struggling with Rosette

[Stevensing]

Hello all!

I just start astrophotography, and I'm really struggling to get better result with Rosette. Here is the picture which is stacked in DSS, and it is slightly processed in PS to adjust the background color, and reducing the star size.

1. I am wondering why my image looks so soft, will that be a focus issue? I am using a bahtinov mask to focus already. The picture in the following link looks much solid/sharper than mine, is it sth that I have to work on in post processing? https://www.astrobin.com/n5b4b0/?nc=user
    
2. The structure of rosette is barely visible, is this something that I should work on in post processing as well?
    
3. obviously there are a lot issues, but the above are currently what frustrated me, but really any comments and recommendations are welcomed.

Thank you so much!

 

Fuji X-T10

WO Z61 with 0.8x reducer flattener

Guided with PHD2 (zwo mini guidescope 120mm with ASI120mm guide cam)

ISO 1600

5mins * 30 (2.5 hours)

Calibrated with Dark and Bias

 

 

 

[CraigT82]

Focus looks bang on to me... the image that you linked to looks overprocessed and quite harsh with clipped blacks, and I prefer yours. Nebula aren't solid and sharp, they're clouds of gas and dust, so shouldn't look solid and sharp (in my opinion that is). You've got a decent amount of data... Have you stretched your image much? 

[Stevensing]

Thanks Craig. I haven't stretched the image much as I am afraid over doing it.

I will try again and see how it goes.

[newbie alert]

I'm sure there's more details to tease out.. 

If you supply the stacked tiff then lots can have a play to see what's there.. you will get quite a few different images  as everyone processes differently 

[Stevensing]

Here is the TIFF file. Feel free to play around with it. Thanks!

rosette stacked.tif

[BrendanC]

Here's the result from a quick run-through with StarTools (I binned it by 50% to speed up processing a bit). I'm sure this could be improved upon too. Main thing is, yes, there's more information there. 

Try downloading StarTools and playing around with it. The demo is fully functional except for saving images, which you can work around by taking screenshots.

rosette stacked2.tif

[CraigT82]

I've had a quick go stretching with levels and curves in gimp and cropped, didn't touch the stars or colour. Blacks might be a little to close to clipping... hard to tell on my laptop screen. it's very nice data I'd be pleased as punch if I collected that! Thanks for sharing it 😀

Edit: just had a look at this image on my monitor and I've overcooked it and clipped the blacks,  but gives you an idea of how much is there hiding in your stack. 

Edited January 31, 2021 by CraigT82

[bottletopburly]

Nice data ,processing using Startools 1.7.456 

 

[Stevensing]

Thanks everyone, now I know the data is alright, that's encouraging!

I will try to play around with it and learn from YouTube tutorial!

[Stuf1978]

Hi,

I hope you don't mind but I've had a quick play with the data and there is more to be had out of the image, however the sheer number of stars is a bit of a pain. It's a nice stack though  

 

[Stevensing]

6 hours ago, Stuf1978 said:

 

 

Thanks! May I know which software are you using?

Edited February 1, 2021 by Stevensing

[Stuf1978]

20 minutes ago, Stevensing said:

Thanks! May I know which software are you using?

It was only a quick process, all done in photoshop. 

[Stevensing]

1 hour ago, Stuf1978 said:

It was only a quick process, all done in photoshop. 

Thanks it looks great. I'll give it a go this week!

[happy-kat]

The book Dark Art or Magic Bullet is a good relevant read.