My First...& Last Image - Take 4

[PKay (Peter)]

That's it for Orion. Time to move on. Any suggestions?

Two nights worth of data: 180 * 1 minute subs.
Processed (very quickly) with Pixinsight.

The only detail I seemed to gain was in the dust.

Once again, thanks for the help, it was almost a team effort!

However having said that, the more tips the better...

PS: A few of the images had meteorite lines. Pretty cool!

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

What you have is very good. You can see the fainter detail at the edges petering out with noise. More subs will help and as you have good control over the dynamic range already a few longer subs should help. M42 is not easy. What you have is great. Keep working at it. SCNR the green channel after the first histogram stretch with no mask in PI. If you haven't done so.

Pleaides...? Another challenging target...

[RickS (Rick)]

That's very nice, Peter. Colour is just a little off in the cyan/green and the SCNR suggestion is a good one. There's some star elongation in three corners so perhaps you should think about a flattener or adjusting the distance to the sensor if you already have one?

Cheers,
Rick.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

For what it's worth - a screenshot of a colour saturation method that works well in PI, without resorting to curves... FYI the image is ~60 minutes of 3 minute exposures.

I found this in a very old PI tutorial back when I started with v1.5 - it's hidden away somewhere in the archives.

It's a simple addition of the L or L* channel - extracted gray mask, applied with the mask active.

As an RGB image has an average luminance value of L, it's just a case of adding another L to get LRGB(L). If you are doing M45 it's ideal for boosting colour and retaining detail.

If you play around with the Gray image contrast you get different saturation effects.

Apply near the end of processing, following the first histogram stretch after SCNR green reduction and any Multiscale operations you might apply.

EDIT: usual caveats - don't overdo it and select the square button - not the round one to activate.

[GC - South Aus]

Peter

That really is a nice image, well done.

Cheers

Gav

[xelasnave]

You definetly need to get more data.

As Orion is an early morning target at the moment you have many nights before it gets directly overhead...well at the best spot...by then you will know what you have to do to make it even better.....you cant just say you have done enough there is always more....I spent three years ( well half of each of those years) imaging Orion and I never came close to your result.

I think that is a great image.. you should be proud.
Well done.

Given you are up early or go to bed late...what about the big A ..the photons are only 2000000 years old.
alex