The fight with the Dragons

[xelasnave]

I am obsessive..I know that but I manage nevertheless.It is not easy being a perfectionist and existing with less than can make you happy.

It is hard for me not doing my best if I think I should do better.
I may seem casual but it is my way of managing the problem.

So the last image of the fighting Dragons upset me for many reasons and I know even if up to my standard it wont cut it with folk who actually know what they are doing.

But I had to do something rather than taking the axe to all my gear and burning down the caravan and staging a shoot out at Mac Donalds…..

So what to do so I can move on.

I went thru the data and removed all stuff that was not ok..nevertheless I had to accept really poor green data..but I improved what I had by throwing most of it out..I wanted to get more data but I was too tired.. the reality is I am getting old and cant cut it anymore..although that is negative..but a symptom of lack of sleep and eating etc.


I don't mind getting old or losing my legs but why cant things just work better.

Anyways ran the best data with a 3x drizzle, man does that take time on my lappy, then Star Tools with many trails to get the best..very time consuming..I found that deconvolution would not work ..why? I suspect the 3x drizzle cause it worked on no drizzle on earlier attempts ..but it didn't so stuff it..I don't need it.. so in Photo Shop ..How to be better?..well I thought I was not concentrating on each image and just trhrowing tghem all in to get a result..so I worked on each image as if it were the only image I had and thereby seeking to make it great.but you have to treat each image as if it is the only one and give it everything you have got...so each one I made as perfect as it coukld be....then with six "great" images I merged them a pair at time then treated the merged pair as my only image and worked it up as best I could before I merged another..and so it went that way...It has taken me two days pretty full on.but to do the best you can you cant worry about the time it takes..I just wanted to do the absolute best with what I had..and it was not much really.but I thought what if this was important and humanity needed the best result possible ..well I wont give anything less than I can...after cut backs I had maybe two and a half hours..maybe less.
I really did not worry about colour as much as getting as much detail as I could..and so this is what I did with a 80mm scope and crook legs but I will do better next time.

alex

[gb44 (Glenn)]

Hi Alex
A magnificent job, well done. Its ok to slow down mate.
Whats the next target? My notes say the dragons will still be there through June but I dont want to keep at them either.
Gotta be the Lagoon!

Cheers
GlennB

[Nikolas (Nik)]

Great result Alex really good!

[Kuz]

Alex

Top effort mate . I actually love how the colours.have turned out in your rendition . The 80mm seems just right for target's like this. It was pictures like this that you and Nick listed last year that influenced myself to buy a 80mm telescope to learn the joys of astro photography .

Cheers
Kuz

[RyanJones]

I think this hobby is designed for people with an obsessive nature Alex. Well done. I love the detail you’ve exposed around the reflective part of the Nebula.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Kuz

Alex

Top effort mate . I actually love how the colours.have turned out in your rendition . The 80mm seems just right for target's like this. It was pictures like this that you and Nick listed last year that influenced myself to buy a 80mm telescope to learn the joys of astro photography .

Cheers
Kuz

That is nice.

I feel guilty that I involve others in my confusion.

I know I have gone mad with this stuff.

Astro photography is not a good thing to dangle before someone who has perfectionist problems.

I have so many fls to follow up upon...

But out there is so good to know about ...so few know.

I know because I show my stuff to folk I run in to..ordinary folk..and they just do not know.

It is so sad that folk don't know anything about where we are or how small we are... are they blessed because they are so ignorant? If only folk could know only what there is to know and escape their prison of superstition and ignorance...could the human race manage such a huge step forward.
Alex

[xelasnave]

Heck that images is so different to what I had on the lappy..I need to start all over.
Honestly how can they be so different.?

Alex

[Kuz]

Alex

I have noticed the same myself . My final image on my pc screen looks totally different when I send it to my tablet via email . After processing the same image on my tablet to make it look good on the tablet screen , I send that to my phone and yep you guessed it image is different colour and usually really over exposed . I guess it all depends on the amount of definition of that practical screen both my tablet and phone are samsung.

[LostInSp_ce]

Very nice Alex. Awesome tones!

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by LostInSp_ce

Very nice Alex. Awesome tones!

Thank you.
Alex

[xelasnave]

My apologies to Glen ,Nik and Ryan..thank you I thought I typed replies..well I did but I now notice they did not get posted...I don't know what happened..may be I hit the previous post thing..anyways thank you.
Alex

[xelasnave]

So last night gathered more data for NGC 6188 in HA.
SO I went thru all the data and selected what I considered to be rather decent and was able to stack 3 hours and 20 minutes of decent data...too much to use drizzle and I did not include darks in this stack...I will add darks when I have more data for the other channels and do a final final.

Anyways I was very happy with the final image out of DSS so I ran it thru Star Tools, could not get a deconvolution for what ever reason. I had some oval stars in the upper left but the repair made them acceptable...which is great as I can put off fixing the scope for now.

But then I thought lets play Photo Shop so I went about colouring in the black and white HA final stacked image...as you all know I am colour blind so I have no idea other than I was having fun..here is my result which really is just a HA coloured in like one would do in kindergarden but I see it as learning Photo Shop...as I used many of its tools while playing around.
alex

[RugbyRene (Rene)]

I'm currently working on my own Dragons of Ara project. I've managed to gather over 16hrs of broadband data and am currently stacking at 3x drizzle (that's going to take some time).

How did Startools go with drizzled data? I've read that you aren't supposed to drizzle as Startools can't handle it.

[xelasnave]

My lappy often complains that there is not enough room so I back off from 3x drizzle to 2x drizzle and in this case with stacking some 200 subs drizzle was not available to me.
When I run a limited number of subs such that DSS delivers a final image at 3x drizzle it is about one and a half gig...now star tools, at least on my lappy, is clearly not happy...my procedure is to get the image into star tools and crop it as much as possible and to binn it...generally 25% but maybe 35 or 50 ..then I save that image without doing anymore...reason being that if you continue processing your next images so that you go ok on RBG , whatever, and the thing crashes say after you have already processed Mum, Red, and Blue but on Red crashes you are back to square one..your crop reference is gone so you have to start over..at least I do it that way as I can not find a way to get a new crop input exact ...there may be a way..however once I crop the lot. And each is saved in a smaller less crashable file size I can crash and not have a crop issue...I start knowing the file size is not likely to cause a crash and if it does files are already cropped..what would be handy is a program to reduce file size before you start star tools..but that is my current method...when I have all my data in the future I plan to drizzle 3x so that may mean breaking say my 200 HA into four parts..stack fifty at a time..so four HA..not sure how that will go ..but I have Registar which I think will combine say four effectively...anyways not sure but will experiment...And I do think drizzle gets a better result but I am not sure why or if I am just imagining things.
Good luck with your project I look forward to seeing your result 16 hours I expect will be impressive.
Good luck.
Alex

[xelasnave]

What I meant to say about the image..it's funny how so much green appeared given I did not use green but only blue yellow and red... I expect the green comes from blue and yellow..unless the yellow I used was a really bright green that I saw as yellow...nah it was yellow I checked.
So I wonder how we get to see any colour when it comes from so far away..you could think it would all merge and all we see is a non descript brown.

All I get to see is green here..for how long now..one month two? I walk outside green each way..except for the sky it's a bluesy sort of green.
Alex

[xelasnave]

More HA and yet more to come me.

I love this HA thing.

I have a little O11 data and some Lum under Moonlight that came out much better than I expected ..I am getting one minute twenty exposures out of the HEQ 5 unguided with perfect PA and have not yet opened that mount up for a blueprint etc...don't need belt drive as the motors are not engaged at all during imaging..the other night it ran for two hours and I really could not detect that my reference star had moved... Although I did not look real hard which in retrospect I wish I had too see just how much it may have moved in that time.
Anyways this is 3 and a half hours in HA some gathered in Moonlight which I am happy to say is no problem at all...but this is a selection from probably four hours or more of data to get the best.
I am not going to colour it in this time, well I tried but can't get one done that isn't green..is it supposed to be green? I doubt it.
Anyways I think this black and white looks cool.
Al x