To much for a DSLR? Spaghetti Nebula.

[Clarkey]

Slightly foolishly I decided to have a go at the Spaghetti Nebula with my Canon 600D and FMA180. I had a L-extreme filter so it was slightly more realistic than the stock colour only - but still optimistic. However, after 3 nights and just over 24 hours integration time in five minute subs, the result is far from astounding. This was one  of the hardest objects I have processed due to the large amount of noise and the banding issue on the camera. Processed in APP and Affinity. Anyway here is the result.

Any processing advice would be gratefully received. I would attach the file for anyone else to have a go but at 168Mb it is taking a bit too long.

[daywalker]

I like that.I was going to star that last night but decided against it.

[Ags]

Very excellent!

[Craig a]

I think you’ve done excellent on this with a dslr, and 24 hours total now that’s dedication, don’t think I’ve even had that much for the last 6 months 😂 

[Adam J]

6 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Slightly foolishly I decided to have a go at the Spaghetti Nebula with my Canon 600D and FMA180. I had a L-extreme filter so it was slightly more realistic than the stock colour only - but still optimistic. However, after 3 nights and just over 24 hours integration time in five minute subs, the result is far from astounding. This was one  of the hardest objects I have processed due to the large amount of noise and the banding issue on the camera. Processed in APP and Affinity. Anyway here is the result.

Any processing advice would be gratefully received. I would attach the file for anyone else to have a go but at 168Mb it is taking a bit too long.

You are correct that is a big ask for a DSLR, but its a fantastic image as a result considering this, i applaude you for your tenacity in gathering the data, lots of hard work.

Adam

[tomato]

I’ll second that, you have gone really deep and there is OIII signal there too. The background is noisy but this is with an uncooled DSLR?!
An image worthy of your dedication, I presume if this was completed recently the moon has been around also, it’s a brilliant result.👍

[Laurin Dave]

Excellent work well done!

Dave

[Knight of Clear Skies]

It's a tough target for a DSLR. I did manage to capture it with the Samyang 135mm f2 lens, Ha filter and modded 1100D but I got a much better result with my 1600MM cool.

[geeklee]

Great capture with a lot of challenges!  Excellent perseverance seeing this through 24 hours.

[ollypenrice]

Bravo. That's the best DSLR result on this that I've ever seen and a good result by any standard. And, as Tomato says, the OIII coming through is particularly nice.

Do you use a large dither between subs? I'm not a DSLR astrophotographer but Tony Hallas recommends a large one of 12 pixels or so.

Olly

Edited January 13, 2022 by ollypenrice
Typo

[gorann]

I am very impressed that you pulled this off with a DSLR! The background suffer as usual with a DSLR and distracts a bit. It struck me that a way to cosmetically fix this would be to somehow selectively blur the darker parts of the image so I gave it a try. This is what I did in short:

1) Made a starless version using Star Xterminator in PS.

2) Gausian blur (I think I set it at 12 pixels) in PS to make the sky more even.

3) Added the original image as a layer in PS using blend mode lighten, and then used a curve on this so that only the brighter parts came through (= the stars and structures in the nebula).

4) Used a curve to darken the darker parts (as I found the sky a bit too bright).

5) Run SCNR green in PI to remove the green cast.

Cheers

Göran

[Catanonia]

Nice work.

I did a test run last night on this with the rasa and it is a very faint and difficult target.

Great effort and result, especially from a DSLR.

What Bortle skies are you in and was there any moon around ?

[Laurieast]

Ran it through Topaz Gigapixel AI, just to see...

Noise and Blur at about 50%

 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Laurieast

[Clarkey]

9 hours ago, tomato said:

I presume if this was completed recently the moon has been around also, it’s a brilliant result

I managed to do most of it during the last two new moons - I might be daft enough to image this with a DSLR - but not with the moon as well!

[Clarkey]

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Do you use a large dither between subs? I'm not a DSLR astrophotographer but Tony Hallas recommends a large one of 12 pixels or so.

To be honest I have only just started to run with two rigs - one DSLR and one mono, so I am still experimenting. I normally dither around 10 pixels minimum, but maybe I'll increase this with the Canon to see if I get a better result. I do rotate the camera between sessions to try and reduce the banding.

[Clarkey]

5 hours ago, gorann said:

I am very impressed that you pulled this off with a DSLR! The background suffer as usual with a DSLR and distracts a bit. It struck me that a way to cosmetically fix this would be to somehow selectively blur the darker parts of the image so I gave it a try. This is what I did in short:

1) Made a starless version using Star Xterminator in PS.

2) Gausian blur (I think I set it at 12 pixels) in PS to make the sky more even.

3) Added the original image as a layer in PS using blend mode lighten, and then used a curve on this so that only the brighter parts came through (= the stars and structures in the nebula).

4) Used a curve to darken the darker parts (as I found the sky a bit too bright).

5) Run SCNR green in PI to remove the green cast.

Thanks Goran, certainly looks a bit cleaner. I did develop a starless version and denoise the background to this and a star layer but maybe I just needed to do it a bit more. I am always wary of overdoing any 'denoise' as it can end up looking over-processed. Maybe with the DSLR and the noise I might have to be a bit more willing to loose the clarity.

 

4 hours ago, Catanonia said:

I did a test run last night on this with the rasa and it is a very faint and difficult target

I am hoping this will be the justification to buy one. "Look dearest, if I had a RASA it would be MUCH better'. Somehow I think my accountant will not accept my argument😂

Bortle 5/6 so not ideal.

 

4 hours ago, Laurieast said:

Ran it through Topaz Gigapixel

I did a slight denoise in processing using Topaz - but as I said above, maybe a little bit more aggressive processing might work better.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Clarkey

[gorann]

1 hour ago, Clarkey said:

Thanks Goran, certainly looks a bit cleaner. I did develop a starless version and denoise the background to this and a star layer but maybe I just needed to do it a bit more. I am always wary of overdoing any 'denoise' as it can end up looking over-processed. Maybe with the DSLR and the noise I might have to be a bit more willing to loose the clarity.

The denoise routines I know about works of a finer scale than the blotchiness from the DSLR so that is why I did gaussian blur where I can chose the pixel size. Also gaussian blur just reduce resolution and cannot induce artefacts like many denoise routines.

Edited January 13, 2022 by gorann

[Adam1234]

Great image considering the camera used, well done

[Sp@ce_d]

Wow that’s some result I’d never have considered even attempting this with the dslr! Top marks