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LDN1251 from RASA 8 and some new processing.


ollypenrice

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Another Project with Paul Kummer who owns most of the rig and runs the capture side in our robotic shed, here.

This is a two panel mosaic and one panel had less than 2.5 hours of OSC. That's not a lot for a dark nebula...

What's new in the processing are two Russell Croman products, Star Xterminator and Noise Xterminator. Both are excellent and, together, they are beyond excellent. Star Xterminator is a game changer for instruments which don't produce good stars out of the box. (Scopes which do are called expensive ones. :D) I've previously tried Straton and got nowhere, then Starnet++ which was kindly deleted by the powers that be at Pixinsight. Star Xterminator is a class ahead and I have it in Photoshop's civilized environent allowing Layers to blend the stellar stretch and the starless stretch easily.

 

860690892_LDN1251V3FINWeb.thumb.jpg.d18ed9ad3d5f7a2cadd3e0580684d67c.jpg

Olly

 

Edited by ollypenrice
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Great result, the RASA8/ASI2600 OSC performing beyond it’s nameplate specifications once again.

Olly, why have you lost Starnet  from Pixinsight? I still have it in my list of PI processes and occasionally find it does a slightly better job than StarXterminator.

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3 minutes ago, tomato said:

 

Olly, why have you lost Starnet  from Pixinsight? I still have it in my list of PI processes and occasionally find it does a slightly better job than StarXterminator.

After I spent an age installing it, it simply vanished from my copy of PI. I read on here that someone else had had the same thing and that it had been deleted by PI. However, it never worked well for me and couldn't handle the large CMOS files, or my computer couldn't. If I'm maligning the PI people I apologize but it vanished for me.

Olly

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40 minutes ago, barbulo said:

Have you tried StarnetV2 on PI? IMHO it performs far better than the original Starnet.

I haven't but I don't want the palaver of it disappearing again! Once I have a starless image my entire workflow after that is Photoshop and Layers. That's my natural habitat!

:Dlly

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Exquisite processing.

I'm usually not very fond of stars in RASA setups (and attempts to control their size) - but these look just right. In fact - whole image looks just right.

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Wow, just wow!

But oh to have those dark skies and plenty of them.  the processing is excellent, no problems with that horribly big star.

Also thanks for the recommendation on Star Xterminator and Noise Xterminator, I have been pondering on getting these and wanted to see how others got on.  

Carole 

 

 

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Amazing work Olly. Nice and rich, and the stars here are top-notch. Starless processing (whether it be Starnet v2 or StarXterminator) really is a game-changer for RASA's. I recently gave NoiseXterminator a go myself for the first time, and i too was very impressed by it. 

Can i ask, how did you stitch the 2 panels together? Did you do it manually in PS by any chance? I think i can see a slightly warmer tone to the panel on the right, which could be down to that panel having a slightly different stretch to the one on the left, but i'm not sure. APP and P.I can stitch panels together at the linear stage, which makes processing mosaics as easy as single panels. 

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On 09/06/2022 at 01:23, Xiga said:

Amazing work Olly. Nice and rich, and the stars here are top-notch. Starless processing (whether it be Starnet v2 or StarXterminator) really is a game-changer for RASA's. I recently gave NoiseXterminator a go myself for the first time, and i too was very impressed by it. 

Can i ask, how did you stitch the 2 panels together? Did you do it manually in PS by any chance? I think i can see a slightly warmer tone to the panel on the right, which could be down to that panel having a slightly different stretch to the one on the left, but i'm not sure. APP and P.I can stitch panels together at the linear stage, which makes processing mosaics as easy as single panels. 

I noticed the slight drift in tone as well, though on such a dusty background sky it could be genuine. I combined the linear stacks (after DBE) in Registar then checked the output file in Ps Equalize, which really shows up joints and gradients. It was a s good as I've ever seen it so I stretched the mosaic from there.

As you say, starless processing is the way to go with a RASA and lets it do what it's good at.

On 08/06/2022 at 22:46, vlaiv said:

Exquisite processing.

I'm usually not very fond of stars in RASA setups (and attempts to control their size) - but these look just right. In fact - whole image looks just right.

Thanks. I agree that the stars are the RASA weakness but it seems it can be worked around this way. More images will tell. I think this was a challenge for StarXterminator, though, because there were a of stars and the stretch was extreme. I'm optimistic.

On 08/06/2022 at 22:57, carastro said:

Wow, just wow!

But oh to have those dark skies and plenty of them.  the processing is excellent, no problems with that horribly big star.

Also thanks for the recommendation on Star Xterminator and Noise Xterminator, I have been pondering on getting these and wanted to see how others got on.  

Carole 

 

 

I'm convinced by these and looked again after Maurice Toet approved of NoiseX. He's a superb imager.

Olly

Edited by ollypenrice
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Impressive image, particularly the background sky as I often struggle with this.  

I've been a convert to StarX and now NoiseX for a couple of image processes now and so very much convinced.  One thing I've found though is that sometimes the output stars from StarX have poor cores, they seem to be pixelated or similar.  So I now use StarX to extract the main target, galaxy / nebula, and Starnet2 for the stars when this arises. Use the best tool for the job,  as they say. 

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Beautiful image!

NoiseXterminator does seem almost like cheating after all the other methods. Trick is not to overdo it I think - I've already seen a few rather plastic looking examples.

re: Starnet - certainly Starnet v2 gets wiped with a major Pixinsight upgrade. It's relatively easy to re-install if you can be bothered - just a case of downloading (if required) and then copying the relevant files into the Pixinsight/bin folder and then running Process / Modules / Install Modules...

I do keep it up to date, as I have found I get better results with the Star Mask created by Starnet v2 over StarXterminator. Anyway, it's good to have two options and to be able to try both and pick the best result.

 

 

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23 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

Impressive image, particularly the background sky as I often struggle with this.  

I've been a convert to StarX and now NoiseX for a couple of image processes now and so very much convinced.  One thing I've found though is that sometimes the output stars from StarX have poor cores, they seem to be pixelated or similar.  So I now use StarX to extract the main target, galaxy / nebula, and Starnet2 for the stars when this arises. Use the best tool for the job,  as they say. 

I've read Russel Croman's suggested method for replacing the removed stars but wasn't inclined to try it this time since I had enough new processing tools on the go as it was. Instead I processed the starless image to its end point and pasted the linear original image on top of it in Blend Mode Colour Dodge (Add). I didn't compare this with Blend Mode Lighten but I doubt the difference is huge. In either mode the new linear top layer is invisible because none of it is lighter than the stretched starless one below.

I then stretched the top layer till the stars began to appear. They tend to look a bit hard and spikey so I used a curve stretch in which I only lifted the bottom of the curve and restored it to a straight line above that. The theory was to lift the outer parts of the stars more than their cores in order to soften them. Even so I gave the top (star) layer a bit of Gaussian blur and played both with the stretch and the opacity till I got a decent look. More stretch at reduced opacity gave some control here.

Olly

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One more note: in case this version might be too 'hard' for some tastes I just produced a much softer stretch. All you have to do is paste one onto the other and you can be as extreme or as conservative as you like by moving the opacity slider. This stretch certainly is extreme. I might tone it down a bit with fresh eyes in a day or two but there's a lot to be said for the 'adjustable image.'

:Dlly

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Perfect Olly!
Here you really utilized the magic ability of the RASA to get the dark dust shining. Star XTerminator and Noise XTerminator are great for this type of targets and now constantly in my tool box. I do exactly as you to get the stars back but use blend mode lighten. I may try blend mode color dodge next time to see what it does. Like you I usually also give the stars a bit of gaussian blur. One problem I often run into with this method is dark ringed stars. If that happens I select the stars (Select -> Color Range) and widen the selction a few pixels and then use a curve to brighten the area around the stars. However, I cannot see that you had this problem with this image - stars look great (apparently even impressed Vlaiv😄).

I just wonder why you did a two-panel mosaic and then cropped it back to the FOV of one panel? You ended up with the same FOV as I got with one panel on my go at LDN1251 with the RASA. Was it nothing more worth seeing?

Cheers, Göran

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2 hours ago, gorann said:

Perfect Olly!
Here you really utilized the magic ability of the RASA to get the dark dust shining. Star XTerminator and Noise XTerminator are great for this type of targets and now constantly in my tool box. I do exactly as you to get the stars back but use blend mode lighten. I may try blend mode color dodge next time to see what it does. Like you I usually also give the stars a bit of gaussian blur. One problem I often run into with this method is dark ringed stars. If that happens I select the stars (Select -> Color Range) and widen the selction a few pixels and then use a curve to brighten the area around the stars. However, I cannot see that you had this problem with this image - stars look great (apparently even impressed Vlaiv😄).

I just wonder why you did a two-panel mosaic and then cropped it back to the FOV of one panel? You ended up with the same FOV as I got with one panel on my go at LDN1251 with the RASA. Was it nothing more worth seeing?

Cheers, Göran

Thanks Goran. I think the dark ring problem you've met and the spikey, hard-edged star problem I had may effectively be the same thing - too much contrast between background and star. That's why I used many iterations of a curve like the one below when stretching the star layer. Basically I'm hoping to lift the outer part of the star more than the core.

1825012542_starcurve.JPG.d4ca6a5de89d08df81ed8a10bdd24516.JPG

Olly

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  • ollypenrice changed the title to LDN1251 from RASA 8 and some new processing.

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