Default StarTools

[Benjamin]

Had a nice night of exploring new gear: imaging with f9 ED100 (reduced to 7.65 with Skywatcher FF/FR) and using a TOAG. Guiding was a lot wilder with the TOAG (compared to my finder guider) which I assume was to with the focal length I was guiding at. My polar alignment wasn't bang on either, but close enough I thought. I got, in the end, an hour and 10 minutes on M8, calibrated with matched darks and bias removed flats. I thought I'd process it with the default StarTool settings, given a bit of playing with the region of interest in the second (post wipe) Auto Dev. Thoughts on this welcome as is any reprocessing as long as you tell me what you did! Cheers.

[billdan]

Hi Ben,

The M8 nebulosity has come out really good, the only criticism I can offer is the lack of star colour and the purple background.

I also use Startools and the colour module usually produces vivid orange and blue stars.

So I'm not sure what when wrong there.

If you saved the 16bit Tif version you can reload it into Startools and go into the colour module and tweak the settings.

Cheers
Bill

EDIT: This is a link to M8 I did last year with Startools
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=147095

[Benjamin]

I never quite know which option I should choose when starting an image in StarTools, given I'm using a modded DSLR with a CLS-CCD filter, and the .fit image file is already stacked, normalized and debayered in Nebulosity. The first image was done selecting option two. The image below was option 1 (if that makes sense). In the end I seem to get similar results although I found a setting in the color module that better balances RGB and makes the background darker. The CLS-CCD filter messes things up a bit I think. Not sure what to do about star colour? Anyway second version attached.

[billdan]

I always use option 2 (Linear, was bayered is not white balanced) as I stack with Astroart and I can turn off white balancing.

I remember reading a thread on the Startools forum about light pollution filters, the problem is they strip out the yellow part of the colour spectrum (sodium lamp rejection). This makes it difficult for Startools to get a good colour balance.

This question comes up a lot on their forum and the tips on how to overcome it, so its worth reading through if you haven't already done so.

http://forum.startools.org/

Cheers
Bill

EDIT: This is a link about the CLS filter and its problems
http://forum.startools.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1182

[Benjamin]

Thanks Bill. I had read that forum a while back but haven't really nutted out the solution (shooting two types of data, with and without filter). At least that explains the lack of yellow star colour :thumbsup: I think I'll just do a session without the filter once the moon goes away and work with a greater number of shorter subs. With the filter under lots of LP I can get a nice 5 minute sub so might drop back to half that without it. Or get down to a dark site...

[ChrisV]

I'm a complete beginner with AP and startools. I've been stacking raw images in DSS with no colour balance (the startools forum has a guide on what to do in DSS). Save as 16 bit fits files - then fumble around in startools !!!

[billdan]

I think we all do that Chris, whether its Photoshop, Pixinsight or Startools we all start fumbling around for a few months until we get onto a work flow that we are happy with.
Then we start saving 5 or 6 different versions of the same image because we can't make up our mind which one is better.

I feel your pain mate.

Cheers

[ChrisV]

No pain. Is fun. At least I know I'm on the right track then - I'm accumulating several post-processed versions of image.

And thanks for your comments on Ben's nice lagoon. Really helpful for others (like me) looking !

[Benjamin]

In the spirit of countless new versions, here is a reprocess that gets close to star colours (I think?) and brings in more pinky blues I associate with my unmodded DSLR. Difference for this one was that I initially binned 50% and didn't redo the global stretch after the wipe, but rather stretched the image as is. Colour was done with tracking still on so that was different as well. The blacker background was courtesy of a mask used in the Life module to isolate the nebula. Anyway, I'm curious as to your thoughts.