Eta Fever 2

[Peter Ward]

This was captured last night during a 2 hour sucker hole in the clouds.

I am still not sure how I feel about starless processing, but in this case using a 3nm AstroDon, the raw data already had the teeniest of stars,
so I went the whole 9 yards, embraced the starless genre and ramped up the local contrast as I went.

It gave the image a grainy film look...which frankly I don't mind at all.

So much stuff was in the original 9k image data, and an effort to preserve that detail resulted in a 3k wide image here

[JA]

That's crazily good Peter
I love the cave entrance in the top left.

Best
JA

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Oh Peter! Although I can very much appreciate the excellent tonal qualities of the image, I'm absolutely sure how I feel about starless images now .... I HATE them!!

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Oh Peter! Although I can very much appreciate the excellent tonal qualities of the image, I'm absolutely sure how I feel about starless images now .... I HATE them!!

Fair' nuff! A pox on starless

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Fair' nuff! A pox on starless

Would love to see the whole enchilada with stars though.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Would love to see the whole enchilada with stars though.

No problemo...now a roll-over...same URL...you can bounce between the star and starless data to your heart's content

[alpal]

Hi Peter,
I prefer the star version.
I can even see a side on face in the top right hand corner.


cheers
Allan

[multiweb (Marc)]

Nice. I like it much better with stars too. Otherwise it looks like another painting.

[vlazg (George)]

Prefer with stars, without isn’t it just photography?

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Mmmmmmmm ... stars! And you "de-stretched" the shadow areas too - less noise. Nice!

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Damn nice, I was just going to put up an image of one section of the Carina and this puts mine to shame.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

I'll get out my Zimmer frame and arthritis tablets and say I prefer the with-stars version.

It sparkles with sharpness and clarity.

The section up around the Gem cluster and Gabriela is especially fine.

The great depth despite short time available between clouds, and the wide field has caught those gorgeous little presumably more distant nebulae.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Good stuff Peter, I like both for different reasons!

Starless images reveal much that is usually hidden, obscure pockets of dust & gas etc.

Stars give context and a produce more natural appearance.

The challenge I have just put myself through was to produce a colour image with stars that still shows all the subtle details that the starless version revealed! Fun things to do in lockdown I guess.

Looking forward to your final colour version.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Placidus

I'll get out my Zimmer frame and arthritis tablets and say I prefer the with-stars version.

...........

Ah.....the starless one is an echo of my youth....when I was a lad I couldn't afford to look at any stars.....

Them's days you'd be glad to have the prize of a cup o'tea.

Aye. A cuppa' cold tea.

Not milk or sugar!

Or tea...

in a cracked cup and all.

We never had a cup. We used to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

Best we could manage was to suck on a piece o'damp cloth.


(Apologies to Monty Python )

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Andy01

Good stuff Peter, I like both for different reasons!

Starless images reveal much that is usually hidden, obscure pockets of dust & gas etc.

Stars give context and a produce more natural appearance.

The challenge I have just put myself through was to produce a colour image with stars that still shows all the subtle details that the starless version revealed! Fun things to do in lockdown I guess.

Looking forward to your final colour version.

Ta Andy...there won't be a colour version anytime soon. I was simply trying out my new 3nm H-alpha filter.
Seems to tick a few boxes...sigh....if it could only see through the clouds... it would be perfect....

[JA]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Ta Andy...there won't be a colour version anytime soon. I was simply trying out my new 3nm H-alpha filter.
Seems to tick a few boxes...sigh....if it could only see through the clouds... it would be perfect....

Hi Peter,

You could always try a Blue with Yellow stars rendition. The last one I remember was kind of ghostly good.

Best
JA