Latest Horsehead

[Gavin1234]

Here is my latest attempt at Horsehead, looks similar to the earlier versions but this one has more data and I think I can see more detail. Colours are less washed out in this version too.

This one is 134 x 5 min subs. Taken over the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately I had to crop quite a bit out because of some alignment issues caused by the earlier subs.

https://astrob.in/full/369833/0/

[multiweb]

Very nice, good color and details. Well done. :thumbsup:

[xelasnave]

Great image Gavin.
Your investement in time and money is paying off and without taking anything away from your wonderful image I bet a reprocess as you learn more will bring even more out.
I did find a way to minimise the large stars and I will post it if I can remember how I did it☺.
Dont forget Orion with your new skills you should do well with it.
Alex

[RickS]

Nice work, Gavin!

[Gavin1234]

Thanks guys. There’s just a couple more things I want to do with this target.

First is to get rid of the white/grey haze or sheen that’s on this image. Not sure which way to do it though. If I bring in the left side of my histogram any further I’ll be clipping data. Any suggestions on how best to do this? Basically I want to make the background just a touch blacker and sharpen it up a bit. Make the colours pop out a bit more.

Then I want to try and find a way to control the colours individually. I want to bring out more blue/less white in the large stars without taking away any orange from the flame nebula. Also keen to hear suggestions on what processes will do this for me, if it’s even possible.

While I’m learning to do that I’ll keep getting more data for a bit more detail.

[JA]

Hello G,

If you just want to get an idea of how things might improve, simply try the Autoenhance feature (a one button press autofeature) in Windows Photo (The photoviewer included as part of Windows [Windows 10 atleast]) under the Edit & Create Tab (screen top right) and then select Edit and then click on the magic wand icon in the Enhance your photo pane. Most times the autoselected outcome is close to the best result, but you can tune the degree of autoenhance somewhat. Like many of the contrast & sharpness boosting algorithms used for image editing there is a cost - some extra noise, but depending on the final image size you want it may be just dandy AND super easy. There is even a Clarity setting, but the noise may get pushed a little hard if you are too generous with its setting.

As an example here is a sample from a screenshot attached of a Before & After of your original HH image. the enhancement could be better with time and effort in PhotoShop, but this Windows Photo Autoenhance takes ONE button press and a few seconds to get an inkling of what's possible or hidden in your image.

The screen shot double image posted below was around 4MB, hopefully it won't be degraded too much by 200KB upload limit.
EDIT: It's better to compare the 2nd (before) and 3rd (after) image, than to use the double image, which suffered somewhat from upload sizing
Best
JA

[CalvinKlein]

That's a really impressive image !! It's my goal for the rest of the year to get a flame and horsehead this good. Last year I only had the Canon 6D and Sigma 50-500 lens with a Star Adventurer. Now I'm armed to the teeth with an EQ6-R mount, cooled ZWO cameras and MUCH faster lenses. So no excuses.