Examples of extreme processing with extreme light pollution

[harry page]

Hi Chris

I have CCD stack and it is a very good program , giving very good results at getting rid of outliers

Is it worth the money , I personally say no to me as I can get better results in pixinsight which I had brought for less money and of course comes with all that processing stuff

Harry

[mobileastronomer]

Hi Chris, good to see you're still active out there! miss not having you around here in Guildford, not quite the same you know.

nyway, i've attached a pic from a couple of weeks ago of Orion over the lovely dark (NOT!) skies over guildford from the hospital site. I'll sort some over pics out over the weekend and post on here.

Andy

[MishMich]

I've only tried imaging with the EOS & 70-300mm zoom lens once, on a Nexstar mount, around a month ago. I didn't manage to get the focus quite right, and being an AZ GoTo mount I took 5 second subs just to see how it came out. This is 6 of the 5 second jpegs stacked in registax, unprocessed (selecting the area that is in all six frames).

Taken in urban area on Dorset coast, in a South-East direction, above neighbour's roof.

M

[jaquesnoir]

Wow.What a fascinating thread.

You have given me renewed hope.

I live in Guildford and in this area as far as the the night sky is concerned the future's bright - the future's orange.

I am just getting into imaging and these techniques may be just what I need to avoid not getting my scope out because its either cloudy or very orange. Often on clear nights in summer I can only see three or four stars with the naked eye so I just don't bother.

Many, many Thanks.

JN

[PortableAstronomer]

Thanks for the feedback Harry on CCDStack / PixInsight.

I did try CCDStack under the 30-day trial. I was impressed with its deconvolution features and certainly I'd be tempted if I had a mono CCD cam. But in the end I had PixInsight LE and it did everything that I needed, and the Dynamic Background Extraction was priceless.

Sadly as most of you know, PixInsight LE is no longer available and you have to pay about 200 euros for the PixInsight Core version. I'm evaluating that now but it keeps crashing, even on tiny pictures less than 5mb size. And the user interface is certainly not what I'm used to. Shame because PixInsight LE was rock solid, never crashed once.

In the meantime, here's an urban Horsehead that I did with my Nikon D70s from Guildford, using an IDAS filter and H-Alpha.

Nikon D70s, through Skywatcher 190MN, WO FF III

Diffraction spikes created by making a 'diffraction spike mask' to the front of the scope, created using some washing line.

Guided QHY5

EQ6 + EQMOD

Colour subs: 5x5 min

H-Alpha: 3x7 min

Processed using the usual combination of Dynamic Background Extraction, then histogram stretching. The Colour + HA were combined using PixelMath with a simple MAX operation. Took about 10-15 mins to process in total.

That was with PixInsight LE, would love to try it again when I can get the PixInsight Core/std version to work.

Enjoy the New Year ; Looks like a cloudy one out there.

It's thirsty work this imaging. Time for a nice cold New Year's evening pint I think.

Regards

Chris

[harry page]

Hi

Sorry to hear that keeps crashing , not a problem that I have ever had , have you reported this on the PI forum as I am sure Juan would like to know and I am sure he coild sort it for you

Regards Harry

[vincentnm]

Hi Chris

It might be very useful if you could write a small click-by-click tutorial of how you use various background e3xtraction techniques in PixInsight. I've tried to use PixInsight, to do ABE and then dividing my image with the background. However, I have not come even close to the excellent results you have got. I small step by step tutorial would be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Vincent.

[PortableAstronomer]

Quick reminder, In case anyone wants to see how some of these are done:

http://portableastronomer.blip.tv/posts?view=archive&nsfw=dc

Unforunately the replay speed is about 4x, so it's not that easy to follow especially if you're after the details. I wanted to do a step-by-step video in real-time speed but the file size is too big. I'll see what I can do, e.g. PowerPoint or something like that.

But for me there's nothing like a video recording of someone actually doing the work.

I'd love to see a video recording of someone doing some of those 'Picture of the Week'. Anyone interested in doing a 'Processing Video of the Week' competition ?

There's lots of talent out there, I'm just providing a fresh perspective of what, in my case, are quite mediocre images of mine when you compare them to what others are submitting to SGL.

Keep up the good work folks

Chris

[harry page]

Hi

If its of interest There are some tutorial video's on my website for pixinsight

http://www.harrysastroshed.com/pixinsighthome.html

These are for the full version , not LE

Might be of help though

Harry

[harry page]

Hi Vincent

Just a thought for you , If you have multiple errors ie gradients and the like you should subtract the model not divide it

Regards Harry

[PortableAstronomer]

Harry thanks for pointing out those tutorials on your website. I'm very impressed.

I'll be taking a few lessons from there I think...

Regards, Chris

[PortableAstronomer]

I ended up getting a trial license for the version of PixInsight. Next pay-day I hope I can scrape together some pennies for the license.

Attached is what I ended up with on a stack of 5 frames of M31; compared with a raw/stretched frame (showing the light pollution).

Lichtvervuiling / Lichtverschmutzung / Pollution lumineuse / Contaminación lumínica / Contaminazione luminosa

[harry page]

Hi Chris

Hope you join the PI club , could do with some fresh meat ........ oh soory did I say that out loud

Harry

[yesyes]

Wow. I can't help but be amazed by what you can bring out of these reddish images. Can I give you a few of my images and you can see what you can make of them? I've got a few afocal shots, single frame with 15sec or 60 sec exposures.

[PortableAstronomer]

I used some of Harry's processing techniques, so in this particular case I'm very grateful for the video/tutorial material at Harry's Astroshed.

I'm not saying that PixInsight is better than other tools like the ubiquitious Photoshop etc; most people stick with what they're used to and I'm not going to steer anyone in any particular directaion. I'm just really impressed with what can be done when you have some guidance from others.

Thanks SGL and to everyone's posts; on my own I would not have done that image of M31.

Attached is the street where I live, it was so bright that I took this pic using my standard-issue Nokia E31 mobile phone, *not* in night-mode ; the scene is ruined by the warmly lit industrial greenhouses everywhere around, so we cloggies can export tulips, cabbage, chicory, and various other vegetation. It was taken at 04:00 on a cold Monday morning, as I was getting into the car to drive to Schiphol airport for the Monday-morning red-eye flight over to London for another week at a client.

Then look at my rather humble M31 from the back yard behind this very house. I guess the motto of this story is that you should not be put off by the amazing pics that the pro-series amater imagers are submitting. You can do amazing results too.

It's shocking to think about how much of the night sky is stolen from us.

If someone paid premium price on cruise holiday to get a ship cabin with a sea view, then the company applied shutters to all the windows so nobody could look out to sea, then everyone on-board would complain and get it sorted as if they'd been robbed of their rights. But look out into the sky, and idiot-nation is blocking you from access to a natural, free, beautiful, educational, de-stressing, calming, soothing, inspirational sky that is always above us, what a sad state the World has come to. The sheer pointlessness of it all beggars belief.

Light Pollution / Lichtvervuiling / Lichtverschmutzung / Pollution lumineuse / Contaminación lumínica / Contaminazione luminosa