joshman
23-01-2024, 02:36 PM
Well, the weather has not been anywhere near as good as I would have hoped it would be this summer, but I finally had enough mostly clear nights to get a usable amount of data on the magnificent Horsehead Nebula.
I have very distinct memories of first seeing this at a small astro get together organised through IIS when I first got into the hobby, ~15 years ago. I had no idea what I was doing, had a Skywatcher Gold ED80, and the base model HEQ-5, and was using a Canon 350D. One of the other attendees, had a fantastic little goto contraption called "the Cube." My memories of it are limited, and not much more than what I've put here, but I very distinctly remember seeing a "live" image of the Horsehead nebula that night. So this DSO has some very distinct memories attached to it.
It took me several years, and a whole lot of life journey, but I first (and last) imaged this back in 2019, and I've been wanting to get back to it since, but weather, life, and work got in the way for a few years. All up I've managed to collect just under 10 hours of good Data
Processing this was a very convoluted affair, as I couldn't quite find the right way to combine the HaRGB in PI to give me the result I was looking for. I could process this as a HaGB, or as a RGB, but neither gave me the result I was looking for. The level of crisp details in the Ha Stack was incredible, but the overall colouring of the was much nicer in the RGB stack. So I ended up creating a stack of each, processing them separately, then combining them at the end to create my final image.
The final workflow I settled on was:
Individual Channels:
GraXpert
LinearFit to Ha
BlurXterminator
Create 2x stacks using ChannelCombination. RGB and HaGB.
HaRGB and RGB stacks:
SPCC
StarXterminator (kept RGB stars, discarded HaGB stars)
NoiseXTerminator
Stretch with GHS
CurvesTransformation
Combine using PI toolbox (https://www.ideviceapps.de/pixinsight-toolbox.html) script
More CurvesTransformation.
Stars:
Stretched using GHS
SCNR and invert>SCNR to clean star edges
Stars re-combined into final image with PixelMath.
Overall I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, I think a better result could be obtained with a lot more RGB data to better balance the Intensity of the Ha channel. But this will have to do until this weather lifts.
Click here to see it big on Astrobin (https://astrob.in/ssqurs/0/)
Thanks for looking, and Clear Skies!
I have very distinct memories of first seeing this at a small astro get together organised through IIS when I first got into the hobby, ~15 years ago. I had no idea what I was doing, had a Skywatcher Gold ED80, and the base model HEQ-5, and was using a Canon 350D. One of the other attendees, had a fantastic little goto contraption called "the Cube." My memories of it are limited, and not much more than what I've put here, but I very distinctly remember seeing a "live" image of the Horsehead nebula that night. So this DSO has some very distinct memories attached to it.
It took me several years, and a whole lot of life journey, but I first (and last) imaged this back in 2019, and I've been wanting to get back to it since, but weather, life, and work got in the way for a few years. All up I've managed to collect just under 10 hours of good Data
Processing this was a very convoluted affair, as I couldn't quite find the right way to combine the HaRGB in PI to give me the result I was looking for. I could process this as a HaGB, or as a RGB, but neither gave me the result I was looking for. The level of crisp details in the Ha Stack was incredible, but the overall colouring of the was much nicer in the RGB stack. So I ended up creating a stack of each, processing them separately, then combining them at the end to create my final image.
The final workflow I settled on was:
Individual Channels:
GraXpert
LinearFit to Ha
BlurXterminator
Create 2x stacks using ChannelCombination. RGB and HaGB.
HaRGB and RGB stacks:
SPCC
StarXterminator (kept RGB stars, discarded HaGB stars)
NoiseXTerminator
Stretch with GHS
CurvesTransformation
Combine using PI toolbox (https://www.ideviceapps.de/pixinsight-toolbox.html) script
More CurvesTransformation.
Stars:
Stretched using GHS
SCNR and invert>SCNR to clean star edges
Stars re-combined into final image with PixelMath.
Overall I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, I think a better result could be obtained with a lot more RGB data to better balance the Intensity of the Ha channel. But this will have to do until this weather lifts.
Click here to see it big on Astrobin (https://astrob.in/ssqurs/0/)
Thanks for looking, and Clear Skies!