Dorado Galaxy Carina and Orion Nebulas

[Rusty2]

I took advantage of last nights clear skies .

All use the same 20 x bias , darks and 2 minute flats .
Orion nebula had 2 x 2 minute subs out of 7 , experiment .
Carina nebula had 12 x 2 minute subs out of 52 .
Galaxy in Dorado had 24 x 2 minute subs out of 94 .
Having problems with RA aggression . Have to tone it down a bit .

[Rusty2]

I realised this morning how overexposed these photos are .

A darker version of Orion

[Mickoid]

What were you using to take these - an f2 Astrograph? I'm amazed you can achieve this amount of detail and smoothess with such short integration times. Did you have to reject so many subs due to bad tracking? I'd like to know more about the equipment you used and where you took them. At a very dark location, I would assume. Also interested why you would take 2 minute Flats. Mine are typically in the thousands of a second range. They're all very nice shots and your reprocessed M42 is a beauty. :thumbsup:

[Rusty2]

Hi Mickoid !

Thank you : ) I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome . I'm using a SW Ed 150 triplet . A ZWO6200 OSC camera and the ASIair plus . My stuff is on a pier mount and it has an 82ED Evolux as a guide camera .

Yes , my RA guiding is way too agressive , have yet to deal with it .

Im at Bateman Bay . Class 4 .

Yeah , I meant 2 second flats and .1 second bias , oops .

So I had 2 x 2 minute lights , 20 x 2 minute darks , 20 .1 second bias and 20 x 2 second flats .

I stacked the data in ASIDeepstack . I strecthed resulting stacked tiff image in the pixinsight histogram . Then extracted the background using starxterminator . I then used noisexterminator and blurxterminator on the background only . I then opened the background in Lightroom and made it look nice .
I then took both images back to pixinsight , using pixelmath to join them back together . I took the resulting image back to lightroom . That's it .

For the new darker Carina image below , I experimented and didn't even bother extracting the background . I just slightly stretched it and sharpened it in pixinsight and enhanced it in Lightroom .

[John W]

Nice set of images - well done.

[Rusty2]

Hi John , thank you : )

[Rusty2]

Carina reprocessed .

The technical stuff was done with Pixinsight .
The cosmetic stuff with Lightroom .

https://www.astrobin.com/7sfaix/

[AstroViking]

Looking good Rusty! :thumbsup:

You're well on your way to establishing your own style / preferred colours. Keep up the good work - I can't wait to see more from you.

Cheers,
V

[Rusty2]

Thank you Steve : )

[tgnielsen]

Those are all stunning pics Rusty. You are inspiring me to ditch Siril and move over to PixInsight. I've never heard of LightRoom though. How do you use it?

[Rusty2]

Hi Trevor !

Sorry I missed your question .

Lightroom is another product from photoshop and yes it's subscription which I don't like but it's $171 a year which works out to be 46 cents a day . I have intermittently done a lot of photography over my lifetime and although I was never into Photoshop , Lightroom really is quite an impressive program .

The Photoshop subscription comes with Lightroom Classic .
https://www.adobe.com/au/creativecloud/plans.html

I can't find a good tutorial about it that is specific to astrophotography but you just start experimenting with each tool or slider until you become familiar with it .

If you have a group of stars that are too bright but the rest of the photo is good , you can draw a circle (radial filter) around the group and reduce the Exposure or make other corrections to that one location .

If there is part of a Nebula (cloud) that is dull and you think needs highlighting , big or small , just draw a circle around it and make your corrections .

There is a Saturation slider which you may use for a final boost but the colours are also split into Red Orange Yellow Green Aqua Blue Magenta Purple . It will only enhance colours that are present , it won't introduce extra colours . So if you need to boost the Red or Orange or Blue , you can adjust that individual slider .

The picture above of the Tarantula nebula contains the Homunculus . In the original picture it was overexposed , I just drew a circle around it and dropped the exposure .

Adjustments you can make .

Basic
Temp Tint Exposure Contrast Highlights Shadows Whites Blacks Texture Clarity Dehaze Vibrance Saturation
Tone Curve
Highlights Lights Darks Shadows
Split Toning
Detail
Sharpening adujustments
Lens Correction
Vignetting

There is also a changable zoom function to work on those small areas .

There are also a row of tools you can use . I mostly use the radial filter .

When your done making corrections , open the file in photoshop "with Lightroom adjustments" and "save as" .

In the end it's all very simple and intuitive but you'll need to get used to it . Any corrections are done instantly and can be "reset" .

Sorry for the late reply : )

[rubberbudgie]

That's pretty impressive for a beginner!! Well done!

[Rusty2]

Thanks Darren !

I think it's probably good tools and good luck
rather than good management : )

[Bodon]

Nice images Rusty2.

[Rusty2]

Thanks Steve !