The Trifid Nebula: up close and personal!

[Dave882]

Well I’ve been having a bit of fun with a bunch of galaxy shots but thought I’d try something different and with M20 coming up around midnight ish this was a very attractive target to autorun till dawn.

I thought I had it framed ok but turns out my first attempt was a bit off and my ASIAIR Pro is not hitting the same fov after meridian flips. As a result I decided to turn it into a 2 panel mosaic and shot some more 2 nights ago. Guiding was excellent (0.4rms) on the first night but I couldn’t get it right on the second with RA a bit jumpy and total guiding round 0.6rms. Disappointing but I needed the extra data…

Soooo…I present to you my first attempt at a long FL nebula mosaic! Pixel peekers may be offended by my non-edgeHD optics and yes a few eggy stars can be seen if you zoom in but I’m still really happy by the result!

I was particularly happy to have clearly resolved the stellar jet as well as the stellar stalk (my daughter has now officially named the region the snail nebula). But there’s lots of other interesting detail within this beautiful object and so I did a few crops to present them separately.

The original TIFF output is huge and my OneDrive account keeps on crashing with it so while I work that out the jpgs will need to suffice.

Here’s the big jpg version which still allows for some zooming in…

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArpSiLT3VkGHiPI5LTAeChkrNowjCg

C14 @f7
Eq8
Asi2600mc pro bin1
Asi290mm with celestron OAG
90x120sec + 61x120sec subs
ASIAIR Pro
AAP

Would be interested to hear some feedback as I took a few stabs in the dark regarding contrast and stretch vs noise and background brightness. Or perhaps a bit more data needed..?

Cheers and thanks for looking
Dave

[multiweb]

Very nicely done. :thumbsup:

[Dave882]

Thanks Marc!

[AstroViking]

Very shiny indeed!! Well done.

[AdamJL]

Gosh that is lovely. Really nice colours, and loads of detail! Could do with a touch of noise reduction, but I'm nit picking. Beautiful. You've cemented by next target :)

[Startrek]

Some nice detail up close
Conditions obviously helped
A tad noisy but that’s expected when you crop and lose some resolution
Did you Bin the image and apply some Decon ?
From memory you use Startools ?
Your churning out some lovely images from that big rig
Cheers
Martin

[Dave882]

Thanks Steve, Adam, Martin. I appreciate the comments.
Yes noise reduction/processing is something I haven't got my head around yet. At the moment i'm just using APP to stack and a couple of basic post processing operations. On this one, I did background and colour calibration, star reduction, and then stretch, contrast, saturation, sharpen sliders. My only solution for noise reduction at the moment is more data, but with so few good nights thats a tough ask. And then I get like 100 ads for Topaz in my Facebook feed...it like they know me better than I know myself.

Here is the link to the large 224mb TIFF file.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArpSiLT3VkGHiPI636RUhop0dMqoeQ?e= JY3ABv

Could you please let me know if the noise is still as bad? I think I've really buggered up the image quality of some of those crops by doing a double size reduction but let me know what you think.

I tried to import the raw stack (linear) into Startools 1.8 and attempt some more advanced image processing. I've probably spent about 15-20hrs playing with Startools (on a few different images) and am yet to be able to get an image that is as good as what I can get straight out of APP. I know it's probably something I'm doing wrong but even when I try to copy the walkthroughs / procedures there's something thats just not working and the end result lacks detail or any clarity. I'm not giving up but just bit by bit I'll keep working on it and I'm sure eventually I'll work it out.

Cheers guys

[foc]

Extremely impressive. I think I like the first Triffid image on the left the best as the star color look a just a little bit nicer at that scale.

[Startrek]

I’m happy to look at your ST workflow if you wish
Also to get the best out of Startools you need to comply with the attached prerequisites otherwise it can’t jump through hoops for you
Also maybe try stacking in Deep Sky Stacker ( free )
Your stacked file inclusive of Calibration frames is just as important as your lights using any processing software
Cheers
M.

[AdamJL]

I ran it through Topaz with NO sharpening (which can introduce some issues if used aggressively), and it cleaned up nice. The settings used are in the file name. I can upload it to your OneDrive if you want?
I'm also running it through EZ Denoise in PixInsight and can upload that copy as well

[AdamJL]

here's a before/after using EZ Denoise at very high zoom in the top right hand corner. Heaps better.

[Dave882]

Hey mate thats awesome. And those corners by far the noisiest part of the image (prob only about 2hrs integration there) and has cleaned up nicely. Shame it can't correct the coma :lol:.

Here's a link for a folder you could upload files to. I'd be very interested to see how that looks. Much appreciated!

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArpSiLT3VkGHiPI9vB9ravW0MGd2NQ?e= qJpNpd

[Dave882]

Thanks Ross. Yes I have to agree - sct's under heavy zoom...those stars are pretty hard to tame! Cheers



I appreciate that Martin and will probably take you up on that offer. Next time I'll keep a note of every process and maybe you can spot my mistake/s.
I've tried dss several times, but have to say i'm impressed with how powerful and easy to use APP is for stacking. Just for example on this m20 image, i had essentially 4 separate images (2 nights, east & west of meridian) all of which exhibiting different LP gradients. I put them all into one integration and it worked it all out perfectly. I can't even see where it joined it together. I've seen from a few forums online that Startools should be able to work with the linear FITS output from APP...just never been able to pull it off myself

[AdamJL]

2 files on their way! Should be there in 5-10mins

[Stephane]

These images are excellent. Colour and detail are outstanding. If I’m being picky, I’d also agree with the noise comments. You could either add integration time without further stretching, or learn to denoise with your favourite processing software. Well done on such an excellent image! Such a beautiful target.

[Dave882]

Thanks Stephane your kind words are much appreciated. M20 is indeed an absolutely stunning target! The 2600mc certainly helps make the most of things, and the fact that the c14 is gathering light 3x faster than my c8 doesn’t hurt either!. Up until very recently I’ve been visual and eaa astronomy only. My goal in astrophotography has been to try and improve just one thing at a time and enjoy the journey. Looks like working through reducing noise will be something to attack soon - but I think this is going to have to be a software-solution imaging from my suburban location.
Thanks again mate

[AdamJL]

Just sent the files again, David. They really were "quick and dirty" edits. You can spend more time extracting more noise and keeping finer detail as well. Best of luck.

[Dave882]

Thanks so much Adam I really appreciate you taking the time to give me a look at what some of the more advanced processing options moving forward might be. :thanx:

[AdamJL]

no problem, David. Good luck on your next steps.