NGC1333 in Perseus

[tooth_dr]

I spent two nights collecting data on NGC1333 in Perseus

The data taken over two sessions -  boxing day and 30th December.  Moon phase 14%-55%.

Scopes: 2 x APM LZOS 105/650

Cameras: 268M / 2600MC

Mount: Mesu e200

Guiding: OAG / 290MM

Acquisition: SG Pro / PHD2

Misc: Pegasus Power Box Advance / Atik EFW3 / ZWO Filter Drawer

I used a total of 3 hours 42 minutes of luminance and 5 hours 58 minutes of OSC data taken with 268M and 2600MC respectively.  Total integration time 9 hours 40 minutes

Stacked in APP, processed using Pixinsight, ImagesPlus and Photoshop 2023.

I went heavy (wild) on the processing to bring out the dust.  I will get another night on it and reprocess it with some more subtlety.

 

Any C+C welcome

Adam.

 

[Stuart1971]

Fantastic mage, almost 3D looking, the dust really does stand out…...👏🏻👍🏻

[simmo39]

That's a stunning shot!

[geeklee]

That looks great Adam.  Your version of heavy and wild still keeps it at the limit (for me).  The reflection elements throughout the image look fantastic alongside the fabulous dust (and dust colour).

Only thing for another time - and doesn't detract from this image - keep an eye on the pinky/purple star flares/halos.  

[tooth_dr]

20 minutes ago, geeklee said:

That looks great Adam.  Your version of heavy and wild still keeps it at the limit (for me).  The reflection elements throughout the image look fantastic alongside the fabulous dust (and dust colour).

Only thing for another time - and doesn't detract from this image - keep an eye on the pinky/purple star flares/halos.  

Hey Lee

No 100% I dont like them!  It was getting late last night and I did try to correct then using HLVG on an inverted layer - it succeeded in making them not pink but made them larger and white, so I decided to leave it and come back to it.  I'm not sure when I'm introducing them but would need to look at it as it's consistent in all my images now whatever I'm doing.  If there was a way to manually brush out the bigger ones I'd been keen to learn.

[Stuart1971]

50 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Hey Lee

No 100% I dont like them!  It was getting late last night and I did try to correct then using HLVG on an inverted layer - it succeeded in making them not pink but made them larger and white, so I decided to leave it and come back to it.  I'm not sure when I'm introducing them but would need to look at it as it's consistent in all my images now whatever I'm doing.  If there was a way to manually brush out the bigger ones I'd been keen to learn.

Use the script in PI, called “remove magenta stars” it works very well….👍🏻

[geeklee]

57 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

I'm not sure when I'm introducing them but would need to look at it as it's consistent in all my images now whatever I'm doing.

Once you see the step in the workflow where they change or when they change subtly you'll hopefully be able to take easier action.  How does this look to your eye?

• A reduced SCNR green on the whole image
• Extracted the stars with StarXTerminator
• Inverted the stars, applied SCNR, inverted again.  This seemed to retain halo colour although limited by what was there already of course.  A little more colour work is probably beneficial.
• Destretched the stars a little - two iterations.
• Added the stars back again.

I can PM you more specifics if it's any use.

Edited January 6, 2023 by geeklee

[tooth_dr]

15 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Once you see the step in the workflow where they change or when they change subtly you'll hopefully be able to take easier action.  How does this look to your eye?

• A reduced SCNR green on the whole image
• Extracted the stars with StarXTerminator
• Inverted the stars, applied SCNR, inverted again.  This seemed to retain halo colour although limited by what was there already of course.  A little more colour work is probably beneficial.
• Destretched the stars a little - two iterations.
• Added the stars back again.

I can PM you more specifics if it's any use.

Cheers Lee, I've it saved with the stars as a separate later so I'll get a look at it later on.  Thanks for the process work flow.

 

Adam

[tooth_dr]

Do you reckon overall the image looks too dark?  I process at home and it looks ok, then I go to work and review the image at it looks too dim.

[Stuart1971]

12 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Do you reckon overall the image looks too dark?  I process at home and it looks ok, then I go to work and review the image at it looks too dim.

Hmmm, subjective i think….🤔

 

[tooth_dr]

12 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Hmmm, subjective i think….🤔

 

Did you brighten it? Certainly looks better in my eyes now but probably brings out the noise too 

[geeklee]

1 minute ago, tooth_dr said:

but probably brings out the noise too 

Yeah, I would agree.  When viewed as a small in-line forum size, it's all good but there's always a trade off presenting at full resolution.

I thought it looked great, I thought the smaller bright version looked good too - with the above caveat.  

[Stuart1971]

2 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

Did you brighten it? Certainly looks better in my eyes now but probably brings out the noise too 

Yes, slightly, but as you say it will bring out any noise more, so not sure it looks any better….it looked perfectly fine before, to my eyes anyway….👍🏻

Edited January 6, 2023 by Stuart1971

[Xiga]

Wowsers, this one is a little bit special Adam. I've been taking a break from Astro recently so i haven't gone anywhere near the computer in a good couple of months, but i simply had to boot it up to take a proper look at this. 

Fantastic work, you should be really pleased with this. I definitely wouldn't say you went overboard with pushing the dust, it's pretty much spot on in my book. I also don't think it's too dark either. In terms of brightness, t's very close to how i would have presented it myself tbh. The histogram is very well controlled too, with no clipping on either end. 

I took the jpg into PS and played around with it for 15 mins (couldn't help myself!). I agree with the points above about removing the hint of green in the image (both ways, normal and inverted, to remove the slight magenta halos). Aside from that though, i did very little. I added a bit more Vibrance, then applied a bit more NXT to all but the brightest areas, then applied a bit of Dehaze (this actually darkens the image slightly, but helps the dust pop a little bit more), then finally downsized it to 66%. For images like this, without any fine filamentary detail, for me the real draw is being able to see as much of the dust at once. In this case I don't think viewing at 100% really offers anything extra over something like 66% so i like to downsize a little, but that's just my own personal preference. It also helps with SNR too obv. NXT has totally converted me now as well i must say. Historically i've always preferred a little bit of grain in images rather than too much NR, but NXT is just so good i'm quite happy to go with more than i normally would. 

Result is below. As you can see, not much different to yours as it was already excellent!

Edited January 7, 2023 by Xiga

[tooth_dr]

21 hours ago, Xiga said:

Wowsers, this one is a little bit special Adam. I've been taking a break from Astro recently so i haven't gone anywhere near the computer in a good couple of months, but i simply had to boot it up to take a proper look at this. 

Fantastic work, you should be really pleased with this. I definitely wouldn't say you went overboard with pushing the dust, it's pretty much spot on in my book. I also don't think it's too dark either. In terms of brightness, t's very close to how i would have presented it myself tbh. The histogram is very well controlled too, with no clipping on either end. 

I took the jpg into PS and played around with it for 15 mins (couldn't help myself!). I agree with the points above about removing the hint of green in the image (both ways, normal and inverted, to remove the slight magenta halos). Aside from that though, i did very little. I added a bit more Vibrance, then applied a bit more NXT to all but the brightest areas, then applied a bit of Dehaze (this actually darkens the image slightly, but helps the dust pop a little bit more), then finally downsized it to 66%. For images like this, without any fine filamentary detail, for me the real draw is being able to see as much of the dust at once. In this case I don't think viewing at 100% really offers anything extra over something like 66% so i like to downsize a little, but that's just my own personal preference. It also helps with SNR too obv. NXT has totally converted me now as well i must say. Historically i've always preferred a little bit of grain in images rather than too much NR, but NXT is just so good i'm quite happy to go with more than i normally would. 

Result is below. As you can see, not much different to yours as it was already excellent!

Thanks for the feedback Ciarán @Xiga
I will run those changes you have suggested as they do improve the image!

And thanks again for your help, meeting up motivated me and gave me the necessary tools to improve 🙏

[Xiga]

42 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Thanks for the feedback Ciarán @Xiga
I will run those changes you have suggested as they do improve the image!

And thanks again for your help, meeting up motivated me and gave me the necessary tools to improve 🙏

No probs Adam, more than happy to help! And it's great to see your processing improving all the time 👍