Pelican Nebula -SHO with Narrowband Workflow

[Mr_42tr0nomy]

 

Hey Everyone

I wanted to share with you my Pelican Nebula Reprocess along with my narrowband imaging process. I will be using PixInisght for this tutorial along with Photoshop, Starnet, and Topaz Denoise AI. I have used these in only one other image and found them to be pretty useful on narrowband data sets. Topaz has a free trail version if that is something you may be interested in trying. This software seems to becoming somewhat popular (controversially so), so I really wanted to give it a try and see what it was all about! Your own noise reduction processes can substitute this step in my video... which is what I normally do. as I prefer doing NR in PixInsight. I personally find that starnet is extremely useful but topaz is useful only in certain situations and I have only had luck using it a few times. It does create artifacts if you are not careful and small adjustments can really go a long way. Use at your own risk! This is a somewhat unconventional approach to noise reduction/sharpening but.. it can work.

The link to the video can be found in my bio. I found that this is a pretty basic workflow and gave me good results with my narrowband data. We shall see how it works on the next dataset!

For this dataset I collected 12 hrs of data on the Pelican Nebula through my 10" F/3.9 Quattro with my asi1600mm-p / Astrodon 3nm SHO filters. I have made some color tone changes to the photo below so it will not exactly compare in color to the one in the video but the processing was the same. This came down to a change in creative decision I hope you all enjoy and ultimately find this helpful!
———————————————
Basic processing workflow:
• Stretch SHO data
• Combine HA/SHO/OIII in pixelmath
• Starnet Ha data and SHO combined image. (Be sure to save SHO image with the stars in it. We will use it later)upLoad starless HA image into topaz denoise and make appropriate adjustments. Save
• Upload HA photo from topaz denoise back into Pixinsight
• upload starnet SHO image to PinInsight
• color correct SHO image
• Use HA data and luminance layer over SHO image
• Final color corrections. Save
• Upload new image into PS and add stars.

[Xiga]

Lovely image Mr_42tr0nomy! 

Like you, i too have found Topaz Denoise AI to be very useful, in certain circumstances, i.e mainly with NB. I have found, with the right settings, it does an absolutely amazing job at cleaning up the grain that is inherent with NB data (but not so much much with Broadband data). So much so, in fact, that it is now an integral part of my NB workflow. 

ps - Aside from all of this, great processing btw! The stars are nice and small, and i love the colour balance you've achieved. 

[Stuf1978]

Stunning image 😍

[bottletopburly]

Very nice great work and processing 

[messier 111]

an image of very high quality.