I know someone else put this up recently, but indulge me as I'm still trying to figure it all out
I took captured this on the 24th & 25th July (with sharpcap). ASI071 on my 80mm refractor, with guiding (PhD2).
This is 9x5min taken on the 24th. Stacked in DSS with flats&darks. Processed in startools. The colour is exaggerated. Maybe too blue as I think some of those stars should be white. And the red looks pink ...
The following night I got 32x 5min subs. I processed the same way, but it doesn't look as good. I can't figure it out. Maybe I need to go through the subs more carefully as there was a bit of cloud around.
First of all, you've produced a nice shot of the two objects. Very colourful to say the least!
Post processing is an art on its own with so many variables to choose from, if you don't have a regular work flow you can come up with a different result each time you use the same data. Don't despair! It's a real learning curve and you will get better at understanding what to do and not what to do.
Did you use a filter on this shot? I have a cls filter and with the modded camera nebulosity can sometimes turn out a bit too red. Just tone it down a little, reduce saturation or slide back the red channel, experiment.
Not sure why your 9 subs looked better than your 32 but it will probably be in your processing. Have another go.
Chris, I always check my subs before stacking, it can be very tedious to do, especially if you have many of them. I've experienced strange artifacts appearing in DSS after stacking that turned out to be corrupted subs which can occur when transferring or copying files from one disk to another. In my case I transfer the raw camera files on the SD card to the hard drive on the desktop, the corruption can happen then.
I've been getting into the habit of checking each sub for defects too. I think your pic is a matter of colour balance perhaps? The blues are strong which can make the reds pinkish. Not that there's anything wrong with that as OIII is bluish and it gets enhanced as well.
Thanks Kevin. I've found the wider field shots on my refractor harder to process than those from my newt. On the wider shots I finds the colour/contrast balance between DSOs and surrounding star fields tough.
Reprocessed in startools. Used the best 14x 5min subs (judged by score & star width in DSS - still trying to figure out how to do this better). Stacked in DSS and processed in startools. Its less fluoro now, but I lost a bit of nebulosity.
