StarTools

This is my first “serious” attempt with a dedicated color camera , dithering , .. and using startools.

I find many things difficult, but specially knowing where to aim at when processing data .
More realistic, more colourful and artistic.. ?

I don’t like overcooking images but it’s so easy to do so, specially when you have no idea like me .

Any guiding or help will be very appreciated.

Thanks ,

James .

I think I started doing something wrong .

Hi James,

that's a fine looking M17 you captured there
And this first "serious" attempt using ST looks very much much better than my first attempts

Would you mind to tell us about some technical data regarding the equipment you used and image acquisition data as well?

And people here could give you great help with processing in ST if you would share details about the processing you did.

I don't like overcooked images just like you and I often have the same problem to decide what is "to much". Maybe you could try to stretch a little bit less and to reveal some detail in the bright core? But of course, that's my very personal opinion and anyway, it's a fine image!

Best regards, Dietmar.

Thanks Decay .

Sorry ,
This was qhy 183C , skywatcher ED 80, EQ6 pro, PHD2 guiding , APT , dithering all frames ,
15x300 @-15 , gain 11, offset30
15 darks
Then staked in DSS , and went thru mostly all modules in ST except for bin . After some tweaks in LR.

And I forgot doing wipe witch I did just before color . I calibrated color by using a mask selecting some clean background small areas .

Here is a new version . With less stretching , more details in core and nebula, less stars . ..

Hi James, and welcome!

For just starting off I'd say you are doing quite well. I like your revised version where you learned to tame the bright nebula core more. It's a long journey, learning bit by bit.

As I think I have it here, your integration is pretty short at only about 1.5 hours? And it appears to be full broadband, no filter used. So hey not bad at all for all the nebulous detail you picked up.

The short(ish) integration probably leaves you stretching more than you would really like to in order to reveal detail, and with SNR not really increased sufficiently you will be stretching out a good chunk of background noise as well. More time on target should help you here.

Just speculating too, as everybody's skies and rigs are different, but 5 minute subs for full broadband seems very long, and I'd venture that you may have blown out most of your stars with oversaturation. Notice how most are all white and lacking much in the way of color.

Did you mention flats? I don't see them. If your rig gives you any kind of vignetting profile, skipping flats will also make clean detail much harder to process.

If you want, feel free to link your stack, the 32-bit tiff or fits from DSS autosave or a save as/not adjusted, via Drive or Dropbox, and the ST crowd can maybe see what's there and offer more tips.

James, I like your new version much more than the first . What do you think?

BTW: It is absolutely necessary to use the wipe module before doing the final stretch (with AutoDev oder FilmDev). This is due to the very unique signal tracking feature ST uses. This might explain the blown out core in your first version. There are recommended workflows for module use - please refer to the documentation or to one of the the tutorials if you would like. (And it is recommended to use AutoDev (and not FilmDev) in almost any cases, which avoids clipping your data.)

That's fine equipment you have got there. Your image looks a little bit blurry to me (?) - I wonder if this might be due to bad seeing conditions? In many cases the SVDecon module can bring out some more details, have you tried it?

The background seems to be a bit busy (what do you mean?). You could try to choose a ROI more concentrated on the brighter parts of your image in order to get the background darker and less busy.

Best regards, Dietmar.

Hi , sorry for not answering , COVID …. , so I’ve had some time to play around .

Yes , I think the main problem is to long exposures so I have blown out stars and core , and no flats , I’ll do better next time or at least try to .

Any way I think I managed to get a better job , I’ll upload later .

I’m reading a lot over here and practicing, thanks all ,

James