Show me the way Sensei(s)

[LuckyEddie]

I'm very new to StarTools and still trying to learn. I've started by using existing data that I've previously processed with other software so that I have a baseline for comparison. I've got a basic grip on the workflow that seems to be working for galaxies. Tonight I tried M13. This is a small stack of 26 exposures totalling only 13 minutes - I'm imaging unguided at present and so limited to 30sec subs. Flats, darks & biases were used, stacked in Siril. I know that's not much time at all (this wasn't the primary target of the session, just something I grabbed at the end) but I was pleasantly surprised at the result I got previously - it just wasn't very 'punchy' in the colouring.
StarTools (in my hands) seems far less forgiving with the noise exposed by AutoDev to the point where it's drowning out the cluster.
The stacked fit can be found at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TTKeqh ... sp=sharing
The previous result using just Siril & GIMP can be found at:
https://storage.googleapis.com/dso-brow ... iginal.png

Please show me what is achievable with StarTools on this data, and share what was needed to get there.
Thanks for looking and any input.

[admin]

Hi,

Did you maybe upload the wrong dataset? The field in no way matches the Siril image (in fact the dataset is extremely poor with noise grain that is extremely big);

Selection_581.jpg (232.92 KiB) Viewed 4043 times

[LuckyEddie]

Oh, oops!
Looks like the first thing I need to fix is my filing, sorry.
Please see this one:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dvjhBR ... sp=sharing

[admin]

Oh, oops!
Looks like the first thing I need to fix is my filing, sorry.
Please see this one:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dvjhBR ... sp=sharing

Thank you Ed, unfortunately this dataset too is unsuitable - it appears to be already processed/stretched at the very least...

[LuckyEddie]

Damn it. I was sure I had the data with me on my backup drive - I'm away from home at the moment.
Please ignore me and pretend this never happened...

[LuckyEddie]

More to prove to myself that I'm not a complete idiot, I reran my M3 data through StarTools, and I'm very happy with the result. Thanks Ivo.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ywbL1C ... sp=sharing

[admin]

Damn it. I was sure I had the data with me on my backup drive - I'm away from home at the moment.
Please ignore me and pretend this never happened...

Damn it. I was sure I had the data with me on my backup drive - I'm away from home at the moment.
Please ignore me and pretend this never happened...

No problem Ed!

That said, when it is time to launch the Color module, do some sanity checks on the color balance before committing to it. For example if you flip the view into MaxRGB mode, you will see an over-abundance of green in the core of the glob;

Selection_582.jpg (231.37 KiB) Viewed 4000 times

Green dominance is exceedingly rare in deep space, so usually when this happens it means your color balance is off and it is a good idea to reduce the green multiplier, until the dominance largely disappears.

Have a look here for some other techniques and sanity checks when it comes to color balancing. Hope this helps!