IC 1318

[Kinch]

Just looking at what I have so far on IC 1318....a total of only 6 hours 20 minutes. I'll be aiming for 20 hours or more....if I don't need to spend weeks looking for that much. It will interesting to see if the extra time will be worth the trouble....but I'll try for it anyway.

 

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Kinch
Addition

[x6gas]

Sumptuous is the word that springs to my mind.  That is a very, very fine image.  To my eye and on my monitor you have the colours absolutely spot on, just the right amount of sharpening...  As close to perfection as it gets for me so goodness knows what you could do if you had three times the data.

Thanks for posting - love it.

[Captain Scarlet]

Quite stunning.

[Kinch]

Thanks guys.

34 minutes ago, x6gas said:

To my eye and on my monitor you have the colours absolutely spot on

Thanks for that comment.....I am sure it looks different on the many different monitors that the group use here....and although I am happy with the rendition of the data so far....I always wonder how it looks on other people's screens!

[Captain Scarlet]

I am not an Astro-photographer (yet), I’m almost exclusively visual . So I partly judge astro-photos by how well photos represent the purity and “pinpointness” of stars compared to how they look through an eyepiece. Most images, to my untutored eye, do not come close to the visual experience from the star point of view, even if the nebulous objects are well beyond visual. Your image here is an exception ... to my taste you’ve got it spot on. Really really lovely, as I think I said before.

An image I’d willingly print and display even though not mine!

M

Edited June 12, 2020 by Captain Magenta

[MarkAR]

Excellent image.

[Kinch]

Hi Magnus,

Thanks very much for those comments. When I was starting out, I was "ripped to shreds" on AstroBin because my stars were somewhat bloated and most definitely not correctly focused. It is something I have carried with me for years now......my 1st priority is always the stars (with hopefully no artifacts surrounding them) and then the detail of the nebulae (which is what I normally image). My colours are generally lacking - well not strong anyway (because I like "subtle" colours) and as such my images don't grab attention of those that flick through one after another online (on FaceBook for example). 

So, with the above in mind - you may better ubnderstand my appreciation of your comments.

Brendan.

[Demonperformer]

Very nice.

If you were getting "ripped to shreds" for previous pictures, your technique has obviously improved dramatically and that is an achievement. You can now leave those critics in the rear-view mirror and just go from strength to strength. Illegitimi non carborundum!

[JRM]

Brendan,

 Totally awesome, beautiful imaging work, mind if I us it for my pc background?

 

Thanks

[Kinch]

3 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

If you were getting "ripped to shreds" for previous pictures, your technique has obviously improved dramatically and that is an achievement.

Thanks for the comment......it was a long time ago but it was something that stayed with me....."watch how the stars look!". It also affects how I view other images - sometimes loudly praised images do nothing for me if the stars are bloated or have very obvious artifacts. (I no longer frequent AstroBin by the way.....but nothing to do with the , let's say, the constructive criticism of the early days).

[Kinch]

2 hours ago, JRM said:

Brendan,

 Totally awesome, beautiful imaging work, mind if I us it for my pc background?

 

Thanks

Thanks for the comment Rick. As is the norm here, my latest image is always used as my desktop background.....and this one is there now on my new 27" 4K monitor.  You are quite welcome to use it also. (I am really 'chuffed' you asked ....hope it lasts at least a week.  🤣).

[JOC]

It looks almost 'fairy-tale' like.   I like the way the nebulosity is almost 'illuminated' almost as though they are back-lit (which of course they aren't, but it gives lovely effect)

[Kinch]

Thanks JOC. I will probably make a right mess of it when I gather more data. I never thought that 6 hours of NB imaging would come out so strong.....but it really is an amazing part of the sky that I have not imaged before.

[x6gas]

23 minutes ago, Kinch said:

Thanks for the comment......it was a long time ago but it was something that stayed with me....."watch how the stars look!". It also affects how I view other images - sometimes loudly praised images do nothing for me if the stars are bloated or have very obvious artifacts. (I no longer frequent AstroBin by the way.....but nothing to do with the , let's say, the constructive criticism of the early days).

I must admit that I am struggling with exactly this in my recent images.  Now admittedly they are galaxy images with fairly modest star fields but I seem to be continually experimenting with how hard to stretch the stars in relation to the galaxy...  I'm under less than pristine skies, so stars do tend to bloat a bit, but so much depends on the basics of how the image is stretched and I would love to know how you approached stretching this data and how long your subs were.

This probably sounds stupid but I find a lot of the difficulty in this astrophotography lark is settling on exactly what you actually like.  Achieving that in processing is then, of course, a whole other matter and it's easy to get blown off course.  That's why this is such a great image; it was an instant 'like' and genuinely jaw dropping.

Like you, Brendan, I much prefer slightly more subtle colours than some of the neon that one sees (and that I end up with myself if I get addicting to boosting saturation too much).

[Kinch]

13 minutes ago, x6gas said:

I would love to know how you approached stretching this data and how long your subs were.

1st - the easy question:  The subs here are

Ha 17 x 10 min.               OIII 11 x 10 Min.                SII 10 x 10 Min.

This is way way less than I would normally do and only put it together yesterday....because I had time and because I wanted to see how the NB data was coming together. It was never meant to be a final image.

Re actually processing the data (by the way - this is at f/5 with 6 micron pixels giving me 1.9 ArcSec/Pix).....my general way of doing things is to do an actual stretched image with each filter. I then combine them in PixInsight pixelmath......not necessarily exact 1:1:1.  In this case I also added in the Ha as a Lum layer.....I did first try SHO combined to make the Lum layer but was getting into trouble with a very dark and noisy result. Remember, this was not supposed to be a finished image - so in truth I was playing with the data with regard to colours etc. But when I do the combination in pixelmath the histograms for each sub are identical (or nearly) so that they come together OK.

My FSQ130ED is a joy to use because I rarely have to touch the stars - as in this case, there is no star reduction or other manipulation. They just came together this way....including the colour differences you see. At times, I may have to reduce stars in the OIII & SII subs before combining them with the Ha.....but that does not happen too often.

To finish I just play with Histogram & curves. Some noise reduction and sharpening is generally used - but little & more than once is my rule for the noise reduction....e.g. the three finished master subs will each have had a very slight noise reduction before I combine them. As was the case here.....sometimes I end up with different "finished" images. I might like the colour in one but the detail in another.....so I end up mixing them (at times in varying proportions....e.g. (2X + 1Y ) / 3  ). This is the part of the processing that I love - 3 'finished' subs - to be put together in any of a hundred ways.....something is bound to work OK 🤣

 

As for your comment "I find a lot of the difficulty in this astrophotography lark is settling on exactly what you actually like"....I think we are all the same. This actual image on my FaceBook page was altered twice more since this one went up.....(it is easy to do on FB). Just because we are never satisfied....even now, this morning, I don't particularly like the colours on this image as much as I liked them last night. What to do ! 

[x6gas]

12 minutes ago, Kinch said:

As for your comment "I find a lot of the difficulty in this astrophotography lark is settling on exactly what you actually like"....I think we are all the same. This actual image on my FaceBook page was altered twice more since this one went up.....(it is easy to do on FB). Just because we are never satisfied....even now, this morning, I don't particularly like the colours on this image as much as I liked them last night. What to do ! 

Thanks for the info - very interesting.  I like it just as much this morning as I did last night!

[carastro]

Excellent result, in particular the small stars and Sadr, would you say that the Takahashi is responsible for those tiny stars?  

I have cheap end scopes and generally I struggle with stars not being small and sharp until I bought my recent Samyang lens which is fast and with that I am getting nice tiny sharp stars,  so am now wondering whether it is my optics that are the problem.  

Carole 

Edited June 13, 2020 by carastro

[Kinch]

39 minutes ago, x6gas said:

I like it just as much this morning as I did last night!

I think the Irish Whiskey last night coloured my vision some 🤣

[Kinch]

39 minutes ago, carastro said:

would you say that the Takahashi is responsible for those tiny stars?  

For me....no doubt about it. I can see a huge difference now working with the FSQ130ED - much better than the FSQ106ED. Of course, focus, focus, focus is also a factor. I use SGP as many do here....I refocus every 1.5°....but in the meantime, the temp compensation is adjusting focus between subs if necessary.

[rubecula]

That's a splendid image.  I love the colours, the detail, the tiny stars.

I've got a couple of images I was going to put up but this puts mine to shame.  With pitch black skies and fat stars it's back to the drawing board for me.😧

[x6gas]

55 minutes ago, rubecula said:

That's a splendid image.  I love the colours, the detail, the tiny stars.

I've got a couple of images I was going to put up but this puts mine to shame.  With pitch black skies and fat stars it's back to the drawing board for me.😧

I must admit I felt the same way when I first saw this image Robin... for a second I asked myself why I bother!  But actually images of this quality are inspirational for me, and give me something to aspire to... So I would urge you to post your images and enjoy what you've done.  I actually like going back over my images and seeing how my processing has improved but there is always so much to learn and experiment with.

[Demonperformer]

Totally agree. The only person against whom you are competing is yourself. We all start out as rank amateurs and (hopefully) improve. And on here people offer constructive criticism - to build you up not make themselves feel superior.

[Kinch]

To echo what was said above - this is not any sort of competition. For me (as with the majority of imagers), I am my own harshest critic. In fact, I never would have expected some of the comments I got for this image - it is just not that good in my eyes.......🤔

So we post images for two reasons....1) to get that little bit of lift to one's self esteem....if someone else likes the posted image and 2) to get some feedback....reegardless if that is a positive comment or a constructive criticism. Nobody gives or takes anything other than either of those type of postings under an image. So thinking about it....it is win/win. Either we get a little lift or we learn that there is something that we could improve on. In either case we should not be afraid to post our work...our hobby....our passion. We are all at different stages in improving our imaging and no matter where we are on that learning curve, rest assured we all started at the same level.......and we are ALL still learning.

Brendan.

[rubecula]

Oh you beautiful people, thank you, I'll put them up then.

[MarsG76]

Beautiful piece of art.... love it.