My first LRGB Image

[E_ri_k]

I was curious to compare my QHY10 to a mono CCD. Peter (Poita) very generously lent me his SBIG 2000XM to have a play with. Naturally after it had arrived the weather here was terrible for about 4 weeks. I managed to squeeze in 4 hours in total over a 3 week period.
1 hour each of L:R:G:B data was the best I could get under the conditions. Read loads of tutorials on the processing side. I probably did it wrong, but I got an image :)

I calibrated and stacked each channel in Maxim, then processed each channel slightly in Pixinsight, giving more attention to the Luminous frame, then combined them Pixinsight, and a bit of sharpening in CS5.

I'm sure more can be done with it. I'll have another go at the data if there is anything I could do better or differently processing wise.

Any feedback would be great!
Erik

[Rod771]

Well done Erik:thumbsup:

Gotta be happy with that!

[RickS]

Looks good for a first LRGB, Erik!

[Saturn%5]

Very Nice :thumbsup:

[E_ri_k]

Thanks guys, yeah I'm really happy with it. Is there anything I could do to improve it? I'm not too sure on the colour? The blue channel was very strong and needed cutting back a bit.
Erik

[graham.hobart]

I love it!

Just as an aside- I have just bought a mono with filters and I am curious as to which tutorials you found useful- I find the Maxim manual slightly vague especially when trying to get info on stacking narrow band.
I wonder whether you would share your info with me (and others) so I can have a look?
(or if you want to PM me with your thoughts)
I think you did a grand job and would appreciate your info
Cheers
Graham

[Poita]

Glad you finally got that blue channel captured!

It looks great, and the processing is really good for a first go, or a third go even.

Maybe pop the data up for people to have a play with?

[EricB]

Great job, Erik. You must be happy with the result.

Eric

[E_ri_k]

Thanks for the good feedback guys!

I will Peter. Goto remember how to upload them to the dropbox again......


Thanks Graham:) I found that the online Maxim tutorials were quite good, although the only ones I read for maxim have been for OSC calibrating aligning and stacking, no processing. Thanks to Nathan (whzzz28), the pixinsight tutorials were the best:
http://www.harrysastroshed.com/pixinsighthome.html
They were really the only ones I read. A few random ones on google as well . I cant help you with the narrowband stacking, I never got any Ha data. What camera did you get?

[E_ri_k]

Ok...If anyone is keen on having a play with my data, here it is!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1e7dm8h6rfc6buy/Blue%20Master.fit
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5a86mu4ydklkyt/Green%20Master.fit
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s755mctq7fanozy/Red%20Master.fit
https://www.dropbox.com/s/gixbvul1kuhhxp5/Luminous%20Master.fit

So each channel has been stacked and calibrated separately. However no flats have been added because the camera orientation changed slightly for each channel because the weather was so bad for so long it took me ages to get all the data!

DBE in PI worked pretty well to neutralise any gradients though.

I'm sure you guys can do better than me ;)
Have fun!
Erik

[Geoff45]

Nice pic and really good for a first LRGB. Stick with the PixInsight-it gives you a running start.
Geoff

[E_ri_k]

Thanks Geoff. Are there any general rules I should stick to in regards to exposure times for L and RGB frames. I have read a lot of different opinions saying that you need equal RGB to L, others say fewer RGB, and that you can even bin the colour frames to save time?

Erik

[E_ri_k]

Had another play in Pixinsight. I processed each channel a bit more before combining them. I think the colour channels haven't alligned properly? A lot of the stars have a blue and red tinge to them. Anyone have any ideas why that is. Would maybe tracking errors in some colour frames make that happen. Say if I had some oval stars in the Red frames, that would show up as a Red "edge" on the affected stars? Also realised I can adjust how much of each colour channel is applied......Not really happy with the artificial diffrection spikes I put in, but I had gone too far to undo them in the end....
Erik

[Poita]

There are black dots all over the image on my screen.
Have you calibrated your monitor?

[E_ri_k]

I also have the black dots Peter, I don't know what they are. They appear in all the frames. I think they are hot pixles maybe. They appear white in the uncalibrated images, but then go black after calibration?

Erik

[NasaNerd]

dude thats a sick picture!

[Larryp]

Really nice, Eric!

[E_ri_k]

:) Thanks

Thanks Larry, making progress I guess:lol:
Erik