Thought I’d better add an Eagle to the mix

[Benjamin]

Not a lot of sophisticated processing has gone on here and I am lacking good data (especially OIII). However I felt I got a nice result. Very much open to suggestions of course. Planning on adding more data (time and flu permitting!) but maybe not RGB stars. I kind of like the way the purple stars have rather accidentally become an intense blue.
https://www.astrobin.com/full/418906/F/

[Peter Ward]

Nice...but

I find it odd that the diffraction spikes have gone AWOL :question:

[strongmanmike]

Yeah the colour looks good Ben :thumbsup:

Mike

[Benjamin]

Oh, I didn’t do anything to them? Not sue how they got swallowed, maybe lost to some noise reduction and in my incessant fiddling? Do you miss them or is more that they are still kind of there but too blurry now? Could be also that the rather terrible OIII data has also had a role to play in messing up some of the Ha clarity. It’s pretty ugly and low res if you get close :-/

[Benjamin]

Thanks Mike. Hoping some more data (at some distant cloud free/work free moment) might help go a bit deeper and help me push things a little more.

[Benjamin]

Realised something very fishy was up with the O3 data (wrong filter set perhaps) so got some more tonight and thus a slightly more complex rendition. As always thoughts/help welcome.
https://www.astrobin.com/full/418906/I/

[Placidus]

Super-good. Well done!

[multiweb]

Very nicely done indeed. One for the poolroom. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Benjamin]

Cheers. It’s this hobby that kind of negates having the cash for a pool room!

[Benjamin]

Many thanks :-)

[Geoff45]

That’s nice Ben. Clear detail and good colour.

[Benjamin]

Thanks Geoff. Hoping to get a bit more colour in the pillars in the next process :-)

[Andy01]

Lots of work gone into this and it’s looking really good.:thumbsup:
Just a couple of hundred purple stars away from brilliant! 😀
Colour palette is well chosen too. :)

[Benjamin]

Cheers Andy. Might be a while for RGB stars but should be close to making some white(ish) ones :-)

[strongmanmike]

The latest version looks great Ben, quite a grand feel :thumbsup: I do like slightly magenta stars in NB images but if you could deal with the blue-purple ones it would look better :thumbsup:

The Eagle Nebula is a magnificent object in NB

Mike

[Benjamin]

Perhaps no longer so grand but more variety of colour perhaps and whitish stars. Getting into a weird processing zone so thought I’d through this one out for any ideas? RGB stars would be nice but the moon has to move a bit.
https://www.astrobin.com/full/418906/BA/?nc=user

[Benjamin]

Way too many versions of this now but ended up happy with this colour version before I (hopefully) collect and add the RGB stars. Curious about ideas for adding RGB stars. It’s seems some benefit might result from using the RGB star size for the brighter stars, and maybe using the Ha star profiles for the smaller ones? Do people do this or is the result rather naff? Better to be either/or? Any/all advice welcome.
https://www.astrobin.com/full/418906/BR/

[Andy01]

Hi Ben,

I remove all the NB stars from my Ha/O3 & S2 masters with Starnet++
It's fiddly to drive on a mac but works brilliantly!

Then I overlay the RGB stars using lighten or occasionally screen blend mode in PS.

RGB star sizes can then be further controlled to taste with Astronomy tools "reduce star size" action.

Hope that helps!

Andy

[Benjamin]

Thanks for the reply Andy. Although recent award winning images of yours don’t necessarily feature stars (!) I really do love the stars on your images. I don’t use PS (only PI) but perhaps I can figure out a mirroring process :-)

[dave_galera]

Hi Ben, I do the following all in PI....

1) using PI only create a starless image with StarNet then use pixel maths to get an image of the stars, i.e. stars = original - starless

2) work on the starless image to bring out the background/nebulosity etc.

3) to add stars back into image use pixel maths i.e. new image = processed starless image + stars saved from 1)


Of course you can also reduce the star sizes before adding back to the processed starless image
As Andy commented it is a pain on a Mac but there is a process module for the windooze version of PI



Hope this helps

[Benjamin]

Cheers Dave (and like the Poodle profile pic!). I already do starless tone maps for each narrowband channel, combining them and working on colour, and then add to this a combined Ha/O3/S2 luminance, which gives me back nice tight white stars. After getting a quick LRGB image for the stars (not sure if I need the L?) I’ve used Rick’s method of separating the L,a,b channels of both the SHO and LRGB and then blending the a and b channels with a star mask made from the SHO image. With an iterative approach I can get some okay star colour. However when I compare the narrowband stars to those Andy (and others) have in their images I reckon I’m missing the natural ‘dazzle’ I associate with nice star images. Maybe I need to shrink the LRGB stars to match the narrowband profiles in the star mask more (enough to get the LRGB core colour without over-saturating the LRGB image) or maybe work on the L channel somehow to add the LRGB star profiles? The star mask is all rather crucial and often introduces some unwanted background colour and diffraction spikes are left out of the mix altogether. Think maybe another approach is required? Maybe PS is another software necessary to indulge in?

[dave_galera]

Sounds if you have all the basic methodology you just need to play around until you get what you want.
Don't forget that the stars extracted from pixel maths (stars = original - starless) is almost a perfect star mask in its own right.


Thanks for poodle comment, that is a picture of Belle my English Show Champion.