Dark Dolphin swimming on a dark reef

[topheart]

G'Day All,

Barnard 252 in the Scorpius star cloud.

I was blown away by the masses and masses of stars in this field - the stars seem to be also all effected by dust also.

https://savannahskies.smugmug.com/Nebula/i-pKt3FqT/A

Straight RGB image taken with the FLI PL16803 +Takahashi BRC250 on a ParamountME at Savannah Skies. G2V colour balance.

Thanks very much for your thoughts.
Regards,
Tim

[Atmos]

That is fantastic Tim! SO many stars, like, a lot!
Very well handled :)

[strongmanmike]

Oh yeaaaah! Stars, Stars and more Stars.....?....and a Dolphin :question: great vista Tim, the gold looks spectacular!

Juuuust a smidgen of elongation in the stars but viewed at medium size it looks ok.

Mike

[DJScotty]

That's a great image.
Sooooooo many stars

[gregbradley]

A beautiful image Tim. Congrats.

Greg.

[topheart]

Thanks very much Colin!



Yeah.....thanks Mike! Too many stars to have them perfect!!.....You don't see a dolphin??



At least there is almost no background in the image to deal with! Thanks Scott.


Thanks very much Greg!! Your support on this forum is fantastic.
Cheers,
Tim

[Atmos]

For the record, I see a goanna and not a dolphin :P

[leon]

Na its a Dolphin I reckon, nice work indeed.

Leon

[topheart]

Hey Colin,
Now that you mention it...I also distinctly see a goanna walking over desert sand....Hmmmm

:D

Tim

[topheart]

Good on you Leon!
I see both now....my mind is getting even more scrambled than usual!!

Cheers,
Tim

[RickS]

Looks great, Tim! I love the "gold sand" look of the stars in this region.

[strongmanmike]

Yep, sure do :)

[marc4darkskies]

Very nice indeed Tim! :thumbsup: A little elongation but it doesn't detract from the overall effect. Beautiful star colours and a lovely golden field. Nice work!

[Andy01]

Crackerjack image Tim, really nice work! :)

[Placidus]

Yum!

Definitely a dolphin.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[topheart]

Thanks very much Marcus! It is a bit of a shame about the elongation .....but I can't see how anything can be done about it with processing with everything packed in so close together.....what do you think??

Cheers,
Tim




Thanks very much Andy!!



Thanks M+T!



Thanks very much Rick! I agree, a sea of golden sands! What do they say - more stars in our galaxy or universe than grains of sand on Earth or something....How would anyone know for sure??

[marc4darkskies]

I don't know how you would do it in PI, but in PS, it's easy. Disclaimer: nothing will fix elongation perfectly but it can be mitigated if the elongation is of the order of about a pixel or two (at the outside) like yours. Much more than that and you'll still end up with misshapen stars or other artefacts.

In Photoshop:


Flatten
Enlarge the image by 300% (to allow sub pixel manipulations)
Duplicate the flat layer
Change the blending mode of the duplicate to Darken
Select the whole image
Zoom in to an edge so you can see the pixels and an elongated star
Using "Free Transform", grab & shift an edge (on one axis) to reduce the elongation on that axis
If the elongation is diagonal (elongation along 2 axes) repeat for the second edge/axis
Always overdo it a bit and then use the opacity slider to blend the darken layer to achieve the best result (blink between the before and after)
If only a corner is elongated, you may need to use a mask on the darken layer to expose only the elongated area (with a very large fuzzy brush to get seamless transitions)
Reduce the image back down to 100% scale


NOTES:
1) Transforming from an edge will result in stars closest the the edge being altered the most while leaving those on the opposite edge unaffected. The effect will transition smoothly between the near and far edges/corners. This is good when elongation is more pronounced on one edge or corner.

2) If the elongation is uniform across the image then move the darken layer in the direction of the elongation rather than free transforming

3) it's not necessary to operate only on the stars since the whole image is affected by the elongation

4) if you have a star rounding application, script or plugin, that can help but only after the transformation. I don't use a star rounding tool

5) if you have a sharpen tool with motion blur that can also be beneficial (if the result is blended as darken) but it will affect the whole image equally and you will have a use a mask to isolate the area of the image affected by elongation

6) purists (and those with perfectly accurate equipment and guiding and zero flexure) hate this kind of stuff but as long as you only try to fix small elongations (of the order of less that two pixels) it can render the elongations practically invisible without significant side effects

Sorry, lots of words to describe something quite easy! :)

[Andy01]

Great and useful description of that process, thanks for sharing!
Maybe we should put up a thread on sharing more handy PS tips n' tricks?

Cheers

Andy

[strongmanmike]

Good approach Marcus and essentially what I have done in the past too when needed, especially with the big 16803 chip and piggy back guiding :scared:, (hardly ever an issue since using the small chip and OAG) but I found it not a great solution in a heavily stared region like Tims, it was always still noticeable....but certainly worth a shot and like you say, best when only a tiny amount of elongation is being delt with aaaand I may well not have applied it as masterfully as you too :question: :P

Mike

[topheart]

Hi Marcus,
Thanks very much indeed for sharing the details of this with us. It is greatly appreciated!!

Your technique certainly has a number of refinements from any like this I have seen before.

I will give it a go and see if I can improve the image.

Once again, I really appreciate you taking the time and trouble to post the details here.

Cheers,
Tim

[topheart]

HI All,

I tweaked the image very slightly.....


https://savannahskies.smugmug.com/Nebula/i-pKt3FqT/A

Thanks very much!
Tim

[strongmanmike]

A worthwhile tweak Tim :thumbsup:

This'd make a nice print

Mike

[topheart]

Thanks Mike!
Cheers,
Tim

[topheart]

Hi Marcus,
Thanks for this. It did indeed (I think) make a positive improvement to the image and the stars did reshape without ( I think) any obvious artifacts, even though the star field is so crowded, so that was a good lesson to see the technique works even with an image such as this.
Thanks again,
Tim

[marc4darkskies]

Ah yes! I see the improvement :thumbsup: Nicely done Tim and I'm glad the process worked for you. IMO, in many cases, it's the small things (usually easily fixed) that make or break a great image.