Flares greatly emphasized by StarXterminator

[symmetal]

Just been processing a 2 panel narrowband mosaic of the Cygnus Loop using a RASA 11 and ASI6200 and all was going well until I ran StarXterminator on the top panel and the result is shown on the lower three images.

It's really hard, if at all, to see the flares on the before images. The Sii oddly has two circles close together for each ring. I looked to find a nearby bright star causing this and there wasn't one until I simulated a sensor of the maximum useable 52mm image field of the RASA 11 when it placed Aljanah pretty much right on the edge of the scopes FOV.

6200 FOV

Simulated 52mm sensor FOV

I'll need to do a third panel at a higher Dec with Aljanah more inside the scopes FOV so that it doesn't cause this effect, hopefully.

I think the AI of SXT has accentuated these beyond their actual presence in the image. Perhaps there could be a future option in SXT to ignore large 'perfect' circular features. It may be woth posting the images to Russell Croman to see what he thinks. 🤔

Alan

Edited September 9, 2023 by symmetal

[tooth_dr]

It’s like strings holding up a gigantic cosmic alien puppet. 

[symmetal]

1 hour ago, tooth_dr said:

It’s like strings holding up a gigantic cosmic alien puppet. 

So that's what cosmic strings look like.  Here's the combined starless image. It shows more detail than is in many Cygnus Loop images making it less recognizable as such, and looks more like an H. R. Giger painting. As a painting the circular flares don't look out of place. 

Alan

 

[ONIKKINEN]

Those rings are faint enough that i wonder if they are easily visible once you add the stars back in? If the goal is to have stars in the final result that is.

Some clever use of the clone stamp tool just to break the shape of the circle (not completely try and remove) would probably also hide it in a way that its less recognizable as an artifact.

*Another fix is to paint them out with the lasso tool and content aware fill in Photoshop. Seems to have worked well for the JPEG above.

Edited September 9, 2023 by ONIKKINEN
*another idea

[symmetal]

7 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Those rings are faint enough that i wonder if they are easily visible once you add the stars back in? If the goal is to have stars in the final result that is.

Some clever use of the clone stamp tool just to break the shape of the circle (not completely try and remove) would probably also hide it in a way that its less recognizable as an artifact.

*Another fix is to paint them out with the lasso tool and content aware fill in Photoshop. Seems to have worked well for the JPEG above.

I was going to put the stars back in but stopped when the flares showed. As it may be weeks before I can try again I'll try Photoshop. I find the patch tool (content aware lasso) is much easier at hiding flaws than the clone stamp tool for larger areas. As the flares are in different positions for each filter, when combined they do cancel out to some degree.

Alan

 

[tomato]

One of the hazards of going really deep I suppose,  but look at the that rarely imaged extra detail in the nebula, wonderful!

[symmetal]

5 hours ago, tomato said:

One of the hazards of going really deep I suppose,  but look at the that rarely imaged extra detail in the nebula, wonderful!

True. Not bad for an hour with each filter. In most images the background is black so the flares wouldn't show. The central 'spine' doesn't usually show up either. It's interesting that the dust 'revealed' by SXT follows the path of the flares so I'll need to 'patch' out the dust too. There's a bit of diagonal gradient too so I think I'll reprocess it again.

Alan