Veil Nebula Complex

[carastro]

Wanted to get double this data but ran out of clear skies:

Taken over 2 nights March 2020 from Bortle 8
Samyang 135mm F2 lens stopped down to F2.8
Atik460EX and Baader filters
HEQ5
Ha 2 x 600secs + 6 x 900secs
Oiii 6 x 300secs binned + 3 x 600 unbinned
RGB 3 x 150 (each)
Total imaging time 2hours 55mins (almost 3 hours)

Edited June 3, 2020 by carastro

[R26 oldtimer]

Very nice. Try to run it through Starnet++ .

[geoflewis]

It's excellent Carole, it looks like that lens got all of it very well framed 👌

[carastro]

Quote

Try to run it through Starnet++ .

I tried a star removal tool and like previous occasions it just makes a mess of the nebula,  if you know a method that doesn't do that please let me know.  Is Starnet any different? 

Carole 

 

[R26 oldtimer]

For me, sometimes it works, sometimes it just makes a mess, like you've said. The image has to be "slightly stretched" to work, so I guess a lot depends on that stretching and a bit of trial & error. When it works, the result is really amazing and allows you to blend pinpoint stars again in PS.

Worth a try.

[carastro]

I just tried to install it but doesn't seem to work on my PC.

BTW this is a slightly star size reduction version.

Carole 

Edited June 3, 2020 by carastro

[MarkAR]

Looks good Carole, stars are a bit overpowering though.

[carastro]

I've done a bit more star reduction and replaced the image.  I refuse to do star removal and replace as it just makes a right mess. 

Carole 

[MarkAR]

Much better.

[silentrunning]

Another super image Carol. I'm seriously looking at that Samyang! 

[TerryMcK]

1 hour ago, carastro said:

Wanted to get double this data but ran out of clear skies:

Taken over 2 nights March 2020 from Bortle 8
Samyang 135mm F2 lens stopped down to F2.8
Atik460EX and Baader filters
HEQ5
Ha 2 x 600secs + 6 x 900secs
Oiii 6 x 300secs binned + 3 x 600 unbinned
RGB 3 x 150 (each)
Total imaging time 2hours 55mins (almost 3 hours)

Wow! That takes my breath away.

[Gina]

I was rather surprised you used RGB, Carole.  I have only imaged this in NB using 3nm filters.  What is the advantage of adding RGB?  I would have thought it would just add to the stars though I guess if you used star removal on the NB and just added the RGB lightly, you'd get nice coloured stars.  I'm not criticising - I'm always happy to learn from fellow imagers particularly the more experienced.

[tooth_dr]

Really nice image Carole.  Starnet does seem to produce really good results for me, but it doesnt run like a conventional program.  Having said that it's very simple to use once you know how to run it.

I hope you dont mind, I took the liberty of trying it on your jpeg.  It didnt work well on the colour RGB image directly, so I converted it to a mono image, then used Starnet.  I then used that as a lum layer and added it onto the original RGB posted above.  It would probably work better if I wasnt using a jpeg > TIFF.  Just food for thought for you.

 

 

 

[Xiga]

Very nice Carole!

If you aren't sure how to get Starnet++ working, have a look at post #13 here:

 

[carastro]

Thanks every-one, I took at look at that image where Starnet had been used and I don't like all the little holes left by the stars that have been removed as if you are going to replace with a reduced number of stars then many of these Holed areas are going to be left with holes in them.  Is certainly looks good if you don't zoom in I suppose.

Quote

I was rather surprised you used RGB, Carole.  I have only imaged this in NB using 3nm filters.  What is the advantage of adding RGB?  I would have thought it would just add to the stars though I guess if you used star removal on the NB and just added the RGB lightly, you'd get nice coloured stars.  I'm not criticising - I'm always happy to learn from fellow imagers particularly the more experienced.

Hi Gina, it has become part of my routine of late when doing narrowband to collect some RGB and I just use it for the stars to place coloured ones on top of the white NB stars, it's not easy to add them and blend them and make them look nice and the star sizes often differ, so not using the RGB for anything else Gina.  I don't do actual star removal I use a method I finally learnt to blend in the coloured stars.

Hope that explains it. 

Carole

 

 

[SyedT]

2 minutes ago, carastro said:

Thanks every-one, I took at look at that image where Starnet had been used and I don't like all the little holes left by the stars that have been removed as if you are going to replace with a reduced number of stars then many of these Holed areas are going to be left with holes in them.  Is certainly looks good if you don't zoom in I suppose.

Hi Gina, it has become part of my routine of late when doing narrowband to collect some RGB and I just use it for the stars to place coloured ones on top of the white NB stars, it's not easy to add them and blend them and make them look nice and the star sizes often differ, so not using the RGB for anything else Gina.  I don't do actual star removal I use a method I finally learnt to blend in the coloured stars.

Hope that explains it. 

Carole

 

 

Carol, Starnet's definitely not suitable for every single image, but I find it does at times do a very good job as a Pixinsight plug-in. See thread below which I posted a while back when I initially found Starnet, it did an excellent job on both mono Ha and a bicolour Ha/OIII image:

 

[carastro]

Thanks for trying to help but I don't use Pixinsight.

Carole

[SyedT]

6 minutes ago, carastro said:

Thanks for trying to help but I don't use Pixinsight.

Carole

Think there's an executable standalone version if I recall correctly! https://sourceforge.net/projects/starnet/files/

Anyway, I don't think Starnet is everyone's cup of tea, I only use it to create starless images for the "wow" factor. For actual processing, I tend to just use the raw data I have and control stars using masks.   I may start using it in the future, but we'll see I guess.

[Dan13]

What a fantastic image of a fantastic target, brilliant @carastro

[johngm]

6 hours ago, Gina said:

I was rather surprised you used RGB, Carole.  I have only imaged this in NB using 3nm filters.  What is the advantage of adding RGB?  I would have thought it would just add to the stars though I guess if you used star removal on the NB and just added the RGB lightly, you'd get nice coloured stars.  I'm not criticising - I'm always happy to learn from fellow imagers particularly the more experienced.

I'm in agreement Gina. I'm no expert by all means, but i think this would be better purely NB.

@Carol, I've just joined your club and bought the Starlight Xpress version of your camera. Looking forward to using it, and yes, blame me for the bad weather today lol

John