StarTools

The data for this M33 was collected by my friend Frank Aerstin, using his C-11. Frank is another member of Sonora Desert Astro Imagers. He was so pleased with this image that he bought a copy of StarTools to use with his iMac.

Russ

Mighty nice indeed! Do you happen to know what filters Frank used to acquire this data?

Hi Ivo,

Frank was using an Optolong IR cut filter and a Baader UHC-S light pollution filter. It turns out that he was using his C-8 Edge, rather than a C-11.

The Sonora Desert Astro Imagers meet every Tuesday morning by Zoom, with members from Colorado to various parts of Arizona. This morning, we compared Frank's image processed with PI and StarTools. As always, StarTools had excellent colors and local contrast. The more I use StarTools, the more I appreciate its ability to bring out the details, both at large and small scales.

Excellent!
The UHC filter is what I was after. As you likely know, one of the tenets of scientific experimentation is repeatability; the same measurements of emissions and reflection should yield the same results under similar circumstances. The color rendering in this image is perfectly commensurate with other renditions of other objects that exhibit the same type of emissions, when using this same filter. Textbook!

Too often I see arbitrary color manipulations performed afterwards (mostly by beginners) in some other software that impinges on this important aspect.