ORION in full.

[malftobe]

On 26/03/2023 at 08:54, ollypenrice said:

The Witch Head, M42, the Flame and M78 have been gently enhanced by telescopic data but the image really is mostly Samyang. Pre-processed in APP, then Pixinsight and, mostly, Photoshop. 

Peter, Paul and Penrice. 

Phenomenal from the three P's!  This image is truly stunning. I planned on attempting a widefield incorporating Barnard's Loop this winter, but have been clouded out so often that the chance has gone - maybe next winter!

 

@ollypenrice It's well beyond my processing abilities, but do you mind elaborating on how you "enhanced"  the mosaic with the extra data from your other scopes?  I know you use photoshop extensively - are you transforming to size and manually aligning the more detailed images over the widefield?

[ollypenrice]

24 minutes ago, malftobe said:

 

@ollypenrice It's well beyond my processing abilities, but do you mind elaborating on how you "enhanced"  the mosaic with the extra data from your other scopes?  I know you use photoshop extensively - are you transforming to size and manually aligning the more detailed images over the widefield?

Sure. This is how I do it since StarXterminator appeared. (It is much easier this way.)

The first step is to get the main image about 70% stretched and de-star it.

Take the high res telescopic image you want to incorporate into Registar and co-register it to the main image (with its stars.) Registar does this in a click. Then 'crop and pad' the high res in Registar so it sits in exacly the right place on the main image. Save this.

Back in Photoshop, de-star the registered-cropped-padded high res overlay and copy-paste it onto the starless main image. The black 'padding' Registar has put around it means the bit you want is in exactly the right place. Use the colour select tool to select the now unwanted black padding and delete it.

Now you have your starless high res sitting on top of your starless main, but it will be very obviously 'stuck on.' Adjust its levels, curves, black point, colour balance, saturation, hue, till it is as close as possible to the main image. You won't get it to look perfect but that's OK. Now feather its edges and reduce its opacity till it becomes seamless. The idea is to enhance, not replace the main image underneath. It's an 'artistic' process, if you like. Even if the high res is only at 40% right in the middle and heavily feathered in, its contribution will be well worth having.

When you re-star this image only the main image stars will be used, which makes for a seamless look. Prior to the de-starring software this enhancement was much harder because the high res stars are always smaller and more numerous.

Olly

[malftobe]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Sure. This is how I do it since StarXterminator appeared. (It is much easier this way.)

The first step is to get the main image about 70% stretched and de-star it.

Take the high res telescopic image you want to incorporate into Registar and co-register it to the main image (with its stars.) Registar does this in a click. Then 'crop and pad' the high res in Registar so it sits in exacly the right place on the main image. Save this.

Back in Photoshop, de-star the registered-cropped-padded high res overlay and copy-paste it onto the starless main image. The black 'padding' Registar has put around it means the bit you want is in exactly the right place. Use the colour select tool to select the now unwanted black padding and delete it.

Now you have your starless high res sitting on top of your starless main, but it will be very obviously 'stuck on.' Adjust its levels, curves, black point, colour balance, saturation, hue, till it is as close as possible to the main image. You won't get it to look perfect but that's OK. Now feather its edges and reduce its opacity till it becomes seamless. The idea is to enhance, not replace the main image underneath. It's an 'artistic' process, if you like. Even if the high res is only at 40% right in the middle and heavily feathered in, its contribution will be well worth having.

When you re-star this image only the main image stars will be used, which makes for a seamless look. Prior to the de-starring software this enhancement was much harder because the high res stars are always smaller and more numerous.

Olly

 

Thank you for going into such detail with this.   Your knowledge, experience and expertise shines through in your images and explanations.

 

Really interesting process as nothing looks out of place or "stuck on" as you say in your final image.  The subtlety with this is not lost yet is lost - or something!  I can see myself doing exactly the opposite to try and highlight the "stars of the show" so to speak and making an absolute mess of it.   If you hadn't mentioned it in your post, I'd be none the wiser and you could have saved yourself a considerable amount of time typing your reply! 

 

Thank you very much for the walk through.  The subtraction then re starring of the mosaic stars does indeed make it seamless.   The final image really is mightily impressive and well worth all the time, effort and stress the three of you put into it.

Edited March 27, 2023 by malftobe
Added : and making an absolute mess of it

[bomberbaz]

breathtakingly beautiful. Just take a little time looking and considering the size of it, bonkers and beautiful. 

[Mal22]

Incredible. I’m in absolute awe of this! 
 

Amazing work.

[Rossco72]

A real wow image. I suspect from my Bortle 7 skies I could only dream of producing something like this, even if we got enough clear skies 😂😂

Well done and a pleasure to look at.

[old_eyes]

On 26/03/2023 at 10:28, ollypenrice said:

It's a very different animal. The one with which I helped Tom O'Donoghue was enormous and 'zoomable,' so you could close in and have M42 filling the screen. However, it was not the full Orion field, lacking the top of the Meissa nebula and the Witch Head. The new one (just) fits it all in, including the stars making the hunter's bow. I've just printed the new one at A3 without difficulty but its natural size isn't much bigger than that.

The other difference is that this is just natural colour with no added Ha. As a result, you get a more honest (and I think more interesting) proportion of dust to gas. This is considerably deeper on the dust, and has benefitted from the new processing software to make the most of that. I'm particuarly enjoying not using Ha at the moment because of this increase in the proportion of dust.

The big one took 400 hours, this one probably 35 or so.

Olly

I remember seeing the big print of the earlier mosaic when I visited. A herculean (or possibly orionean) effort. You spoke with feeling about the difficulties of processing the entire mosaic and pulling it all together. It sounded like a bucket list challenge - such as crossing Antarctica single handed or cycling the Tour de France route. Something to dream about and perhaps attempt, but if completed never to be repeated! 

This image is different but equally fantastic. The OSC gives a very different feel and the dust is much more evident. I like it a lot.

Affordable tech and new approaches to imaging keep imaging fresh and exciting. It makes it worth revisiting the same targets many times as each image is different and reveals new aspects. And perhaps most important of all, you and your hardy gang of collaborators keep challenging the rest of us to do better.

[Laurin Dave]

Very nice Olly, lovely to see the colours of Orion in pure RGB.  Oh for dark skies.   I hope to extend and deepen my HaRGB version to match your FOV next time Orion comes around. 

Dave

[alan potts]

Double wow Olly, incredible work, that would have won the constellations competition for sure.

Alan

[ollypenrice]

On 26/03/2023 at 18:14, symmetal said:

 

Also, it might be worth producing a version where Orion's main stars aren't so muted, so the image is more recognizable to those who just know Orion from the naked eye view. 🙂

Alan 

Your wish is my command! 

Olly

[symmetal]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Your wish is my command! 

Thanks Olly. 😊

Alan