StarTools Narrowband - California nebula

[RICH-DSO]

The california nebula in Ha.

https://www.astrobin.com/6zres6/?nc=user

[happy-kat]

Your stars are very crisp, did you process the nebula only and then bring back the stars?

[RICH-DSO]

Hello Happy-Kat,

No, I did not separate the stars from the nebula. The Baader Ha filter creates pin-point stars. I deconvolve the image using 1.9p and that process brings out the strars.
I am glad to be transitioning to MM from OSC. It is like 20/20 vision!

Also, the MM fits images are easier to process for whatever reason. Is it because of the filter? or the setup? I just don't know at this point.
My backfocus on both systems, OSC and MM is exactly the same to 0.5mm, so not sure what has happen here.

I feel, I have achieved a quantum leap for myself. and I am not implying my images are great, just for me, I feel I am in control when using startools. A minimum processing gets me the result

Here is my workflow:
1- load image as linear
2-bin and sometimes bin again
3- crop
4- wipe
5- develop or autodev
6-deconvolve (using a star mask)
7-contrast
8- sharp
9-life without a mask
10- Flux
11-stop tracking
12- sometimes denoise again

StarTools is great!

Cheers!
R

[happy-kat]

I've only had data to use Flux once and that was on a process of someone else data.
The stars are very refined and crisp in these images.

[RICH-DSO]

I use flux on all images. It depends how you use Flux module.