Startools on M42 Orion

[Startrek]

Took some longer exposures of M42 on Saturday night in Sydney to see how well Startools could clean up the light pollution, noise and everything else that accompanies an old DSLR
30 x 3 minute subs
15 x darks
No flats
Canon 600D stock
6” f6 newt ( a lot of people said ah it’s just a little visual scope get a refractor )
PHD2 Guiding with my new ZWO ASI120MM-S USB3 camera
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools
Attached 1 x light frame jpeg and final processed image
Startools is a winner !

[casstony]

Nice result Martin, especially with a 600D at this time of year.
How does Startools handle the bright core ...… layer masking or some magic one click button :)

[Startrek]

Thanks Casstony
I was pleased with the outcome and yes the core is always a topic of conversation with M42
Startools has a Layer module which I haven’t delved into as yet , there’s so much to absorb and experiment but will get there with time and patience
Cheers

[Karlzburg]

Star tools is great to use. More for less function works a treat for noise.

Looking good Martin, I had a 5 inch newt and was amazed by what it could do.

[Startrek]

Thanks Karl
Out there at Mudgee I don’t think you need to use Wipe in Startools as the sky’s are so clear and clean
I have to travel 220km down the coast to my holiday pad to get similar dark skies, makes it so much more enjoyable when I’m down there
Keep up your images looking good !!!

[Karlzburg]

Yeah I use wipe after auto dev then AD again, contrast, hdr, decon, sharpen, colour, life. That about my work list for star tools.

[Startrek]

Karl,
This is my rough Startools workflow for this image -
Bin 50%
Develop 75%
Crop
Wipe 75%
Decon
HDR reveal core 1.8 to 2.0
Contrast Aggressiveness 30%
Sharpening amount 250%
Colour star mask - colour all stars only ( bluish white )
Colour invert mask - colour Nebula ( RGB to taste )
Denoise Grain size 5 pixels , read noise compensation 50%
Magic -Create Star mask invert,use Lassoo on 3 large Stars, use Magic to Shrink and reduce halos plus Shrink the odd hot pixel
Magic - Create Star mask use Magic to expand core of all stars
Filter - create Star mask, conservative nudge
Save to file
Finished

Cheers
PS: trying to get my head around Layering to clean up the core in M42