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Hi Trevor,
I think other posters may be like me -
we know how difficult it is to set up a mount and telescope,
with camera and power supply and laptop outside -
and then spend all night outside taking pics - sub frames.
To post a picture of your results after all that hard work and then
have someone tear your picture to pieces can be heart breaking.
We've got a problem on the forum in that we have:
beginners, intermediate and advanced imagers.
I usually only comment on advanced imagers now
when I see a splendid result.
That way I'm not going to get myself into trouble with
the imager or the management of this website.
I was absolutely canned a few times for taking someone's pic
and making a slight adjustment to it and re-posting it.
The pics are copyright so -
yes I was at fault even though I was only trying to help
but it still annoyed me as at least I had put some real effort and time to help someone.
Also - it is really difficult to advise someone on their final pic result
when you don't access to their original FITS files.
Who knows if it was stretched properly -
I use NASA FITS Liberator for that but God knows what
some people have done.
Typical faults:
(1) I get annoyed by pics that are over smoothed so that all noise
is taken out of them.
I want to see the noise floor.
(2) Pics that are over sharpened so that worms start appearing.
(3) Pics that are in weird colours with no artistic merit.
Knowledge of LAB mode required to get the colours right.
(4) Pics that have enough good colour noise free areas that are not
boosted in colour and look bland and lifeless.
Knowledge of blurred layer masks required in Photoshop to boost only in areas of low noise.
(5) pics that need a contrast adjustment in high brightness areas
such as the center of galaxys or nebulas - once again with blurred layer masks.
Sometimes caused by poor stretching at the start of processing.
cheers
Allan
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