30hrs on the Grus triplet

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Knew it ...decon, wavelets now AI huh?....hmmm?..I'm getting too old for all this, I'm still locked in the unsharpmasked era ...artificial vs natural...

Where will it all end?

Great job Lee, luv yer work

Mike

haha, I for one welcome our new AI overlords. Can't stand unsharp mask.

I've redone this now with less sharpening artefacts, less noise reduction and a slight colour tweak.

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

Holy smoke! Makes all mine look underexposed.

Cheers Kevin; more is always better when it comes to data. You could always add some more to your previous-season's work!

Originally Posted by graham.hobart

that is one amazing trio!! lovely and smooth, really beautiful.

Thanks Graham :-)

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Bortle 3? Really? Want to swap for a 6 ?

Like your work Lee.

Really fine star profiles, plus the colour is excellent.

haha, yeah, I have decent skies here. Unfortunately, as of Tuesday next week it's going to take me about 2hrs to get to work, so it comes at a significant time cost.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by codemonkey

haha, I for one welcome our new AI overlords. Can't stand unsharp mask.

I've redone this now with less sharpening artefacts, less noise reduction and a slight colour tweak.

Bravo ...NOW it is essentially perfect ...I may seem picky at times but I know what'm talk'n'bout girlfriend

Beautiful shot!

Unsharpmask Mike

[gregbradley]

Late to the party here.

Love the extremely detailed inner areas of the galaxies.Wow, that is really sharp, I like it.

Greg.

[Bart]

Gees, I wish my filler images looked like that!

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Bravo ...NOW it is essentially perfect ...I may seem picky at times but I know what'm talk'n'bout girlfriend

Beautiful shot!

Unsharpmask Mike

lol thanks Mike, you were right as usual. I've since reprocessed it again, this time doing a bit of noise reduction and skipping the AI sharpening. It's a bit softer, but not much and overall I think it's an improvement.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Late to the party here.

Love the extremely detailed inner areas of the galaxies.Wow, that is really sharp, I like it.

Greg.

Thanks very much, Greg :-)

Originally Posted by Bart

Gees, I wish my filler images looked like that!

Thanks Bart, glad you like it :-)

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Very nice work Lee! Great colour and crisp detail in the galaxies.

The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the stars look a bit soft compared with the crisp detail in the galaxies. Perhaps that's a personal taste thing? In any case, well done!!

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Very nice work Lee! Great colour and crisp detail in the galaxies.

The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the stars look a bit soft compared with the crisp detail in the galaxies. Perhaps that's a personal taste thing? In any case, well done!!

Thanks Marc, that's good feedback. That was a combination of doing zero deconvolution on the stars and using ArcsinhStretch. Typically when I use deconvolution it messes the stars up a bit, so this time I masked them out entirely.

I've now done some careful deconvolution on the stars which has tightened them up a little bit without introducing any artefacts. They still look soft, but that's how I want them... they are a bit tighter now though. I also sharpened up NGC 7582 a little bit more.

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by codemonkey

Thanks Marc, that's good feedback. That was a combination of doing zero deconvolution on the stars and using ArcsinhStretch. Typically when I use deconvolution it messes the stars up a bit, so this time I masked them out entirely.

I've now done some careful deconvolution on the stars which has tightened them up a little bit without introducing any artefacts. They still look soft, but that's how I want them... they are a bit tighter now though. I also sharpened up NGC 7582 a little bit more.

Yes! That's a nice improvement Lee - the differential is not so noticeable. Excellent image!

My humble advice to anyone is don't be afraid of decon ... decon is your friend! The art, of course, is knowing when to stop before the artefacts creep in. Just ignore those pesky unsharp masking decon deniers out there (No Mike, I didn't think about you once when I typed that! )

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Just ignore those pesky unsharp masking decon deniers out there (No Mike, I didn't think about you once when I typed that! )

Ha ha, I was joking about the unsharpmaskaphile thing Just for the record... I do use USM but also decon semi-regularly too While the decon in Astroart works ok with detail within galaxies and the like, I have never mastered its use successfully on stars however, the unsharpmask in Astroart works well for stars and ok for the detail....so I use both in varying amounts, depending on the seeing and the object

Mike

[marc4darkskies (Marcus)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

.. I do use USM but also decon semi-regularly too While the decon in Astroart works ok with detail within galaxies and the like, I have never mastered its use successfully on stars however, the unsharpmask in Astroart works well for stars and ok for the detail....so I use both in varying amounts, depending on the seeing and the object

Mike

Yeah, different tools. Never looked at Astroart. I always do decon in CCDStack when stacking and building masters - mainly to reduce / normalise star sizes. It does a good job but you have to be careful. I also use various contrast enhancing & "tightening-up" techniques in Photoshop where I can mask and blend to taste.

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Originally Posted by marc4darkskies

Yes! That's a nice improvement Lee - the differential is not so noticeable. Excellent image!

My humble advice to anyone is don't be afraid of decon ... decon is your friend! The art, of course, is knowing when to stop before the artefacts creep in. Just ignore those pesky unsharp masking decon deniers out there (No Mike, I didn't think about you once when I typed that! )

Thanks Marc :-) Yeah I usually overdo decon if anything and I don't like what it does with the brighter stars that have clipped centers (which I always have some of)... it turns them into donuts. To avoid that, this time I built a contour mask for the stars and applied that while doing decon, which tightened the stars up without making donuts. I'll definitely be doing that in future.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very smooth. The full res is awesome. Lots going on in that fov.

[LostInSp_ce]

Wow! That's pure eye candy!

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Thanks very much Marc and LostInSp_ce, glad you like it

[topheart]

Beautiful image Lee!
I really love it!
Cheers,
Tim

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

Lovely image Lee and a good discussion on processing techniques. I tend to be old school and err on the side of less sharpening. Congrats on the nice work on this one.

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Thanks Tim and Rodney! :-)