3 images in progress

[dx_ron]

So based on your findings it seems the soap bubble really ought to be left in a just-barely-visible state.

Absolutely. But when did that ever stop us?

Hmmm. Should I post this version on CN as just "Crescent and Soap Bubble" to see if anyone calls me out? Or will they just pat me on the back for capturing the Soap Bubble?

On the Ha knot, I presume you mean the bright one near 36 Cyg? Yeah Stellarium won't give me anything there either unless I check the box for DWB. But searching Sh2-104 gives me a different location, closer to Sadr.

We are not the first to be confused: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/8388 ... ong-place/

[Carles]

OK then,

try to split Oiii and H-alpha, process them separately as Mono, then use compose to load the channels. And check the result.
The thing is, I do not consider this painting, as it is sampling. And your circle in the other area, bigger, that's why I suggest you process separately then load in Compose, and you'll that in that region there's also Oiii.
(or simply, open your image in Siril--- > click on Histogram, --- select blue and or Green channel to see your Oiii, because the signal is spreaded between the two. )

Carles.

[Stefan B]

Hi Ron,

your three images already look pretty mature...

I think the suggestion of Carles and Mike to separately process Ha and OIII and then combine them in either Compose or Layer might well work.

Another possibility is to use NBAccent but to digress a bit from the recommended path. After Wipe and the final stretch, omit Contrast, HDR, Sharp, SVD and directly enter the Color module. Then add your NB data by NBAccent. Afterwards go through your usual workflow with Contrast etc. I tried that several times and in my eyes the detail looks the same as in the NB data but star color is great and the nebula color is very natural. I am pretty sure I used this workflow for these two images:
https://www.astrobin.com/ybvaz8/
https://www.astrobin.com/oqhiqu/

Might be worth a try.

Regards
Stefan

[Mike in Rancho]

We are not the first to be confused: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/8388 ... ong-place/

I tried digging into this, didn't get anywhere. Downloaded the latest v23.3, and then updated my extended DSO catalog also to the latest release. No joy. Tried the most recent standard DSO catalog too.

Weird thing, in my search settings I have the option checked for it to use SIMBAD, but it either doesn't work or it gets overridden by, I assume, Stellarium's own DSO database. That may be a second problem. I mean, what's the point of having it connect to SIMBAD? The manual states that if checked it will use the online query results for the coordinates. I tried both Harvard and Strasbourg servers.

But if I just go to SIMBAD's website and lookup SH2-104, that appears to go to the right spot - likely reflecting the fix that was made as a result of the thread you linked.

I figured I would maybe edit the DSO catalog with the proper RA and DEC, per steps in the manual, but gave up when I couldn't find a .txt file for the extended catalog, plus my config.ini doesn't seem to have the option it's supposed to in order to convert to a binary .dat for use in Stellarium.

Rats.

Might have to figure out how to alert them perhaps on their github or wherever one sends bug notices, to fix SH2-104 (and the nearby LBN I believe) and ask about the conflict priority between the internal catalog and SIMBAD query. Unless it only uses SIMBAD for non-database objects?

[dx_ron]

Another possibility is to use NBAccent but to digress a bit from the recommended path. After Wipe and the final stretch, omit Contrast, HDR, Sharp, SVD and directly enter the Color module. Then add your NB data by NBAccent. Afterwards go through your usual workflow with Contrast etc. I tried that several times and in my eyes the detail looks the same as in the NB data but star color is great and the nebula color is very natural. I am pretty sure I used this workflow for these two images:
https://www.astrobin.com/ybvaz8/
https://www.astrobin.com/oqhiqu/

Might be worth a try.

Regards
Stefan

Thanks, Stefan!

I have played around a bit with the idea of 'NB-Accents early'. With the Crescent, though, it just turns the Crescent itself into solid Oiii (or solid Ha, depending on the Band balance slider), rather than a delicate shell of Oiii around the Ha.

I have the extracted Ha vs Oiii from Siril, I will try separate mono processing sometime soon.

[Carles]

So, here's an example of the workflow I'm talking about.

Lion Nebula, 18hours with L-extreme from Bortle 8, 1h30min with L-pro from Bortle 5-6 for RGB stars.

you can see Oiii and Halpha processed in BW, then "merged" in Compose as L = Halpha R=Halpha G=Oiii B= Oiii.
Then center Lower is mixed result from Startools (layered RGB stars - top left corner- with the HalphaOiii) and upper is jus saturation contrast with Lightroom.

Lion Nebula HaOiiRGB small.png (323.36 KiB) Viewed 15918 times

still compressed to fit in file size.

LHRGBOII-2 small.jpg (457.71 KiB) Viewed 15918 times

I had another version with less stars and more detail, but I kinda like this version with colourful stars (although a bit too green, but it is OK as a test, and i'm happy with result )
So, anyway, try to do similar stuff with your Crescent, with enough data that is... and you should be able to make that Soap and Crescent shell stand up more..

Regards,

Carles.
Note to Jochen (can't remember his nick ) -- let's consider adding this workflow-tutorial in the manual.

[decay]

Note to Jochen (can't remember his nick )

Not sure if he is following: @hixx

[Carles]

Note to Jochen (can't remember his nick )

Not sure if he is following: @hixx

Thanks

[dx_ron]

I tried processing the extracted Ha / Oiii as separate mono images then Compose - and I don't think it looked much, if any, different from the basic bicolor version I posted above. [oh wait - I didn't use Ha as L, just syn-L, will try again tomorrow]

As long as I had the separated channels, I used pixelmath in Siril the GHS, and wound up with:

Crescent_Siril_HOO_v1-nr_1600_700k.jpg (687.89 KiB) Viewed 15810 times

I *really* don't know what I am doing with GHS, but the Soap Bubble is distinctly visible with what I think is an appropriate "barely there" quality.

Anyway, as to ST - I would like to try opening the ST result in some equivalent of Lightroom to what Carles did with his Lion (is there an open-source equivalent? - can gimp approximate what you did in Lightroom?

[Mike in Rancho]

I'm not sure you need to change anything. That's a very appealing image. The wide-strewn nebulosity seems to have less harsh of stretching and contrast. And while as discussed it may lose the relative emissions concentrations as an item of documentary info, getting away from the hard pink + cyan for the HOO is just so much easier on the eye. I like the balance of showing nebula structure too. Nicely done.

And yeah I've fiddled with the PI version of GHS a few times and can't get anywhere for the life of me. I end up just staring at the screen in bewilderment. In the end, it's still just another take on repetitive levels and curves.