StarTools

So it was noted that the October challenge target, CED 214, has some attributes similar to the Eagle. And it sure seems to, though focal length is key to making it really look that way.

I'd call this a work-in-progress if I was motivated to gather more data. But it's unlikely, so just a process-in-progress perhaps. And yet another of my super-short integration specials. I seem to have a lot of those.

Only 3 hours Ha, then another night I managed 2 hours Sii and 1 hour Oiii. And that was it. I reviewed autostretches of each channel, and the Oiii, besides being barely there, has real structure only in locations of very strong Ha. So in Compose I just dismissed Oiii from being averaged into the Synth L, figuring it could only hurt, but it gives me an hour of noisy color for background processing and maybe that'll be good enough.

I didn't use any HDR but instead Contrast in local mode in order to reveal the shadowy dusty clouds across the bright nebulous areas. At least that was the intent.

In Color I tried to pick a matrix, sats, and channel balance that would show the little pillars and background in the same way as the classic 1995 Hubble original. Meaning brown-orange pillars, teal green behind them, and bright magenta stars. Yay!

For these last versions, I made the tight crop as a test first, and then tried to match-process the full FOV, which turned out to be quite hard to do. Everything is just too dynamic or FOV dependent, you can't tell what differences happened under the hood, and so eyeballing things as you go is really the only way. Time after time. Also, and maybe it's dataset dependent here, but the denoise seemed to be biased towards removing red, so I kind of had to try to lead into it.

Anyway these would look much better if I bothered to capture more data, but it's a really cool region of sky - at least if one has the focal length (which I kind of don't).


Full field attempting to match the narrow FOV. I may chop off some of the right side as it seems a bit red-casted no matter what I do. I know there's some faint nebula over there, but still I think it looks unbalanced.


Crop version with better view of mini Pillars Jr in 1995 Hubble coloring. Maybe.

Not too shabby for short integration in light-polluted skies. Are you going to leave the magenta stars, or bleach them?

dx_ron wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 8:55 pm Not too shabby for short integration in light-polluted skies. Are you going to leave the magenta stars, or bleach them?

Well I wanted to avoid that, but may have no choice. Thing is, highlight repair was already at the NB default of 8, so can't go much further than that and seems to have little or no effect as it is. Making a perfect star mask for this would be a pain, though I did do a quick test with the mask selector on red, and that was okay. An add blend with some fuzz does reasonable bleaching, but I dunno.

Instead I just did a layer invert, green cap in color, and another layer invert. Loses a little bit of purple fringing on the outskirts of the Sii and tames the bigger stars somewhat, which is too bad, but is probably much better overall without selectively altering the stars. I had left purple cap off in Color originally, aiming for my full-Hubble look.


Oh I also did a little testing while I was at it in both color and layer (using a giant Ron circle mask), and fuzz appears to follow bothsidesism. I thought it did.

Yeah I know, I’m late on this party. I already wrote a few notes for me some days ago but I haven’t found time to write this post. But now, here it is.

It’s amazing to see, what’s possible for you using your mono cam and NB filters.

Mike in Rancho wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 7:40 pm nd yet another of my super-short integration specials. I seem to have a lot of those.

No way! _I_ am the master of short integration times! Now having my new mount, my hope was to be able to get longer integration times, but … yes ... the weather is still a problem here – and always will be.

I like the crop version, especially in terms of image composition. The full field suffers from the somehow less interestingly looking right side. Maybe a crop version of the right side on it’s own would make for a nice image, too?

Mike in Rancho wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 7:40 pm I didn't use any HDR but instead Contrast in local mode in order to reveal the shadowy dusty clouds across the bright nebulous areas. At least that was the intent.

I think you succeeded well. And it reminds me that I have to practice to use the Contrast module. SNR is probably not strong enough to lever HDR? To pronounce some of the nice small structures in the bright clouds? But of course, one must decide how to use the available SNR.

Mike in Rancho wrote: ↑Sat Oct 21, 2023 7:40 pm but the denoise seemed to be biased towards removing red

Yes, you already mentioned this behavior some time ago and I can confirm this happens for me also. SuperStructure is even more prone to this. Processing is a bit tricky as we have to repeat it until colour looks the way we want to. I’m looking forward to Guy’s ST Replay tool for ST version 9

Best regards, Dietmar.

Thanks for the help, Dietmar.

You are probably right that the crop has better overall framing, not to mention a closer look at some very cool structure. I will probably submit the crop version to the CN challenge, once I get everything loaded up to astrobin. On a-bin though, I am thinking of having the wide field be my final image, but I'll have the crop there too as the alternate revision.

The right side is actually kind of cool, and the wide FOV has some other things I like - such as that area of denser star field where the nebula clears out, and that very squiggly shadow structure near the very bottom.

The right side also dimmed quite a bit with the local Contrast settings I used, but it seemed to be necessary collateral damage of gaining the deeper shadow structures across the very bright main nebula. Yes localization in Contrast seems pretty powerful, and permits a much larger scale than I think I could ever get out of HDR, and that was needed here.

decay wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2023 8:06 pm Yes, you already mentioned this behavior some time ago and I can confirm this happens for me also.

I did? Gee I think I may be losing a few too many brain cells to age. Course I also hit my head pretty hard a couple weeks ago...

Anyway, you may already know, but this whole target here is often called the Cosmic Question Mark, if one has the FOV to get it, or makes a mosaic. The right side is the top of the "?" and there's a little dot off to the left.

I'm calling mine the Cosmic Coathook.

Mike in Rancho wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 5:51 am Anyway, you may already know, but this whole target here is often called the Cosmic Question Mark, if one has the FOV to get it, or makes a mosaic. The right side is the top of the "?" and there's a little dot off to the left.

Oh, now I see. No, I didn't know, thanks for pointing out. So your focal length is too short for a close up and too long for the wide field view. Too bad Maybe my 1000 mm would be a bit better suited for a close up, but it's going to be rainy and windy here for as long as the forecast reaches

Still missing your contribution on CN, so hurry up! Or do you try to place the last post?

decay wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 6:33 pm Still missing your contribution on CN, so hurry up! Or do you try to place the last post?

Sometimes I post late in the Challenge because I'm scrambling to add more data or finalize processing. But lately I just haven't been able to get online much, and when I have it's been more here on ST. I've been working on my patio cover re-build and re-roof project for three full months now, at least as far as the weekends go, which is mostly the only time I can do it. That's been leaving me too worn out to do much in the way of new imaging either.

Tonight I managed the first step and got things up on astrobin.

https://astrob.in/d4qqhr/0/

CN will probably have to wait until tomorrow night.