M101 imaged on 15 April

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Below is my feeble attempt at M101.  Imaged on the evening of 15th April 2021, with my Vixen VC200L and unmodded Canon 650D DSLR.
A total of 100 (60 second) lights. (I am still not yet guiding).  23 Darks, 30 Bias and 30 flats.
Stacked in APP and afterwards processed entirely in Affinity Photo.

I seem to be suffering with a condition that on the evening that I process a given image, and complete it to my satisfaction.  I go to bed happy.

However, the next morning when I look at it, I think what a load of rubbish !! Lol

Anyway it is done for now as it is !

Regards,

Steve

 

[alacant]

11 minutes ago, PembrokeSteve said:

it is done

For just one hour, that's amazing.

101 is big and diffuse. You've got good detail there.

[PembrokeSteve]

Many Thanks Alacant,

Clears Sky’s,

Steve

[Dazzyt66]

Great image - M101 is on my to do list and I hope I can get something as good as that 😀

[DaveS]

Well done. M101 isn't as easy as some might think, you've got a good image for only an hour with an unmodded DSLR.

[ollypenrice]

Very good going indeed for the time. It will certainly give more in post processing, too.  The background is good on the right but both brighter and greener on the left. That's an easy fix in assorted gradient removal tools. What do you use for post processing?

And then there are ways of getting more colour out of galaxies.

Olly

[tomato]

Hi Steve,

That’s a far from feeble Pinwheel. It is a challenging target but there is a lot of detail in there and the galaxy will really come through once the background gradient is fixed. I note you have APP, try using the ‘Remove Light Pollution’ in the Tools section, this should work a treat on the background gradient.

[PembrokeSteve]

Hi,

Many thanks to members for your likes and comments, and in particular to Olly and Tomato.

At the time that I processed M101, I used APP to do the stacking. However since then my APP renters license has run out and I have decided for now to do everything via Affinity Photo, which now caters for Astrophotography stacking. (although I haven't used it yet).  Affinity Photo also now offers an astrophotography background removal tool, which I did use on my image, however I think I need more practice at using it, due the the problem of the background being brighter to the left, in the image.

When trying to process my M101 image I referred to many of the tips from Dave Eagles's "Guide to Affinity Photo Astrophotography Image Processing".  However I am new to using layers and will have to take my time with trial and error I think. 
Yes, I have been very frustrated by my background, especially it being brighter on the left hand side and also what seems like colours (ie) green seeping through and giving my image an overall "washed out" look.

Because of these problems I have tried to go easy on my colour saturation, thinking that more saturation will make matters worse and my thinking that due to only an hour and a half exposure time, there might not be much colour anyway.
Also I am very obsessive about avoiding making my backgrounds too dark.   I do not like those glossy, black inky backgrounds that I so often see on posted astro images on facebook.   I have SGL to thank for this good habit !

I recently also processed M100 (see below),  and again with this image, you can see, I am up against the same problems.
I am so very grateful to take good advice and practice, practice  my processing skills. 

Thanks again,

Steve

 

[Ouroboros]

I think these are very nice images .... and things will only get better with longer guided subs and experience.  

I concur with your point about processing ‘on the evening’ not looking so good next day.  Actually more generally I contend that images processed in artificial light often look less good in ambient natural light conditions.   No way round that except to either process during daylight, or use more natural artificial  light in the room you do the processing. 

[petevasey]

I too have occasionally fallen foul of 'on the evening' processing.  Often 'early hours' processing when the brain is getting a bit foggy along with eyesight!  But sometimes I also find that the 'on the night' has come out better than a 'next day' job!  Anyway I've taken the liberty of a few quick tweaks of M101.  Hope you don't mind.  A single application of 'Hasta la Vista Green' got rid of some of the greenish gradient.  Then the superb Astroflat Pro and a tweak of contrast and colour.  So actually pretty good data.

Cheers,

Peter

Edited May 17, 2021 by petevasey
Corrected typos

[ollypenrice]

I think your priority needs to be gradient removal. I won't go anywhere at all with an image until I have a convincingly flat, even and colour-balanced background. In Photoshop-speak that means a background of 20/20/20 to 23/23/23 in RGB right across the image. If I don't have that, any step I take will be right up a gum tree and I won't take it.

How to get there? I now use PI's Dynamic Background Extraction but it has rivals in AstroArt, APP and in Gradient Xterminator, along with others I know nothing about. But you must solve the gradient problem before you go any further.

Olly

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Good M101 given the amount of exposure time.  I tend to use APP not just for stacking, but also its gradient removal and background and star calibration tools. Even pretty nasty gradients are dealt with well in the "remove light pollution" tool of APP

[PembrokeSteve]

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I think your priority needs to be gradient removal. I won't go anywhere at all with an image until I have a convincingly flat, even and colour-balanced background. In Photoshop-speak that means a background of 20/20/20 to 23/23/23 in RGB right across the image. If I don't have that, any step I take will be right up a gum tree and I won't take it.

How to get there? I now use PI's Dynamic Background Extraction but it has rivals in AstroArt, APP and in Gradient Xterminator, along with others I know nothing about. But you must solve the gradient problem before you go any further.

Olly

Many thanks Olly for your advice.  I will now make "Gradient Removal" my number one priority, within my processing.

Also thank you to Pete (Petevasey) for having a tweak at my image and making me realise I am not at the end of the road in processing my image.
I have now got the free HLVG download to help rid me of any greenish background, and I have added it as a "plug-in" to my Affinity Photo.

Thanks

Steve

[ollypenrice]

7 hours ago, PembrokeSteve said:

Many thanks Olly for your advice.  I will now make "Gradient Removal" my number one priority, within my processing.

Also thank you to Pete (Petevasey) for having a tweak at my image and making me realise I am not at the end of the road in processing my image.
I have now got the free HLVG download to help rid me of any greenish background, and I have added it as a "plug-in" to my Affinity Photo.

Thanks

Steve

Yes, green control is another early and essential step.

Olly

[GalaxyGael]

And the gradient removal tool in APP will work better than most, and not require comex geometries in pixinsight DBE of that leaves strangely brighter patches. 

I have found app to be really excellent to get a stretched image ready for the latter processing stages, and there are tools hidden in check boxes. 

One option is align channels in the calibration tab. Once debayered, calibrate the frames and then save calibrated frames. Then reload them fresh, but without debayering option selected (align channels does the debayering step) and proceed from there. This removes red and blue sides from atmospheric dispersion in all images before stacking, very very good. 

Light pollution tool for me with three led jheadlight down into my imaging area is beyond comare from any software and it will do wonders for your stack. 

Great data though from a vc200l unguided. 

I have always wanted this scope, wish I could turn the spuder vanes to 45 degrees😜. 

Do you shoot at native 1800mm? It always calls to me as a scope design. Look forward to see what you do with it in time. 

 

Cs, Colm

[AstroMuni]

On 17/05/2021 at 00:17, PembrokeSteve said:

I have now got the free HLVG download to help rid me of any greenish background

Take a look at SIRIL too. Its free and has a background and green removal tools as well. https://siril.org/download/

Very nice image btw.

Edited August 12, 2021 by AstroMuni