StarTools

As I always post my challenges with StarTools rather than my successes I wanted to post one of the more successful images I have taken recently. I took this last night after shooting some more late season M63 frames (another thread is coming). In contest to M63 which is proving to be a troubling target I think the M8 image below is incredible especially considering that it is only 62 one minute exposures! M8 was very low in the sky when I began shooting (in the Mid 25 degree range), just above my roof, and right over the downtown Dallas light pollution. In fact it was so bad that I lost some frames as it grazed my chimney and 3 minute subs ended up with several channels in the 80% range so I had to scale back the exposure time. Unfortunately this meant that by the time it reached the mid 30 degree mark the minute exposures had one channel that only had an ADU of 3000. I ended up with really nice core details and might have been able to bring out a little more as StarTools HDR is pretty aggressive. Probably could have done a better job cropping and might have been able to stretch more detail out of the reflection nebula in the upper left. I do wish I had moved the image a little to the right for better framing.


Without noise reduction (as image below)

http://www.astrobin.com/185643/

With noise reduction for folks who prefer that

http://www.astrobin.com/185643/B/

(moved this one to the Gallery )

That's a pretty detailed M8 still, given the circumstances! The light pollution filter has meddled with the colors somewhat, but if the filter makes the difference between being able to go out there and shoot or give up, then it's definitely been worth it.

If the HDR Reveal preset is too harsh, you can throttle it with the "Dark/Bright Response". If that doesn't do the job, you can always use the Layer module to create a blend between the "before" and "after" image. I'm experimenting with a new Reveal algorithm in 1.4.302 alpha. If you find 1.4.302 stable enough you may find the improvements useful.

Very nice!