Been a long time since posting here. This image of Antares and the Rho Oph complex was acquired with a cooled DSLR.
It has been processed in Pixinsight's BatchPreprocessing script (with a few tweaks) and without further manipulation imported to StarTools for post processing.
I used the RC version of StarTools to take advantage of a number of new features. Primarily, Color constancy and read noise compensation.
The workflow was basic. The image size was first reduced to 50%, near its intended display size. Followed up with Crop, Develop, Wipe, Develop (restretch after gradient removal), HDR, Life (masked to isolate nebulous areas), Color, Noise reduction and Sharpen (wavelets).
From the processing log - color choice
Parameter [Style] set to [Scientific (Color Constancy)]
Parameter [LRGB Method Emulation] set to [RGB Ratio, CIELab Luminance Retention]
I found these settings produced the look I was after.
Thank you all, individually. I am a little suprised by the outcome too, and frankly the response is encouraging.
I thought it might be a little OTT as well, particularly for a conservative forum, but I imagine this region glowing and very rich in colour. The software takes most of the credit.
Bo. (26) x 180second iso800 (not 6 as quoted before). Sky was semi urban/rural. Dithered 15+ pixels, which I find is very beneficial for DSLRs. Calibration was more effective because of the consistency of the cooled frames. Corrected further up the thread - apologies.
Justin. Cooling - this one was camera frame cooling, with linear regulation - mod #4. But I don't recommend it because it is difficult to avoid condensation on a very cold sub frame.
Regulated cold finger cooling produces the most consistent results and is free of internal condensation, with careful design - mod #5. ATM section.
As I commented elsewhere - this is a expertly processed image and it's hard to believe this is from, essentially, a DSLR that anyone can buy (if, for a moment, we forget the mods and hard work that went into upgrading it ). These are exciting times for astrophotography!
The color constancy algorithm does wonders here for negating the effect that stretching the image has on the coloring in the image (which alas is still a common issue in many images - colors in deep space don't magically change out there just because you picked a certain exposure time!). It's wonderful to see, for example, M4 carry stars with different colour temperatures, regardless of how close those stars are to the core; if colour was captured by the CCD for something, it is retained and the relative brightness of it is ignored for deciding what color something is (as it is arbitrary).
The color constancy algorithm does wonders here for negating the effect that stretching the image has on the coloring in the image (which alas is still a common issue in many images - colors in deep space don't magically change out there just because you picked a certain exposure time!). It's wonderful to see, for example, M4 carry stars with different colour temperatures, regardless of how close those stars are to the core; if colour was captured by the CCD for something, it is retained and the relative brightness of it is ignored for deciding what color something is (as it is arbitrary).
Brilliant work, Ivo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LightningNZ
Screw conservatism, those colours are magnificent!
-Cam
Echo.......... Thanks Cam
Quote:
Originally Posted by blink138
my goodness rowland!
inspirational for dslr owners, what did you have the camera attached to for that view?
pat
Thanks Pat. A Canon 200mm f2.8L II, prime lens. Iris wide open with an aperture mask, made up of an inverted stack of step down rings ~f/6
). These are exciting times for astrophotography!
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