NGC 6820 in Ha

[Sp@ce_d]

Never shot this one before and this is a tricky one to get from my obsy now. It's a bit low and the trees to the south west have grown so much in the past few years that I'm only getting around an hours window to shoot between the branches just after dark now. So this is the best 3.5 hrs of Ha out of the 5 I've managed through cloud and branches 😒. Not expecting to get enough OIII & SII this year!

Esprit150 with the new 0.77x Reducer, QSI683, 14 x 900 Ha Astrodon 5nm. Processed in Pixinsight with a final pass through Topaz Denoise I'm currently trying out.

 

 

[Kinch]

Looking good in Ha. I have found this area very difficult to finish in a colour image ....but sound like you won't have to worry about that until next year. 😏

[MartinB]

Great capture and lots of interesting detail.  I would call it "The Mexican gun toting bandit nebula"!

[tooth_dr]

Very nicely done.  How are you finding TNAI?  I've starting using it myself but find it can be a little harsh even with the settings at 1, and it can introduce artefacts around the stars.

[Xiga]

2 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nicely done.  How are you finding TNAI?  I've starting using it myself but find it can be a little harsh even with the settings at 1, and it can introduce artefacts around the stars.

Topaz Denoise Ai can work wonders on some images, and not work at all on others. It does seems to work well on NB i've found (so far). You do need to crop off those borders first though! 

It does indeed destroy small stars Adam, so you either need to protect them with a mask, or first remove them with Starnet, and then add them back in in blend mode Lighten. 

It also doesn't surprise me that you find it harsh even at a setting of 1. With your 180mm of aperture, your needs are less than most. I often need something in the region of 5-15, but for your setup, you probably would need to either use the 'Recover Detail' slider, or just bring the Denoised image back into PS, and use a combination of a mask and the Opacity slider to find the right balance. Experimentation is the key to making it work with your setup.

[tooth_dr]

9 hours ago, Xiga said:

It also doesn't surprise me that you find it harsh even at a setting of 1. With your 180mm of aperture, your needs are less than most. I often need something in the region of 5-15, but for your setup, you probably would need to either use the 'Recover Detail' slider, or just bring the Denoised image back into PS, and use a combination of a mask and the Opacity slider to find the right balance. Experimentation is the key to making it work with your setup.

Thanks again Ciaran.  I think I need to master star masks (read that as start using them).

[Sp@ce_d]

On 02/12/2020 at 09:34, Kinch said:

Looking good in Ha. I have found this area very difficult to finish in a colour image ....but sound like you won't have to worry about that until next year. 😏

In some ways I think these type of areas look better in monochrome.. At this rate I'll not be satisfied with the amount of Ha yet so it'll be OIII next year at the earliest and SII the year after if I'm lucky so might be a while yet to find out 😁

[Sp@ce_d]

19 hours ago, MartinB said:

Great capture and lots of interesting detail.  I would call it "The Mexican gun toting bandit nebula"!

Now you mention it Martin, it's so obvious!.. I'd never noticed before 🤔

[Sp@ce_d]

19 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Very nicely done.  How are you finding TNAI?  I've starting using it myself but find it can be a little harsh even with the settings at 1, and it can introduce artefacts around the stars.

 

16 hours ago, Xiga said:

Topaz Denoise Ai can work wonders on some images, and not work at all on others. It does seems to work well on NB i've found (so far). You do need to crop off those borders first though! 

It does indeed destroy small stars Adam, so you either need to protect them with a mask, or first remove them with Starnet, and then add them back in in blend mode Lighten. 

It also doesn't surprise me that you find it harsh even at a setting of 1. With your 180mm of aperture, your needs are less than most. I often need something in the region of 5-15, but for your setup, you probably would need to either use the 'Recover Detail' slider, or just bring the Denoised image back into PS, and use a combination of a mask and the Opacity slider to find the right balance. Experimentation is the key to making it work with your setup.

Yes I'm finding it a bit strong if not careful and easily feeds my tendency to overcook. It doesn't work on everything and I'm not sure I needed it on this one really as TGV was probably enough on it anyway. Same with the Sharpen AI but I think they are handy in the toolkit. I haven't used PS for some time.. so I use them standalone at moment. I've got Affinity Photo but as with everything not enough time to process with what I know let alone learn new stuff these days. If I hadn't automated the obsy I wouldn't even be getting time to get the subs.