First project after moving to mono: Rosette nebula in SHO

[barbulo]

Hi all, 

This is the result of my first project using the ASI294MM (and one year after the AP bug bit me). Took three nights (THREE ALMOST-CLEAR-NIGHTS IN A ROW!!! 🙂) with the moon very close by ☹️. Total integration time slightly less than 8hr.
Ha: 43x300s
OIII: 29x300s
SII: 23x300s. 
Calibrated with Darks, Flats and Dark-Flats.

I’m quite happy with the outcome, but please post any comments you may consider. 
Thanks in advance!

[vlaiv]

Very nice image.

I guess I have objection on level of denoising used.

Stars are nice and tight and I'm guessing you used StarNet++ to separate the two - but background nebulosity is too soft and does not match the stars.

[dazzystar]

Stunning!

[barbulo]

16 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I guess I have objection on level of denoising used.

19 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

background nebulosity is too soft and does not match the stars.

Sure @vlaiv 
I’ll re-process it the upcoming cloudy nights and will pay attention to the denoising stage. 
Thks!

[bottletopburly]

Looks cracking to me 👍

[rickwayne]

5 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Very nice image.

...

Stars are nice and tight and I'm guessing you used StarNet++ to separate the two - but background nebulosity is too soft and does not match the stars.

I'm curious what you mean by nebulosity matching the stars. Could you amplify?

[vlaiv]

7 minutes ago, rickwayne said:

I'm curious what you mean by nebulosity matching the stars. Could you amplify?

Maybe simplest explanation would be to show it?

this is 100% zoom level.

Stars look lovely but nebulosity is obviously much lower resolution than stars. It almost looks like water color painting rather than actual image with detail suggested by size of stars. That is the sign of heavy use of denoising that softens up image way too much.

 

[barbulo]

Second rendition, hopefully improved. I think it now looks less ”artificial”. Comments always welcome.

[vlaiv]

Yes, it is better.

[tomato]

I agree the second image is better, a first class Rosette.

You won’t go far wrong with @vlaiv’s suggestions for improvement.

[Matt S]

Stunning - I can’t offer any advice as I’m not even a novice with imaging, but I can see plenty of detail in that second image and the colours work really well for me. 

[ollypenrice]

I think it's great and also that Valiv's critique was dead right.  I always use noise reduction reluctantly and only ever on parts of the image which need it. Invariably these are regions of low signal which have also been given the hardest stretch.

I'd probably let the stars be a touch softer, too. You don't wnat them to poke the viewer in the eye! 😁

We don't often see images of this quality from a beginner, that's for sure.

Olly

[barbulo]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

We don't often see images of this quality from a beginner, that's for sure.

Big words coming from you, Olly. Thank you very much. That was probably beginner's luck.

Edited February 17, 2022 by barbulo

[teoria_del_big_bang]

14 hours ago, Matt S said:

Stunning - I can’t offer any advice as I’m not even a novice with imaging, but I can see plenty of detail in that second image and the colours work really well for me. 

I agree it is a great image.

Also, very much like yourself, I probably do not have the experience to critique a superb image like this but it is always worth following these threads and pick up the advice given to others.
To the unknowing when you look at the first image you might not easily pick out the fact it maybe had been over worked on the de-noising, and despite it still being a great image it potentially could be better as can clearly be seen in the second attempt.

So one bit of constructive advice can help so many, I think always worth following these threads and not just look at the original image.

Olly has mentioned in a few threads not to go mad with any sort of denoising which is often the complete opposite of what you see in many so called tutorials available, and I am now beginning to see what great advice this is.

@barbulo Some fantastic data there and initially a great image and a second superb image, what a start to Mono 🙂 

Steve

[Adam1234]

Fantastic image

[900SL]

Great image. If 8 can come anywhere near that with my 533mc I'll be a happy chap. Bravo. 

[rickwayne]

On 14/02/2022 at 16:37, vlaiv said:

Maybe simplest explanation would be to show it?

Stars look lovely but nebulosity is obviously much lower resolution than stars. It almost looks like water color painting rather than actual image with detail suggested by size of stars. That is the sign of heavy use of denoising that softens up image way too much.

 

Gotcha. What is also referred to as a "plastic" look. I had not seen it in reference to how the stars appear. Thanks!