Still a work in progress, I've been trying to get something decent out of this data for a while. I ended up using Starnet++ to remove the stars then the Spot Heal tool in photoshop to repair the area around bright stars.
The Ha clouds and wispy OIII structures show up nicely but need more time - this is about 2 hours with the L-Enhance filter, Nikon d5600 and Sharpstar 61.
Starnet++ is for computer geeks only - I wouldn't have got it to run without help from my son
Here's a starry version. All of the small stars through the image make it look too cluttered for my taste and the nebulosity is easier to process without the stars.
Leaving the bigger stars in and removing the small stars might look best but that's beyond me atm.
Here's a starry version. All of the small stars through the image make it look too cluttered for my taste and the nebulosity is easier to process without the stars.
Leaving the bigger stars in and removing the small stars might look best but that's beyond me atm.
Yeah, I dunno... (helpful aren't I)...
I do like the one with stars but, can see your point about it looking cluttered, even dare I say, possibly noisy with all the little stars in it, yep..
Mate, I'm in no position to be critical or advise on what does or doesn't look right or how to remove one without the other... due to (pick a reason/excuse/whatever), I haven't imaged in a long time & won't get the chance until at least Feb, if I get a clear night & if I can get everything up & running... (new mount, new power distribution box, hell... & just because I enjoy a challenge.. I'll throw the Vixen Newt into it as I haven't imaged with that yet... LOL)
Hopefully someone with more skills (not that hard) than me in processing will chime in with how to remove only the small stars because, I agree that the bigger stars would really look nice with that beautiful nebulosity...
Criticism, comments, etc is fine Carlton - stars vs starless is bound to be controversial. This is a tough target for OSC.
I'd like to beef up the nebulosity if we get a clear night. Hopefully the couple inches of rain on the way will dampen the fires and smoke.
I prefer it with stars, but I agree the smaller ones are dominating the field a bit. The great thing about starnet++, in PixInsight anyway, I assume it's the same for the main program, is you can use it to create a star mask after a minimal stretch and then subtract this from your image to produce the starless image. I prefer this way as it is quicker and you get the stars and the starless image to work on independently. I then work on the starless image and add the stars back right at then end, giving me much tighter stars with better colour.
I tried this object two years ago from a dark location near Parkes NSW with the Canon 6D + 70-300L and Astronomik UHC-S filter, but not that good.
I'll try again soon (in Feb I'll visit down under again).
The filter makes all the difference. NB is best and broadband really doesn't work. It seems that the L-Enhance or STC Duo do a decent job but maybe the UHC is still a bit too broad?
Tony, just a note of something I've seen in many of your images - all are black clipped. Back off the left side of the curve a fair bit. You are not only hiding extra detail in black clipping, but the sky looks unnaturally black. See the attached Photoshop analysis - the curve should be visible as a bell curve on both sides, but here you can see the blacks (left side) are heavily clipped.
I plan to add a few more hours to this image so I'll keep that in mind next time Lewis. I only use lights and have a tendency to clip to varying degrees to reduce noise.
Do both options like Paul suggested and you can always cheat a little and dim the smaller stars if you think it looks too busy (see below). Sorry but I couldn't help myself and just had to have a play around. There's a loss in sharpness but the smaller stars are more subdued. You've got great data to work with already and with more subs it'll be rock'n.
