Pillars of Creation WIP - Feedback Welcomed

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Arguably Hubble's most famous snap - the central region of M16. Very limited data - just a couple of hours each in Oiii and Sii, and a bit over an hour in Ha (as for all of us in the UK, it doesn't get particularly high in the sky for me). Wasn't really expecting much, given these restrictions, but it actually feels like there's an abundance of data (at least compared to my recent attempt at M101 - the advantage of narrowband, I guess).

This central crop I wanted to process with fairly high contrast to get the pillars themselves to jump out a bit, but other than that, I had no particular vision for what I wanted. Like I say this is still a work in progress, so what are people's thoughts? 

Edited September 20, 2022 by The Lazy Astronomer

[scotty38]

Nice image, what kit did you use?

[Adreneline]

I think you've done an amazing job considering this beauty is so low in the sky here in the UK.

A very subjective thing but I don't care for magenta halos around stars (in fact I don't really like magenta in an image although I accept many do). This is my edit with the magenta removed; I know it changes the colour throughout the image but it makes the stars look more natural to me - and the nebula come to that.

SHO_Crop.png.1e2bcf1e2dcc7c78b76a7dd0a57f5937.tif

It's a very personal thing so if you are a fan of magenta ignore everything I've written except the first sentence!

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by Adreneline

[The Lazy Astronomer]

5 hours ago, scotty38 said:

Nice image, what kit did you use?

Thanks - this was taken with my Esprit 100 with a 294MM paired with 6nm Astronomik Ha/Sii/Oiii filters

[The Lazy Astronomer]

5 hours ago, Adreneline said:

I think you've done an amazing job considering this beauty is so low in the sky here in the UK.

A very subjective thing but I don't care for magenta halos around stars (in fact I don't really like magenta in an image although I accept many do). This is my edit with the magenta removed; I know it changes the colour throughout the image but it makes the stars look more natural to me - and the nebula come to that.

SHO_Crop.png.1e2bcf1e2dcc7c78b76a7dd0a57f5937.tif 2.03 MB · 3 downloads

It's a very personal thing so if you are a fan of magenta ignore everything I've written except the first sentence!

 

Thanks very much! ☺

I am neither for nor against magenta generally, but in this case, I somewhat agree with you - there are areas where the magenta is coming through a little too much. I did try a simple invert>SCNR, but I felt that the image lost some depth. I think it'll probably require a bit of masking and fiddling.

Stars wise, my thinking thus far was  leave them magenta for the authentic hubble look. For the wider field shot of this I think I'll probably remove the magenta when l get around to processing it though. 

[tomato]

I think that's a great result from a UK location, you have captured the flares emanating from the pillars which I thought was HST territory only. 👍

[The Lazy Astronomer]

3 hours ago, tomato said:

I think that's a great result from a UK location, you have captured the flares emanating from the pillars which I thought was HST territory only. 👍

Thanks ☺

Yeah, it actually surprised me how good the data looked given the low altitude and fairly short integration time.

Trying to get good detail and contrast for the pillars was the goal with the stretches on this image (l did some fairly aggressive 's' curves) and l think that's what's helped bring those flares out a bit. Now, if only I could get near the resolution of hubble....