Heart Nebula at Full Moon

[Albastars]

I took this on the night of the last full moon and had low expectations for the result - just out for practice really.  Its not the best but I'm very, very happy with it.

• Canon 800D -modded, WO Z73 with 0.8 reducer (344mm)
• Lightrack II mount
• ISO 200
• 90 x 3min subs
• 30 each of darks, bias and flats
• Processed in PixInsight

Suggestions to improve it are very welcome.

[Lee_P]

Good job, especially considering the Moon.

[Clarkey]

Great result for RGB. I did some NB imaging a couple if nights ago and the gradients were awful. I'd be more than happy with this result.👍

[ollypenrice]

That's great. Well done. To take it further I'd be looking at two issues, reducing star size and getting more Ha signal from the existing data.  Just working with a screen grab in JPEG (so a terrible way to work!) I took the image into Photoshop and ran three iterations of Pro Digital Astronomy Tools (AKA Noel's Actions) 'Make Stars Smaller' and then went into Image-Adjustments-Selective Colour and greatly lowered the cyans in red. This two-second trick is simply astonishing for getting more out of Ha signal buried in one shot colour data. I would not use these methods, or not so heavily, if working from scratch because there are more subtle and more complex ways of getting there. However, my aim wuld remain smaller stars and more Ha. I think your capture was very impressive.

Olly

[bobro]

Here's another working of your jpeg - using StarNet++ to remove stars followed by GIMP to reintroduce stars in a controlled way plus a bit of colour saturation increase for the nebula. The underlying image looks to have a lot of detail.

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by bobro

[Robculm]

Fantastic result & a great use of a clear moonlight night! Here's me wasting the night just optimising guide settings & wondering why there always seem to be more clear nights when the moon is up?!?!

Can I ask if you bought your 800D modded or where you had it done? I'm contemplating the same for mine, just a little worried about comments I've seen regarding 'star bloating' on modded cameras... But would love to get a little more Ha...

[Clarkey]

8 hours ago, Robculm said:

wondering why there always seem to be more clear nights when the moon is up?!?!

First rule of AP.🤣

[Albastars]

14 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

That's great. Well done. To take it further I'd be looking at two issues, reducing star size and getting more Ha signal from the existing data.  Just working with a screen grab in JPEG (so a terrible way to work!) I took the image into Photoshop and ran three iterations of Pro Digital Astronomy Tools (AKA Noel's Actions) 'Make Stars Smaller' and then went into Image-Adjustments-Selective Colour and greatly lowered the cyans in red. This two-second trick is simply astonishing for getting more out of Ha signal buried in one shot colour data. I would not use these methods, or not so heavily, if working from scratch because there are more subtle and more complex ways of getting there. However, my aim wuld remain smaller stars and more Ha. I think your capture was very impressive.

Olly

Thanks Olly, I'm new to astrophotography (but not photography) and had tried to reduce the stars but I was getting too many artifacts.  I use a star de-emphasiszer script in PixInsight based on work by Adam Block.  I rewatched some videos and played with the settings a bit more and got a better result but perhaps not as strong an affect as yours. 

Re Image-Adjustments-Selective Colour in PS.  Can the same be done in PI?  In this version I increased the reds in curves using a colour mask.

There is so much to learn that its daunting and fascinating in equal measure!

[Albastars]

11 hours ago, Robculm said:

Fantastic result & a great use of a clear moonlight night! Here's me wasting the night just optimising guide settings & wondering why there always seem to be more clear nights when the moon is up?!?!

Can I ask if you bought your 800D modded or where you had it done? I'm contemplating the same for mine, just a little worried about comments I've seen regarding 'star bloating' on modded cameras... But would love to get a little more Ha...

Thanks.

I had used my Sony A7Riii for a few images before I bit the bullet and bought a used and modded 800D from Andy Ellis of http://astronomiser.co.uk/ .  Andy provided a quick and efficient service and all good with the camera so far.  Because I've no before and after experience with the modded camera I can't really comment on star bloating.  

[Albastars]

14 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

...  and then went into Image-Adjustments-Selective Colour and greatly lowered the cyans in red. This two-second trick is simply astonishing for getting more out of Ha signal buried in one shot colour data.

Wow, that brilliant!  I don't have PS but I can do it in Affinity Photo.  Amazing.