Tears of Allah (image edited, revised and updated)

[Andy01]

OK - this one's finished at last!
NGC 3324 - Gabrielle Mistral Nebula in HST (Inspired by Rat 156)

Added 3 hrs S2, 2 hrs O3 and RGB stars to previous 3 hrs Ha & 2 hrs O3
Total of 8hrs data from both LMDSS Heathcote and my suburban backyard.

High res here - http://www.astrobin.com/153116/B/

Kind of reminds me of a cool lagoon in space :)

I hope you enjoy it, comments welcome. Thanks for looking.

Cheers

Andy

Final revised, edited High Res Version here - http://www.astrobin.com/153116/D/

[Kunama]

That is just beautiful Andy. My new desktop image .....

[pluto]

Very nice!
I love the colours :thumbsup:

[leon]

Excellent indeed, well done Andy.

Leon

[vlazg]

WOW !!!!:jawdrop:

[traveller]

That's awesome Andy, almost 3d.
Bo

[MortonH]

Freakin' awesome!

[Andy01]

Thanks Kunama, I'm delighted you liked it :)


Cheers Pluto, thx for the feedback :)


Thankyou for your positive comments Leon, much appreciated :)


Thx Vlazg, love the enthusiasm there, onya :)


Thanks Bo, yeah there is a bit of 3D going on, probably to do with the layering, maybe we need 3D glasses for these kinds of images, cheers :)


Thanks Morton, appreciate your feedback mate, cheers Andy

[DJScotty]

Beautiful image Andy! :thumbsup:

Is that a small section of the Running Chicken Nebula in the bottom right corner? (Pardon my astrographical ignorance...)

[danielsun]

Spectacular image!
Nice work. :thumbsup:

[jenchris]

Just when I start to get a little self esteem, someone posts an image of something I didn't know existed. Something so amazing that I have no idea how it was done.
Especially as I haven't even had 6 hours of seeing this year.

[FlashDrive]

Outstanding ... such beautiful colours .. :thumbsup:

Col...:D

[multiweb]

Nice pic.



This is the nebula also called gabriela mistral on the top end of ngc3372. Imaged quite a lot actually. Just different framing and thread title.

[SimmoW]

Really good Andy, that's gotta be one of your best images yet, both technically and aesthetically

[Andy01]

Thanks DJ - appreciate the feedback. No that's the nebulosity around the gem cluster you're seeing there. Cheers :)


Thanks Daniel, onya :)



Hey thanks Jenchris, but take it easy! It's taken me 2 years of learning and testing to get this image up! I first attempted it with my old OSC and soon realized after three attempts that I needed NB to get the effect I wanted.

I've had the QSI for six months, and it's finally coming together, the NB learning curve is steep too. Persistance yeilds its own rewards I guess :)





Thanks Flashdrive, cheers :)



Thanks Marc, yes you are quite correct - and it's also refreshing to interpret a target in a different way to the usual. Cheers :)



Thanks Simmo - maybe - it's a bit easier working on a bright target! Thx for the positive feedback though cheers :thumbsup:

[CJ]

Stunning!

[Geoff45]

Great shot Andy. Nice composition and lots of fine detail. I like the colour range.
Geoff

[Nikolas]

Stunning does not do it justice

[DrWho]

awesome, haven't seen this framing before :thumbsup:

[niharika]

Interesting title Andy :), nicely framed. I have a feeling you used tonal mapping. If that's the case I would like to see a post with a more traditional processing as well when you get a chance.

[Andy01]

Thanks CJ :thumbsup:



Thanks very much Geoff - appreciate your positive feedback :)


Cheers Nikolas - glad you liked it :thumbsup:



Cheers Dr - was "Inspired" by a colleague Rat 156 - his version is awesome too :)



Thanks Raki - I named it after the Gemstone and Secret location in the old Bond movie "Never Say Never Again" (Last with Sean Connery) - reminded me of desert, lagoons, and those themes.

Yes tone mapped - Astro Anarchy method. I prefer this to traditional methods.

Cheers Mate :)

[alpal]

Hi Andy,
I really like it although it looks a little over smoothed with heavy processing.
I like to see a bit of noise in the picture to see where the noise floor is.

cheers
Allan

[Andy01]

Fair point Allan, a touch too much NR I reckon- will revisit and upload a new version tmrw. Thanks for the constructive feedback :thumbsup: andy

[multiweb]

That's cool. The framing and orientation does make it look like a tear drop and the cluster makes it look interesting. Couple of things you might want to check, after looking at the high res. The shot is posterised so I suspect something happened with the Oiii channel during the blending or stretching. Also you have overused either noise reduction or sharpening as the shock fronts have a plasticish look. I suspect there might be a lot more fine details to be extracted from your data and the two points above are a good place to start.

[strongmanmike]

Yeah Andy, I agree with Marc, something in your workflow needs reviewing here...I've noticed the same thing in some of your other works. When viewed at the opening size on Astrobin it looks quite ok, even great :thumbsup:... but once the larger file is opened the issues become very clear

Perhaps the smoothing/noise reduction is too heavy or the ddp stretch or curves...? Not sure but can you see what we are talking about?

Mike

[Regulus]

That's nice and dramatic Andy. Well done.

Trev

[Paul Haese]

Agreed the full res image has lots of noise reduction / smoothing issues. In event it has a marked degradation.

The smaller images hide the problems.

[Somnium]

fantastic, just amazing

[Andy01]

Hi Mark - first let me thank you for your honest constructive feedback - it's much appreciated when trying to aim for a high quality image. I've revisited this with much less NR - let me know your thoughts. Cheers Andy



Thanks for chiming in Mike - I always appreciate feedback as it only helps me to improve - I have to remind myself that this is only my second year of AP and there's still so much more to learn - anyway - new version below, would value your thoughts on the revision with way much less NR.



Thanks Trev - appreciate your feedback, cheers :)



Thanks Paul, and agreed on all counts. - Methinks the big boys like yourself are being very generous with your constructive feedback - I'll take it though, many thanks - please see revision below.



Cheers Somnium - appreciate your enthusiastic response :)

Revised High res file here - http://www.astrobin.com/153116/C/
Another colleague has suggested the stars could be improved as well (dark haloes) - no problem, a reasonably simple fix, but that's something that will have to wait until tmrw night.

Thankyou one and all for all your input thus far :thumbsup:
Gotta love the IIS community :)
Andy

[strongmanmike]

No I don't think it is the noise reduction or smoothing that has created the paint by numbers look...not sure what it is but my guess is it is being caused by a filter you have used or aggressive curves...?

Mike

[multiweb]

No worries Andy. We're all learners and that's the way to do it.
Agree with Mike. Although the details look a little better there is still something going on with the colour channels. This happens when you stretch 8bits pictures and the histogram starts combing. It might be caused by your processing flow. Couple of questions.

Did you work off 16bit files to start with? I assume that if you've used tone mapping from astro anarchy then you've worked the channels in 16 bits correct?

[Andy01]

Hi Mike, yes I think you're on the right track - seems most of the smoothing was from the selective colour layer. New version below - just a very basic process and assembly only.



Hi Marc, yes 16 bit workflow - but as mentioned above - the bold colour shifts with selective colour layer appear to be the root cause. I've posted a very basic reprocess below - just assembling the 3 channels and some colour tweaks but not much else. I'll have to find a method to get the colour I want with a less aggressive approach. Interesting - thanks again for your input - I'm reasonably confident of a sharper final result forthcoming.

http://www.astrobin.com/154845/

Cheers

Andy

[DJScotty]

Andy, may I ask what program(s) you use for your processing? And even better, do you have a workflow or something like that? I always like to see how other people make their images and see if I can improve mine.

Cheers
DJ Scotty

[strongmanmike]

Ah huh! there you go, much better....now the colours can be tweaked again without bringing back the former posterised appearance...nice work :thumbsup:

Mike

[Kunama]

I still like the first rendition, a beautiful 'mural'.

[multiweb]

I think you can get the best of both worlds if you blend in your detailed shot as 65% LUM on top of your original color.

[gregbradley]

I've already commented on this excellent image but also wanted to say its very clever framing that makes this image. Gabrielle Mistral is a rather boring object but that rippled wave of Eta Carina is stunning and the colour is high impact.

Greg.

[strongmanmike]

I agree, it looks like a deep sea vent on the ocean floor :thumbsup:

Mike

[gregbradley]

+1, I was looking at this image. This one is spot on.

Its hard to go past the free Astrodon Narrowband tutorials. You have complete control over colour with that. As far as smoothing goes - yes its a bit like oversharpening (a little goes a long way) With smoothing too much is plastic and too little can be a bit noisy - a processing balance or mega data - your call. Best to do selective noise control like with any processing, selective areas that need it (dim areas) is always the way to go.

Greg.

[Andy01]

Thanks Kunama :)



Good idea - I'll try that and a complete reprocess as well and see what gives the best result. I suspect it will be worth spending the time to get it right as I'm keen to print this one.



Thanks Greg, but credit for the original idea goes to Stuart, (Rat 156) He was also gracious enough to lend me a hand on site at LMDSS when I was capturing the raw data. Thanks for your feedback though :)



Cool, it's nice when an image stirs our imagination a bit :thumbsup:



Wow, thanks for the tip - awesome - I'll go look for those now, cheers :thumbsup:

Andy

[Andy01]

Thanks Marc, Greg, Mike, Al, and Paul,

Some wonderful ideas and tips gratefully received from your good selves.

My final revision here in high res. http://www.astrobin.com/153116/D/

I have applied selective NR, selective sharpening, fixed the dark haloes around the original RGB stars, minimized artifacts, and used Selective Luminance layering from my original and re-composited versions. After umpteen iterations and variations I have finally arrived at this result.

I hope you like it, I've sure learned heaps from everyone doing this one, and all the constructive input is very much appreciated!

Clear skies :)
Andy

[Placidus]

Hi, Andy,

The final repro is hugely, hugely better than the original. For me, the biggest problem with the original was the mysterious posterizing, causing loss of detail and subtlety. That is gone. The fine detail now visible in the wonderful wispy stuff at the top of the image adds greatly, and puts the main nebula in context.

Best,
Mike

[gregbradley]

Yeah you nailed it now. Awesome.

The stars are perfect. Is that from the OAG? Is the mount that good as well?

Greg.

[Andy01]

Thanks Mike - I learned heaps doing this one - glad you like it :)



Thanks Greg - they're only 2min subs - with no LP filter from my suburban backyard too - the OAG made a heck of a difference to my guiding, now just need to hypertune the EQ6 and get the remaining slop out of the RA drive!

Cheers

Andy

[The_bluester]

Job for a weekend out at my place perhaps? Get a big bench into the garage to strip it down and lay it out for cleaning, tweaking and re assembly.

And the image really looks great now. Funny enough, I recall the "Face" being much easier to pick out in the early test shot though, there is so much detail there now that it is harder to see, you just get lost looking at the image.

[multiweb]

Well that's the money shot. Another one for the poolroom now. :thumbsup:
I like the framing so much I reckon I'll do my next one like yours.

[Andy01]

Cool - might be the framing orientation as well creating that effect :)




Thanks Marc, I really appreciated your input into creating this final result, cheers :thumbsup:

[alpal]

Hi Andy,
it's still not quite right.
When I take a small crop & split the channels
you can see that:
slightly in Green & strongly in Blue
that it looks like it's over sharpened.
It also looks like the Red has overpowered the picture.
Did you stretch the 32 bit FITS stacks with 32 bit stretching software such as NASA FITS Liberator?
It looks like especially Red could be stretched to reveal more contrast.
What is the true balance of colours when the efficiency of the detector is allowed for?
Anyway - it's still a vast improvement.

cheers
Allan

[multiweb]

:eyepop::lol: Gee you're a tough man Allan. I'm glad you don't split my channels. You wouldn't sleep at night. :P

[alpal]

I know - I'm too tough.
I take it all back. :)

cheers
Allan

[alistairsam]

Allan,

that's an interesting way of analyzing an image, but this is a NB composite with colour balance upto one's taste. so saying that Red is too strong isn't really applicable here.
it also depends on the DSO's composition and palette used to map them. so if the object is strong in Ha, that channel would obviously be stronger than the other.

I'm not sure of the method Andy used for sharpening and whether it was each channel, but its very interesting to see the blue channel, probably S2 and its probably weak so it shows up easily when you split.

This is a KAF8300 sensor so the QE at around 550nm would be the highest.


Cheers
Alistair

[strongmanmike]

:shrug:...well, I recon that split shows it is quite excellent data :question:.....

Bit like Sodium and Chlorine, when split they are each deadly :scared: but combined they are great on your fish mmmmmm

I have international award winning images that when split into RGB channels in PS some of the individual colour channels look like crap :eyepop: :lol:...put together?...different story ;)

Mike

[alpal]

Alright Mike & Alistair - I said

I take it all back. :)


cheers
Allan

[Andy01]

... and that's why we all love you Mike :)



Lol Marc, some of us need to get out more :)



Onya Al - whatever that all meant, couldn't have said it better myself! ;)



All is forgiven Al, you can come home again now, lol :rofl:

Seriously, thanks everyone - I appreciate ALL the feedback :thumbsup:

Clear skies. :)


Andy

[strongmanmike]

:lol:
...err?..maybe not all :face:

[alpal]

Andy,


Thanks Andy - :)

cheers
Allan

[rat156]

I would like to say that this is a fine image. I had the pleasure of meeting Andy recently, and I was a little taken aback when he said that my image of this object was an inspiration to him. He's done a fine job, and in true NB style it's been Sidonio'd a couple of times, maybe that's why Mike likes it as well.

Well done Andy on a fine image.

Cheers
Stuart

[dvj]

As others have said, your latest result is a huge improvement over your original posting. I've enjoyed watching the progress.

[strongmanmike]

Once an image has been Sidonio'd a few times there is no turning back, it is a disease...repro, repro, repro :P