30hrs on the Grus triplet

[codemonkey]

This was basically a filler in between other targets, but I ended up accumulating a lot of RGB due to poor seeing... figured it was a waste to get so much blurry RGB and not get a decent amount of L to go with it. So what started out as a filler turned out to be my longest integration to date.

Coolest thing about this field, besides the fact that the obvious attractions are approx. 75mly distant, is the plethora of background galaxies.

Low res / capture details here (https://www.astrobin.com/z1cmrt)
High res here (https://www.astrobin.com/full/z1cmrt/)
Full res here (https://www.astrobin.com/full/z1cmrt/?real=)

[Andy01]

Awesome result Lee - doing what you do best! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

That is quite nice Lee. Detail is excellent and background quite smooth. Colour looks great.

[glend]

Nice work Lee.

[Atmos]

Excellent work Lee, this shows that nothing beats sheer quantity of data for a smooth result :)

[strongmanmike]

Wow Lee...one of the best Grus triplet images I have ever seen, you have turned what I have always considered a rather boring group of galaxies into a detailed colour fest :eyepop::thumbsup: love it.

Mike

[Placidus]

Breathtaking and definitive. The Lee Deep Field.

The big galaxy at about 4 o'clock has a hole in it toward bottom left, rather like NGC 247.

Superb work.

[Slawomir]

Wow - NGC 7582 in particular is presented exquisitely :thumbsup:

[Retrograde]

Great stuff Lee - a superb image. :thumbsup:

[peter_4059]

Well done Lee. Shows the value in lots of exposure.

[Benjamin]

Amazing image with wonderful detail and colour. I love the way the galaxies just hover in space.

[strongmanmike]

Hey Lee, Ive had a good look at this image on a good big monitor (my first post was based on the view on my phone) and it is an amazing image of these three babies :thumbsup:...but viewing at full resolution, there is some funky sharpening/detail extraction going on there :question:...particularly there is a section in the largest galaxy that almost looks like part of Jupiters cloud belts, that I haven't seen before in this galaxy :eyepop:...what is going on there? Is this from a specific sharpening routine you use?

Just in case the motivation of this post is misinterpreted, may I emphasis that I am not doing a form of infamous roll-over style attempt at discrediting here :rolleyes:, I'm just curious, it looks incredible :thumbsup:

Mike

[ChrisV]

Love it. The three big siblings are nicely offset by that extremely busy background of galaxies

[codemonkey]

Thanks very much Andy :-)



Thanks Paul!



Thanks Glen :D



Thanks Colin :-) I did do a reasonable amount of noise reduction on this one too, but I think it's fairly subtle when viewed at normal brightness. I often don't use much or any noise reduction on my luminance data, so combined with the longer integration this one is especially smooth.



Thanks Mike :) I thought I remembered you saying you didn't think much of this group once before... I just like three reasonable sized galaxies in the one field, but I really love all the background fuzzies.



haha thanks Mike :-) Have to say, cruising around this image reminded me of the hubble deep field; one of the images that got me into this whole game.



Thanks Suavi :-) I think that one might be a bit oversharpened, but eh... nothing's ever perfect :shrug:



Thanks Pete!



Thanks Peter :-) Yeah, my typical ~10hr images are looking pretty thin now...



Thanks very much Ben :-)



haha, can't get anything past you, Mike! Good pick up. I'm trialing out some AI software for both sharpening and noise reduction.

For sharpening on this image I did a very mild deconvolution on everything but the stars. From there I used AI sharpening which I applied to only the three main galaxies; I masked out everything else. I applied more on NGC 7582 than I did on NGC 7590 and NGC 7599, because 7582 had a kind of chunky look to the detail that I didn't like and that went away with more sharpening at the expense of some artefacts... which I prefer, but acknowledge isn't perfect :shrug:

The noise reduction I used I turned right down to the lowest setting and even that was too strong. I ended up blending it back into the image at 60% opacity.

[codemonkey]

Thanks very much Chris :-)

[strongmanmike]

Knew it ;)...decon, wavelets now AI huh?....hmmm?..I'm getting too old for all this, I'm still locked in the unsharpmasked era :lol: ...artificial vs natural...:help:

Where will it all end? :doh:

Great job Lee, luv yer work :thumbsup:

Mike

[cometcatcher]

Holy smoke! Makes all mine look underexposed.

[graham.hobart]

that is one amazing trio!! lovely and smooth, really beautiful.:eyepop:

[graham.hobart]

that is one amazing trio!! lovely and smooth, really beautiful.:eyepop:

[Peter Ward]

Bortle 3? Really? Want to swap for a 6 ? :sadeyes:

Like your work Lee.

Really fine star profiles, plus the colour is excellent. :thumbsup:

[codemonkey]

haha, I for one welcome our new AI overlords. Can't stand unsharp mask.

I've redone this now with less sharpening artefacts, less noise reduction and a slight colour tweak.



Cheers Kevin; more is always better when it comes to data. You could always add some more to your previous-season's work!



Thanks Graham :-)



haha, yeah, I have decent skies here. Unfortunately, as of Tuesday next week it's going to take me about 2hrs to get to work, so it comes at a significant time cost.

[strongmanmike]

Bravo :clap:...NOW it is essentially perfect :D...I may seem picky at times but I know what'm talk'n'bout girlfriend :nerd: :thumbsup:

Beautiful shot!

Unsharpmask Mike :P

[gregbradley]

Late to the party here.

Love the extremely detailed inner areas of the galaxies.Wow, that is really sharp, I like it.

Greg.

[Bart]

Gees, I wish my filler images looked like that!

[codemonkey]

lol thanks Mike, you were right as usual. I've since reprocessed it again, this time doing a bit of noise reduction and skipping the AI sharpening. It's a bit softer, but not much and overall I think it's an improvement.



Thanks very much, Greg :-)



Thanks Bart, glad you like it :-)

[marc4darkskies]

Very nice work Lee! :thumbsup: Great colour and crisp detail in the galaxies.

The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the stars look a bit soft compared with the crisp detail in the galaxies. Perhaps that's a personal taste thing? In any case, well done!!

[codemonkey]

Thanks Marc, that's good feedback. That was a combination of doing zero deconvolution on the stars and using ArcsinhStretch. Typically when I use deconvolution it messes the stars up a bit, so this time I masked them out entirely.

I've now done some careful deconvolution on the stars which has tightened them up a little bit without introducing any artefacts. They still look soft, but that's how I want them... they are a bit tighter now though. I also sharpened up NGC 7582 a little bit more.

[marc4darkskies]

Yes! That's a nice improvement Lee - the differential is not so noticeable. Excellent image!

My humble advice to anyone is don't be afraid of decon ... decon is your friend! :) The art, of course, is knowing when to stop before the artefacts creep in. Just ignore those pesky unsharp masking decon deniers out there :P ;) (No Mike, I didn't think about you once when I typed that! :scared3: :D :lol:)

[strongmanmike]

Ha ha, I was joking about the unsharpmaskaphile thing :P Just for the record... I do use USM but also decon semi-regularly too :thumbsup: While the decon in Astroart works ok with detail within galaxies and the like, I have never mastered its use successfully on stars :shrug: however, the unsharpmask in Astroart works well for stars and ok for the detail....so I use both in varying amounts, depending on the seeing and the object :thumbsup:

Mike

[marc4darkskies]

Yeah, different tools. Never looked at Astroart. I always do decon in CCDStack when stacking and building masters - mainly to reduce / normalise star sizes. It does a good job but you have to be careful. I also use various contrast enhancing & "tightening-up" techniques in Photoshop where I can mask and blend to taste.

[codemonkey]

Thanks Marc :-) Yeah I usually overdo decon if anything and I don't like what it does with the brighter stars that have clipped centers (which I always have some of)... it turns them into donuts. To avoid that, this time I built a contour mask for the stars and applied that while doing decon, which tightened the stars up without making donuts. I'll definitely be doing that in future.

[multiweb]

Very smooth. The full res is awesome. Lots going on in that fov. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[LostInSp_ce]

Wow! That's pure eye candy! :bowdown:

[codemonkey]

Thanks very much Marc and LostInSp_ce, glad you like it :)

[topheart]

Beautiful image Lee!
I really love it!
Cheers,
Tim

[Ryderscope]

Lovely image Lee and a good discussion on processing techniques. I tend to be old school and err on the side of less sharpening. Congrats on the nice work on this one.

[codemonkey]

Thanks Tim and Rodney! :-)