Three for one: IC1805 Heart Nebula (stars and starless) and Melotte 15 - OSC

[Richard_]

The weather has been absolutely dreadful over the past 2 months here in South Wales, so these are the last images of the year for me. This marks a special time for me as it was about this time last year I picked up the hobby, having no prior hands on experience in astrophotography or astronomy.

I received a 120mm refractor back in October after a 6 month wait, so I decided my first project would be to capture the Heart Nebula with my existing Redcat51 and then zoom in on Melotte 15 with my new 120mm refractor. Image acquisition, processing and images are below for Heart Nebula, I'll follow up with a reply for Melotte 15 to keep them separate and prevent information overload

The starless version was fun to do, and is my first real success at creating one. I've tried it many times on different targets up until now, but I felt I was getting way too many halos from the L-eXtreme filter which weren't playing nicely with StarNet and too much effort to clean up. I made a change in my processing approach by using the ArcsinhStretch which seems to have helped a lot with the stars. I did require some use of the CloneStamp tool to remove the bigger offenders but otherwise I'm really happy with the result!

As always, constructive criticism, comments and feedback are welcome!

IC1805 Heart Nebula

EQUIPMENT

• Camera: ASI533MC-Pro
• Telescope: WO Redcat51
• Mount: EQ6-R
• Guide Scope/Camera: WO 32mm/ASI120MM Mini
• Filter: Optolong L-eXtreme
• Peripherals: ASI Air Pro, TP-link WiFi extender, Dew Heaters, EAF, Mini-EFW 

ACQUISITION DETAILS

• Gain: 100 (unity)
• Sensor temp: -10°C
• Subs: 69 x 180s = 3.45 hours
• Darks: 50
• Flats: 30
• Dark Flats: 50
• Dates: 02^nd Nov 2021 | 03^rd Nov 2021
• Area: Northern Hemisphere, Bortle 5 zone

PROCESSING (ALL PIXINSIGHT)

• WBPP 2.0 script > calibrate only, manual drizzle stack
• Crop
• DynamicBackgroundExtraction
• BackgroundNeutralisation + ColourCalibration
• EZ Deconvolution
• SCNR
• EZ Denoise
• ArcsinchStretch
• HistogramTransformation
• HDRMultiscaleTransformation + LocalHistogramEqualisation (with mask to protect everything but the brightest regions)
• Create RedMask and increase reds with Curves Transformation
• Create BlueMask and decrease blues with Curves Transformation (the background was fairly blue)
• Remove mask > SCNR
• Create Luminance mask and remove stars via StarNet, then run UnsharpMask
• Remove mask, run DarkStructureEnhance script
• Save as JPEG

 

STARLESS

• Following on from the above final image...
• StarNet to remove stars
• Use of CloneStamp to remove artifacts left behind from StarNet (these appear as an obvious hashed pattern)
• Minor Histogram Transformation
• Save as JPEG

 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Richard_
Formatting

[Richard_]

Despite capturing these images after the Redcat above, I actually processed Melotte 15 first. I tried a few different processing approaches which I really struggled with; I either ended up with weird colours, too much chrominance noise or too smooth an image. After much research, I finally settled on an approach which yielded me with a final image I was really happy with! I then repeated this approach with the above Heart Nebula image and it worked out perfectly fine the first try, so I think I have a workflow which works great for me.

And for those with good eyes, there really was almost a whole month of rubbish skies between my second and third night of imaging!

Melotte 15

EQUIPMENT

• Camera: ASI533MC-Pro
• Telescope: WO FLT120 with Flat68III flattener
• Mount: EQ6-R
• Guide Scope/Camera: WO 32mm/ASI120MM Mini
• Filter: Optolong l-eXtreme
• Peripherals: ASI Air Pro, TP-link WiFi extender, Dew Heaters, EAF, Mini-EFW 

ACQUISITION DETAILS

• Gain: 100 (unity)
• Sensor temp: -10°C
• Subs: 162 x 180s = ~8 hours
• Darks: 50
• Flats: 30
• Dark Flats: 50
• Dates: 21^st Nov 2021 | 22^nd Nov 2021 | 18^th Dec 2021
• Area: Northern Hemisphere, Bortle 5 zone

PROCESSING (ALL PIXINSIGHT)

• WBPP 2.0 script > calibrate only, manual drizzle stack
• Crop
• AutomaticBackgroundExtraction
• BackgroundNeutralisation + ColourCalibration
• EZ Deconvolution
• SCNR
• EZ Denoise
• ArcsinchStretch
• HistogramTransformation
• HDRMultiscaleTransformation + LocalHistogramEqualisation (with mask to protect everything but the brightest regions)
• Create RedMask and increase reds with Curves Transformation
• Remove mask, CurveTransformation to boost all saturation slightly
• Remove mask > SCNR
• Create Luminance mask and remove stars via StarNet, then run UnsharpMask
• Remove mask, run DarkStructureEnhance script
• Save as JPEG