StarTools

Hey all,

So I'm really having issues getting the data out of my comet...

I've got a 10x 90 second and 10 darks subs @ISO 800 taken with a Canon 60D, stacked in DSS in Standard + Comet mode, took me ages for it to stack properly but it seems good now.

However, once in startools I'm really having trouble getting any nice details out of it, and the colors seem all kinds of messed up.

Here's the https://www.dropbox.com/s/jldwieeey718z ... d.FTS?dl=0 file if you want to have a go at it.

And here are my results which I'm really not happy with... http://www.astrob.in/150458/0/

The colors feel wrong, the tail details is minimal, the background is all grayed out... could be my data, but I thought I ought to get better results than this.

Here was my workflow:
- Bin 25%
- AutoDev
- Crop
- Wipe with mask around the comet and tail and Dark anomaly filter ~5
- Manual Dev
- Decon (tries to remove adverse effect of atmospheric turbulences)
- Fix mask => Leave stars out
- Play with radius?
- HDR
- Sharp
- Color
- Tracking OFF

Would love if anyone could help me out here...

I have been having a time with color from a 5DIII also. I just start with Star Tools, so can't help much. I did take a quick look at your data to see if it was different than mine. I didn't take a long time but yours diffently works better than mine. I get a solid color sometimes red, sometimes green even yellow. I use windows 64bit, if that makes a difference. here is what i got from yours with a curves adjust on the tiff after. the tiff is here too. Would love to get the color thing figured out because it sees to bring out much more detail

http://src3rsteve.zenfolio.com/p72072302/e2db97123

Thanks for trying!

yeah I often get color on the overall, I tried a mask during Color on just the comet, but it should be slightly green by default. My raw file are in general slightly greenish on the head, I don't understand why it all disappears...

Well to be honest your result looks good, especially given the short 90sec subs, and I couldn't get a significantly better image out of your data. I've been using 180 and 300sec subs and the histogram was still only 25-30%, that was using a Canon 70D. I also used an LPAS light pollution filter which gives a good colour balance.

ChrisH

Thank you, somehow I'm just really not happy with the results haha, maybe it's seeing all the other beautiful ones around with similar data.

Those were 10 x 90seconds... I did however take 40 subs, I could try to stack them all... wasn't sure that would make a big difference. I also have 2x 300 seconds subs but I have been having trouble stacking them, DSS keeps popping artifacts all over the place.

LanFeusT wrote:Thank you, somehow I'm just really not happy with the results haha, maybe it's seeing all the other beautiful ones around with similar data.

Those were 10 x 90seconds... I did however take 40 subs, I could try to stack them all... wasn't sure that would make a big difference. I also have 2x 300 seconds subs but I have been having trouble stacking them, DSS keeps popping artifacts all over the place.

The comet tail is actually very faint and is thus barely above the noise threshold in 90sec subs, to show the tail with your data will inevitably also be showing some noise. The only way out is to take longer subs and get a stronger signal and better s/n ratio. If light pollution is a problem then try using a LP filter.

ChrisH