Lagoon SHO

[Atmos]

Going to have another shot at processing the colour side of this, happy with the synthetic luminance at the moment but I really HATE the stars in it :/ Still trying to teach myself an effective way of desaturating the stars without creating a white ring around the brighter ones. Getting better but not quite. So I have just done a cheap "fix" and saturated the image with a star mask to tone them down a couple of notches :)

What I personally particularly like about this regions is that it looks like there are so many layers of stuff going on, even though it is a flat 2D image. When you zoom back a bit it does look 3D, I guess it really helps having that blue backdrop with the golden filaments and black dusty regions :)
Just an FYI, I don't think this regions appreciated being dropped back into an 8-bit format :P

16x900" Ha
12x600" OIII
8x600" SII

Criticisms needed :P

Link to High Res (http://www.astrobin.com/full/250667/None/).

[RickS]

Nice detail, Colin! The best way I have found to deal with the magenta stars in SHO is to combine a separate luminance (with stars) and a colour image (without stars.) Removing the stars in copies of the NB masters is done with a star mask and repeated application of removing wavelet layers and MT Erosion.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Retrograde]

Wow - fantastic detail there Colin. :thumbsup:

[Atmos]

Thanks Rick, still trying to manage the star erosion without leaving star mask artefacts. Haven't looked at using wavelet layers yet so I'll give them some attention.



Thanks Pete, I am really happy with the detail... Just the nasty distracting stars!

[Ryderscope]

That's a lovely canvas Collin.
Whilst I see your point about the stars, the detail and colour in this rendition of a classic object is excellent.
Thanks for sharing your processing challenges as well as it helps others to observe and build their skills.

[Placidus]

Hi, Colin,

The level of detail, the overall colour and saturation, and the handling of the shock fronts in particular is magnificent.

Perhaps a slight tendency to become a bit diagrammatic or map-like due to the handling of the high dynamic range.

For me, the stars are never the point of a narrowband image, it's all those other things that you've gotten exactly right, and it bothers me that we are collectively bothered by the stars. I'm starting to think that embracing them and leaving them violet is actually the most authentic thing to do.

Very best,
Mike

[Atmos]

Thanks Rodney, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I am always best off drizzle integrating even if it doesn't increase resolution as much. My laptop doesn't like it so much but it does seem to make details come out more.



Thanks Mike. I actually don't mind having magenta stars, it's just the halos that do my head in for the most part. I find them a massive distraction, especially when zoomed out and there are numerous bright fluorescent pimples scattered throughout a nice nebula :)
I may have to try matching FWHM and see if that helps, they're close but not exact.

I have tried to be gentle with the dynamic range but I have certainly significantly flattened the image. Haven't actually seen what it would look like at full range yet, have to give that a shot :)

[strongmanmike]

Wowy colours there Colin and some great detail :thumbsup:...I have to completely agree with everything Mike said.

Re magenta stars, they look quite ok, I like having some magenta in the stars in NB images, it's only when they have magenta "halo's" does it look less than ideal :)

Mike

[Atmos]

Thanks Mike. I am going to have to go through and select all of the best FWHM subs to make a better synthetic Lum. Should be able to eek out a little more details.

Ran everything through CCDInspector, the problem has ended up being that my Ha subs (taken a week earlier) have FWHM around 2.7" while the OIII and SII are nearer to 3.5" which means that they have impacted upon their surroundings. Removing the stars doesn't help because there is still the larger impact. I tried using a deconvolution on the OIII and SII to closely match the Ha, still bad halos. Heading out for most of the night BUT if I run a nasty convolution on the Ha it may remove the halos as the Ha will match.

I really don't mind the stars at all, just the halos (as pictured below) burn holes in my eyes :P

[Slawomir]

I really like the detail and colours in the nebulosity Colin.

As for the halos, what Rick suggested works very well for me, and I tend to have even bigger OIII halos with my doublet. I found that the key here is to create an adequate star mask that needs to be modified for SII and OIII to include larger areas, and then I use AWT twice or three times to remove the stars in order to create tone maps for RGB.

I have also found that instead of adding original SII and OIII, it works better to add SII and OIII tone masks (starless) to Ha to create enhanced Luminance.

In some extreme cases, you can use CloneStamp tool on the tone maps to get rid of halos...but please do not mention it out loud, such practices are forbidden ;)