First proper guided image - Rosette Nebula

[Psychobilly]

Works for me...

[msinclairinork]

oh yea, what a difference the extra subs and calibration frames have made!

Backround sky looks lots more natural too.

Think you might be able to push the red channel up a bit? maybe a touch more stauration.. thats probably just my prefrence though.

look at me, i'm getting the lingo down and everything! lol to think just 10months ago i was asking what do i need to start AP! so much you learn on this forum!

Michael

[MikeWilson]

AndyUK was kind enough to let me play with his raw data. I'm by no means a master processor but I saw his image and decided to take a different approach. I went for a more contrasty look, trying to draw the structure of the nebula out as much as I could.

[Deneb]

lets have a butchers at your raw data mate !

Nadeem.

[AndyUK]

Cheers all...!

Hi Michael - Here's a version with increased red channel / more saturation / Contrast. Having seen Mike's version bringing more out of the structure, I reckon that my original could probably do with some more contrast, but as you say, now we're getting down to personal preferences!

Nadeem - No problem at all - Do you want the raw DSS processed file or the raw data itself? At the moment it's all in my dropbox, so if you pm me your email address, I'll send you an invitation to the folder...

(If anyone else wants to have a crack at it, please pm me your email address and I'll send you an invite too)

[msinclairinork]

again, personsal preferece, but I like that with bolder ritcher colours!

Mike did a great job getting more structure out!

Looking really great on my screen!

Michael

[ollypenrice]

Great.

Okay, two simple things;

Noel's Increase Local Contrast. That will make it sing. You can do it as a layer and back off or selectively apply the result.

Write your own Star Rounder Action. You just record this in the Actions palette.

Begin by selecting a dodgy star with the magic wand, then start to record.

Select, Modify, Expand by about 4 pixels.

Select, Feather, by about three.

Filter, Blur, Radial Blur, maximum, spin, best quality.

Deselect. (Don't forget this one.)

You may need to vary the size of the initial selection circle but this will fix your bad stars. It is quick to use once recorded. Save the action to a function key for one click fix! Not very ethical but Hey Ho...

Olly

[AndyUK]

Thanks Olly - I'm now beginning to realise that I should have posted this in Processing, Tips and Techniques... And thanks also for the quick tutorial on recording actions - I'd never seen that bit before (only how to run them!). I can now see how Noel's actions were created . I've had a go at (unethically ) "rounding" off the (mostly) top left stars, and they are now better (thanks ), but I obviously need to try and find out the cause...

I'm calling this one final (having also applied Noel's local contrast enhancement) as I just did a google images search to see how other people process the Rosette nebula, and I think I'm happy with this for now... as a starter (maybe 2 or 3 times more subs would be nice though - Later maybe, but it's certainly shedloads better than that dodgy Horsehead I tried to take during the full moon !)

Thanks for everyone's help and input - I've learnt a lot on this one (as I seem to have on all of those I've posted to date... I just hope I remember it all!)

[LunarLight]

That is an awesome image!! so much detail from just one sub to! The stacked image is awesome, inspiring work mate.

I must have a go at this myself

[Taff]

What a nice capture Andy' nice depth of colour with the nebula.Mark

[carastro]

Wow this is excellent for a first time guided image.

A big step forward.

Carole

[Deneb]

received the files, cheers

Nadeem.

[AndyUK]

Thanks everyone, athough I'll be very interested to see what Nadeem can make of them. I might have liked to have seen more colour in the stars though - Looking at some others, there should be at least a couple of bright yellow ones in there (maybe that would come out with more subs?)

(Bizarrely, imaging the Rosette was an accident - I miskeyed the NGC code for the cone nebula, and as I'd got everything set up for this target, by the time I realised, the evening was slipping away... )

I have to say that the thing that amazed me is the detail that came out of the raw DSS stacked file - Previously I've always processed the "applied" output (as it "appears" to hold more data), but I had huge problems with getting the colour out (it was far worse than the single frame). The "embedded" output showed virtually nothing in comparison (attached below) - I just wonder who came up with the idea of "curves" (), and then who first discovered this was possible...

[Deneb]

Hope you like it, as I was trying to retain star colour throughtout the image...

Also full res .tif here

Cheers

Nadeem.

[AndyUK]

Cheers Nadeem,

Wow - I do like what you've done with them !

It looks a LOT richer/smoother and as for the star colours... well, there's no comparison .

Is there some photoshop secret to the smoothness / extra star colour you're able to share or did your workflow take this into some other app...?

Thanks very much for spending the time on this (a shame about those wonky stars in the top left though - Hopefully it's something that can be "fixed")

[Deneb]

Ok !

Apart from re-stacking your raw data & not using your darks. The only time i used photoshop was for gradient xterminator. I did try ironing out the triangle stars in the corner using something like Focus Magic but no avail, as Olly has stated I think there is an action for it Noels Tools.

All my processing is done in Paintshop Pro, it's a lot easier to use then PS - but thats just me..

To get the noise levels further down, I use a software program called Noiseware Pro.

Nadeem.

[Aggelos Kechagias]

Nice try congrats !!

[chrismills]

Just browsing around as saw this image. I'm very impressed and hope I can achieve something like this eventually. What's really interesting is reading through the comments and advice in the thread. I'm learning all the time. Chris

[Mik3]

The single image and the final look the best to me, they look more natural to the other images. Very nice indeed.

[mikeknowle]

It's so beautiful.

Makes it all worthwhile to see superb images like that (with clues how to do by following the tech. talk).

[AndyUK]

Cheers all....! That all seems quite a long time ago now... just for info, the "bad" stars in the top left corner were (thankfully) down to bad collimation - I can strongly recommend the Hotech laser collimator (and also bobs knobs!)