NGC 3576 Statue Of Liberty

[Geoff45]

Quite tricky processing this one. The Ha tends to overwhelm everything. Rick Stevenson's ColorMask script in PI does a good job of taming it.

http://www.astrobin.com/300398/
Higher Res here http://www.astrobin.com/full/300398/0/

Telescope: 12.5" Plane Wave CDK
Camera: FLI Proline 16803
Exposure: 8.3 hours
Mount: AP900GTO
Filters: Astronomik Ha, OIII, SII all 12nm
FOV: 49' x 49'
Date: May, 2017
Processing: PixInsight

[RickS]

Hi Geoff,

I've never tried this target but I'm quite prepared to believe it is a tricky one! That's a nice result.

If you're feeling adventurous I reckon you'd get an even better result by trying a simplified version of JP Metsavanios tone mapping. You need to remove the stars from the NB masters for the colour combine (I use a combination of MMT and MT Erosion with a star mask.) Then you can do a heavy noise reduction and seriously stretch even the weak NB channels. For luminance I often combine the original Ha (with stars) with the starless Oiii and Sii using PixelMath. That gives you lum with nice small stars but still shows structure in the Oiii and Sii. It's quite a bit of work but can produce some really nice results...

Cheers,
Rick.

[Geoff45]

Thanks Rick. I'll give it a go. After all, what's the point of having something as powerful as PI and not using it to push out of your comfort zone.

[strongmanmike]

Not bad Geoff, if I recall, the seeing wasn't being that nice to you at the time..? The peppermint green and caramel chocolate palette is different....makes me feel like eating a peppermint crisp :P

Mike

[Placidus]

Hi, Geoff,

We reckon this region is intrinsically confusing and cluttered, and hard to do well.

You've done a sterling job at making sense of it. A pleasing result. Nicely done.

[Geoff45]

Thanks Mike. You are right. The seeing wasn't too good so I had to resort to (Shock! Horror!) deconvolution and sharpening. As for the colour, there is a vast variation online--never the scheme twice. Even for me this was v6 and v1-v5 were all different.


Thanks Mike and Trish. I think Rick's suggestion of taking out the stars may help to reduce the clutter.

[marc4darkskies]

Nice job Geoff in spite of the seeing! I confess I'm not a fan of the palette though.

[Geoff45]

Thanks Marcus. What would your preferred colours be?
Geoff

[marc4darkskies]

Well, on the understanding that it is entirely personal taste and the fact that you asked, I don't care for "cool" looking colours. I prefer to see warm colours. See very quick & dirty illustration below ... which utterly destroys your nice star colours and pays scant attention to the science :D.

[Geoff45]

Looks good Marcus. I'll have another go at it when I get back from Wiruna.
Geoff