Carina Widefield L-Extreme

[Nikolas]

Took this with the Skywatcher ED 72 and 0.85 reducer

Processed this in Astropixel Processor, separated the channels into HA and O3 and recombined them
Further to that In Photoshop I tweaked the image then pasted as a luminosity mask the HA which did a great job of taming the stars and enhancing the nebulosity. Did a further starnett++ and created a star mask, worked on the nebulosity of the starless image then recombined the stars in linear dodge mode. Gabriela stands out more which is what my aim was as I didn't have the .85 reducer last time I imaged this.
26 x 300 secs asi zwo 294mc with the Optolong L-Extreme

[JA]

Great Image Nik:thumbsup:
Looks like you're on a winner with the masking and the teeny weeny stars.

Best
JA

[Nikolas]

Thanks JA it's learning process but double the processing times I do enjoy it when I have the time.

[Astronut07]

Nik

Fantastic image with great details
I’ll have to try splitting channels as you have done as I have Zwo 1600mc & l extreme filter

Cheers

[Robert_T]

Beautiful nick. Great processing. You've really brought out the structure in the nebula while retaining a natural looks especially with the stars.

[AdamJL]

WOW!!! One of the best Carina shots I've seen.
You'll have to (please!) write up a full walkthrough of how you did that edit. OSC in dual-band and this is the result? You're a master

[Nikolas]

Not sure why the multi quote is not working but thanks everyone.
As for the workflow I'm still experimenting with the process but it's getting better.
Much of the stacking and channel separation is done in Astropixel Processor, same goes for the recombination of colours. The rest is done as described in Photoshop stretching and layer masks etc.



When I do find time I may make a youtube video but being a busy teacher that's on the backburner for now.

[Astronut07]

Nik

well hope you do put a youtube tutorial up will be of great value

Cheers

[AdamJL]

Do if for your students then, I'm sure they'd love it! (regardless of age :))

[Placidus]

An excellent widefield. What can be achieved with a small widefield scope and a modern cmos camera continues to astonish.

The only reason for getting a big 20 inch scope like ours is if you really do want to see 200 background galaxies in your image. Otherwise, we're just making things hard for ourselves.

Separating into stars and nebulosity, processing them separately, and then recombining seems to be a very good technique.

Earlier I wrote "What is the advantage of linear dodge over just adding stars to starless, which is what we do?", but I looked up the maths and linear dodge is in fact just exactly that, adding stars to starless. Slowly we learn.

Well done!

[Nikolas]

Thanks Mike

I tried Screen mode and it was ok but linear dodge definitely is more accurate with re-adding the stars

[petershah]

Wow that is just stunning....one day I might get the chance to do this one

[Andy01]

Lovely colour palette and a solid 3D appearance. :thumbsup:
The tiny jpg has crucified the detail though, do you have a link to a larger version?

[Nikolas]

Hi Andy
Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier, I was on school camp.
Here's my Astrobin image (https://www.astrobin.com/full/lih80d/0/) (got awarded top pick)