[The_bluester (Paul)]

Another bit of data gathered with the SCT I have gifted to my son. Approx 50 X 300 second subs (I can't recall exactly how many) captured with Voyager, integrated in APP and post in Photoshop using Nik tooks to bring out the contrast better.

It is interesting to note the use of Nik tools given the recent discussion of tools like Topaz Labs AI sharpen and denoise. I actually gave them a try and recognised some things in the results that I have noted in a fair few images on Astrobin and other sites that I did not like the look of. I know people get some good results with the Topaz stuff but at least with this data set I could not produce an effect I liked. The AI sharpen in particular tended to produce artifacts as soon as enough sharpening was applied to actually bring out detail. Little fuzzy galaxies suddenly turned into distinct X shapes.

Nik tools seems to bring out detail that is arguably there already (At least with moderate settings) where Topaz AI sharpening needed very gentle application or it produced "Detail" that plainly never existed to begin with. I even tried it on some traditional images with very mixed results. I am using the trial versions of all the above, I reckon I will have to buy Nik tools but I am going to leave the Topaz stuff to those who are getting better results out of it.