Need help with SHO colors in pixinsight. 11h 9m ElephantTrunk Nebula LDN1099

[Magnus_e]

Hi. 

It has been a long time with little imaging for me, so the basic Pixinsight skills I have is a little rough at the moment.

I have been imaging the Elephant's trunk nebula and I'm now up to a 11h 9min integration.

I have processed the Ha data to a monochrome image I'm happy with, can be seen here. https://stargazerslounge.com/gallery/image/36330-elephantstrunk_ic1396ldn1099-ha/

However the color version is not to my liking. I really like the more gold and blue looking HST images but I'm not getting that from this. My previous HST image was the Monkey Head nebula, and I really like the colors from that image https://stargazerslounge.com/gallery/image/32303-monkeyhead-ngc-2174-shohst/

One of the images of the Elephant's trunk on the wiki page is around the same amount of image data, but with a lot nicer colors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant's_Trunk_Nebula#/media/File:Elephant_trunk_Ha+OIII+SII_Hubble_palette_modified.jpg

 

So here is what I got so far. 2h 45min S2, 3h 39m Ha, 4h 45min O3 

First one is RAW color from pixel math. R = S2 *1, G = Ha *1, B = O3 *1

 

And here are two examples at trying to process the color data. Not sure if I have to get more S2 to get the colors right? Should be possible with what I have, the S2 data will only be a little noisier?

 

And the cropped and streched stacked images.

[matt_baker]

Invert the image and use SCNR 

I think you're suffering from tilt on the top right of your image too

Edited November 8, 2020 by matt_baker

[Magnus_e]

3 minutes ago, matt_baker said:

Invert the image and use SCNR 

Are you sure? Are there different ways of inverting the image? I used IMAGE -> Invert, and got this.

[matt_baker]

Just now, Magnus_e said:

Are you sure? Are there different ways of inverting the image? I used IMAGE -> Invert, and got this.

Like it is now run SCNR, then invert it back to normal after applying

[Magnus_e]

2 minutes ago, matt_baker said:

Like it is now run SCNR, then invert it back to normal after applying

Thanks!!

That gave me a lot better starting point to get what I'm after

[matt_baker]

Invert > SCNR > Invert > SCNR 0.8

[Magnus_e]

+1 for easy fix 👏

[Magnus_e]

Uploaded my result to the dso forum https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/365810-elephants-trunk-nebula-ldn1099-in-sho-11h-integration/