StarTools

I started with ~5 hours of L-Ultimate duoband. Then I shot a couple of hours of straight OSC and was surprised by two things: how bright the nebula is in broadband, and the fact that there's a couple of reflection regions that get lost in all the typical yellow/orange + sky blue narrowband images. So I switched focus to more OSC to have a nice solid base for NBA to work from. Ended up with 6h 40m of OSC.

I actually processed it twice. Once with 16-bit optidev and a limited initial stretch for the starry regions outside the nebula. Then with 12-bit optidev and a more aggressive stretch for the version where I added in the duoband accents. Then used Layer to blend the two. I don't *think* that's cheating? Not more than a little bit? In the NBa module I supplemented the IFD with just enough Threshold to not start visibly impacting the nebula. I think that helped by keeping the main field background from getting a red cast. I used the Balmer / Cyan color scheme, because that seemed to fit better with the idea of an augmented OSC image. I later hit the nebula with 1x Saturate Oiii in Filter, just because.
astrobin link: https://astrob.in/7w8jxz/0/

Looks like we had the same idea again, Ron I also tried the Monkey Head two days ago, but I had not much luck. Shortly after I went to bed, guiding failed and so I lost the remaining hours of the night

I first saw your image on AstroBin and I immediately thought “Wow, perfect little stars. That must be due to the superior optics.” You succeed well blending the different versions. Thanks for describing your workflow. Cheating? Well, don’t know. For me that’s fine. Choosing Balmer colouring seems to be the right decision, indeed it looks quite “natural” as far as I can judge.

I concur that the Monkey appears to be quite bright. I also shot douband and I was surprised when I saw the first images, already showing a lot of the structure.

I like the reflection parts you brought out by using broadband data. Strange, that we usually see this object as narrowband versions.

Best regards, Dietmar.

Hi Ron,

very good image. Stars are looking great. I don't consider layering to be cheating. I am surprised how natural the result looks. Well done. Would you mind sharing the two original images used for layering? Would be interesting to see how that looked like.

How are your experiences with the l-Ultimate? Did you observe halos? Did you have another duo NB filter and how's the l-Ultimate in comparison. I have the l-eNhance and am frequently wondering if I should upgrade...

Regards
Stefan