NGC281 Pacman from last night in HSO.

[powerlord]

Clouds and a nearly full moon, but this is what I managed to capture last night and process tonight.

H: 60 mins

S: 50 mins

O: 85 mins

Shot with my C9.25 with 6.3 reducer, asi1600 and EQ6r-pro.

[AKB]

Looks absolutely great to me!

Did you do any sharpening on that?  Interested to see if there's yet more detail there as signal-to-noise looks very good.

Tony

[Clarkey]

32 minutes ago, powerlord said:

H: 60 mins

S: 50 mins

O: 85 mins

I must confess that I am somewhat gobsmacked by the detail you have got with such a short integration time. Especially with a long FL scope. Makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong! Nice image.

[powerlord]

Thanks. Oh yeh lots of processing. I work the monos in affinity after starnet until I've got as much as I can out of them, then do noise reduction using various techniques. I then play with curves, contrast again before blending them into a colour pic. Once happy with that I do some sharpening again using a number of different techniques, then adding the stars back.

Mostly affinity, but I've been playing with topaz filters as well, some steps they seem better at, some affinity. Not sure at the mo if worth buying them yet though. But def worth a play with the trials if you've not already.

[AKB]

I definitely need some guidance with respect to my use of sharpening and the various filters available.  I suppose it depends on what result you're really trying to obtain., and I really like thegentle look that you get, somehow.  I presume that doing something like this to it would be going over the top...?

Tony

[powerlord]

well, it's up to you really, no right and wrong imho - whatever you like the look of. For me though, yeh that's too much. I want the nebula to be defined and 3d, but still a bit 'fluffy'.

[AKB]

Thanks for that… just trying to learn from the experts.  My processing skills are almost non-existent, which is why I do EEVA most of the time!

[powerlord]

well, Im no expert - I've been doing this 10 months now. But happy to help if I can.

[Clarkey]

13 hours ago, AKB said:

I presume that doing something like this to it would be going over the top

I agree with Powerlord - the second image is too sharpened. The first one is excellent and certainly looks more 'natural' to my eye.