in the Sii tonight. Will hopefully get to that in the next couple of days. 

It feels good to be doing NB again. My last NB data was from Nov 2018! 🤦‍♂️

Edited June 2, 2020 by Xiga

[Allinthehead]

Looks like you could swim in it. Big improvement 

[Xiga]

5 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

Looks like you could swim in it. Big improvement 

Thanks Richard 👍 This was my first NB image in some time, and i really should have heeded the sage advice i i once heard you mention.......rather than post late at night, leave it to the next day before finalising and posting. It's amazing how often you clearly see things you couldn't the night before!