asterix2020 wrote:What did you think of my Thor's Helmet image?
Just saw it on AstroBin. It's a nice image of a challening target, superbly framed and with a very good color balance (the saturation is purely a matter of taste).
Some areas for improvement; the stars seem to have been affected a little too much by a morphological tranformation (Shrink) - they may get a 'stringy' appearance if overdone. The data may have been overstretched a little, or something else is going on with its background (too much chromatic noise?). There also seems to be a slight color shift towards green towards the right of the image. Finally, the Lens module may help flattening the field a little.
Ivo Jager StarTools creator and astronomy enthusiast
Thanks. I noticed the green after I finsihed. I might have another go at it. Do you think my images would benefit from darks and flats? I have a light box coming so I will soon be able to take flats. I'm unsure if darks are work the time since this camera seems to have low noise.
Ok, restacked again with one less file that DSS didn't seem to like (got rid of the donut stars). Mottling is better, but still there. Not sure if I can do any better with DSS? http://www.astrobin.com/full/92166/0/
asterix2020 wrote: Do you think my images would benefit from darks and flats?
Absolutely! Flats (and to a lesser extent Darks) are a must if you want to tease out faint detail and keep a good background.
Ok, restacked again with one less file that DSS didn't seem to like (got rid of the donut stars). Mottling is better, but still there. Not sure if I can do any better with DSS? http://www.astrobin.com/full/92166/0/
Looking a little better, but it's still there...
Does the mottling crop up if you don't stack in comet mode?
Ivo Jager StarTools creator and astronomy enthusiast
That's heaps better! Not mottling. You could increase the read noise compensation a little to remove any residual mottling. Other than that it's actually a really interesting and beautful image to look at with the cluster at the top and the comet at the bottom.
Ivo Jager StarTools creator and astronomy enthusiast
Well, I've cheated a litte. I took the good comet image and used Gimp to superimpose it over the better background image. I've already spent way too much time trying to find out what DSS is doing and can't find any answers.
What do you think of this: http://www.astrobin.com/full/92188/0/
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