Lagoon Stacked

[Striker]

Sorry for all the images..I am just after your thoughts.

I dont know how to stack images yet so I took 10 x 30 second images of the Lagoon again tonight and stacked them in registax.

What do you think.

[davidpretorius]

nothing wrong with that!!!! you are wrong about stacking, you have done it very well, if the final image is any indication

top stuff!!!

[[1ponders]]

:thumbsup: Tony. Give yourself credit where credit is due mate. First DSO stacking attempt without any photoshop adjustment.....Damn fine job.

Get yourself a cable or remote release Tony, you will be over the moon if that's the type of exposure you get with 30 sec. Stacking it really doesn't make it much brighter (without image enhancement in PS or such), it just increases the signal to noise ration. For brighter images before adjustment you need longer exposure time. And for that you need to use the bulb exposure.

[h0ughy]

I like that, it 1000% better than my first attempt. nice detail within the image as well Tony. Well done.

is that an artifact up towards the top (left of centre) where it looks like a red pixcel?

[[1ponders]]

It might be h0ughy, but I don't think it is. If you check out Tony's shot here http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=3764 there is no similar spot. It may be different in the 20Da but with my 300 the hot pixels are pretty predictable where they will appear and over what time more will appear. If he's sticking to 30 sec exposures then its unlikely its a hot pixel as there isn't one in his single 30 sec shot at the above link. That's assuming of course that his image scale is the same between the two and he hasn't cropped some of the surroungs. :):P

[Striker]

NO I had a look at the full size version and there was NO red hot pixel's in the other images....but dont ask me what it is other wise I ll reply its a red star...lol..

[h0ughy]

You have done it gain Paul! listen who shot kennedy?

[acropolite]

Nice shot once again Tony. Have you turned on long exposure noise reduction ???

[h0ughy]

Sounds good to me. Are you happy with your purchase Tony?

[Striker]

Stoked houghy....honestly I can not visualy see much in my light poluted city house....to put it this way...if it wasn't for CCD and DSLR's I dont think this hobby would be for me....

Phil...NO...I was going to turn it on once I start doing longer exposures.

[tornado33]

Excellent inner detail there, the Hourglass nebula is very prominent :)

[cventer]

Nice looking lagoon. I so jealous of your weather. Grrrrrrrr

I think there is an even better image lurking in the RAW data. The contrast is pretty high (as evident by the very black background) and stretching your JPG in Photoshop shows more detail in the faint areas. I reckon you can push the stretching using curves on your raw stacked image to bring out even more detail

If what I said is gobbledygook, then email me a copy of the RAW stacked image and I would be happy to have a crack at it for you and then explain the steps.

Best Regards
Chris Venter

[Orion]

That looks great Tony!

[Striker]

Thanks everyone,

Chris I have not used the raw format...everything so far is taken in Jpeg....I can send you the stacked jpep-BMP file buts thats still 24MB....I have compressed into a 6MB rar file.

I have PhotoShop but have never used it so any help is much appreciated.

Anyone is welcome to have a go....download the Lagoon full.rar file from here.

http://www.users.on.net/~striker/

[davidpretorius]

am downloading now to test photoshot etc. i have no shots like this one to practise on. do not worry, i will look after it and return it when finished.

[Robby]

Challenge accepted. I'll post if I can do anything good with it :)

[davidpretorius]

downloaded winrar to deal with rar file, but it says the lagoon rar is corrupted, will try downloading lagoon again.

[Robby]

Hi Tony,
Here's my effort after about 5mins with Photoshop. There is a heck of a lot of detail in that shot of yours!! Well done. I'm no expert with PS, but someone who is could probably squeeze a bit more out of it still.
Ok What did I do...
1. Crop the image a bit to frame it better and remove stacking overlaps
2. Boost the upper end of the curves, to make it look way too over exposed.
3. Using levels reset the black point, using the graphs for each RGB channel individually. This means moving the left slider right until it touches histogram.
4. Tweak the right slider in Levels to get the highlight the detail and balance. The image may still look a bit too over-exposed.
5. Back to curves for a slight tweak. You can get the curve graph looking a bit like a "S" shape at 45°. This boosts the highlights & darkens the background. Image should be looking pretty good now.
6. A little colour balance using colour balance. Boost the midtones a little and boost the shadows a little.
7. I usually finish off with a basic contrast and brightness adjustment and an unshape mask sharpen filter. But this one didn't need it.

Hope this makes sense! There are many other processing techniques but this is the method I use and it mormally does an ok job for most stuff.

Let me know if you want the full BMP of the this processed image, & I'll pop it on the website.

Cheers

[[1ponders]]

My turn

Ha, took you 5 minustes for that Robby. Ha, 4.25 min :lol: Or did that include writing up you processing explaination. :lol: :poke: :poke: :poke:

Robby's right about there being heaps of info in there Tony. If someone (not me) who really new what they were doing with Maxim or iris or even PS or one of the other dedicated progs had a go at a Raw of it for half an hour to an hour or so, the results would be stunning I think. Look out Eddie. Tonys on your tail :D

[Robby]

Nice one Paul, but where's the explanation of how you did it :poke: Wasn't that part of the deal? :D
Do I need to talk to you about controlling the ArgoNavis with your star-mate remote? Would you be keen on that idea?
Cheers

[Striker]

Very nice...you boys are brilliant.....I will open up Photoshop and see if what Robby said makes any sense....

[[1ponders]]

Robby, Tony only said he'd appreciate some help. I'm not going to help him until he's ready to sell his 20Da :lol: To be honest I don't really know what I did. Just mucking around with the levels and curves, both rgb and red, in small increments and switching back and forwards between to two adjument options.

I've been wondering about that (AN and SM) since I've had the AN. Unfortunately I'm still waiting to for enough decent nights when its either not cloudy or not full moon to use the thing. I'm slowly getting there as long as I use the Exact Gem setting, but having probs with the rough align setting with the Set Alt Ref??? Where do I point the damn scope when setting it?

Sorry for hijacking Tony.
Back on Topic.

Tony after I opened the original in PS I cropped to remove any obvious stacking artifacts. Then using levels adjustment, raised the leftmost slider to under the left edge of the histogram and lower the far right pointer back to about a quarter the way to the histogram edge on the right. I try to keep the middle slider sort of midway between the other two. Maybe a bit more towards the right one if anything. I then go into curves and slightly adjust the upper portion of the curves line to bring out more detail of the nebula then do the same in the Red curves section. Then back to the levels. I don't use any set routine or pattern, just what looks good to me atm. Not very scientific I know, but I'm only 6 months ahead of you remember. :D I feel that part of the secret is numerous little adjustments, rather than big steps.

Hope that's helped

[Robby]

Hi Paul,
We'll catch up next week re AN. I point fix alt ref towards DEC = 0° and have fix alt ref set to 0 (not 90). Sometime I do it the do 2 align stars, then go back to fix alt ref and move in DEC until it equals 0. Then mark the fix alt ref on the DEC axis for the mount.. Sorry for off-topic!!
Cheers

[Striker]

Robby.....I worked out some of the editing you mentioned.

I used Photoshop CS2 version 9.

Looks good.

[davidpretorius]

My contributions, my first play with a proper dso (thanks to striker).

http://www.precons.com/iis/gallery/Images/Striker/

I have started with the original each time and then only applied:

auto contrast
auto levels
auto colour
Each time going back to the original and only apply the one change. No changes have been applied on top of each other, simply done to gice the reader a feel for what each adjustment does to an original on its own.

Thanks again Striker for the original, i have really learnt something today!!

[Striker]

Well done David,

I have also learnt something today...thats the thing when you have people willing to help...thanks again everyone.

[rumples riot]

Here's my take just using the original posted image at the top of the thread. Would be better of course with the full size version.

[davidpretorius]

it is great how everyone helps.

[cventer]

Well it looks like a few people have done a very good job already and processign your RAW Image.

I am pretty impressed with the detail from 30 second shots.

Here is another version.

I posted a jpeg and high res version of this modified image here for you:

http://www.dslrfocus.com/striker/Lagoonfull.tif
http://www.dslrfocus.com/striker/Lagoonfull.jpg


Processing steps in Photoshop CS are as follows:



1. Adjust levels. Slide left arrow inwards to darken background slightly. Slide right arrow inwards to lighten image slightly
2. Adjust Curves. From curves dialogue take bottom left part of curve and drag upward very slightly keeping top right of curve straight
3. epeat step 1
4. repeat step 2
5. Continue doing step 1 and 2 in very small amounts till you are happy with brightness
6. When you are happy with last curves adjustment, then go backwards using history and instead of changing the RGB curve, change just the red channel by selecting RED in the curves dialogue instead of RGB. Make same upward adjustment of lower left part of curve with red channel.
7. Now adjust image saturation using Hue/Saturation Dialogue. Slide Saturation to right by about 20%
8. Adjust hue if you want different red colour balance.
9. Use Colour Balance Dialogue to dial up the red if its not to your liking
Once I am happy with image I then duplicate the entire layer and choose filter->other->high pass. Set pixel size of filter to about 7 and press ok. You will see a strange grey image
10. Set layer mode of this grey image to overlay and watch the details of the core suddenly pop out. You can see it by pressing the eye icon on this layer on and off which blinks the effect in and out
11. I then use a layer mask to hide the whole high pass effect and then use a white paint brush on the layer mask to paint the effect back into the core and selected areas.
12. I then select noisy areas of bottom layer (original image) with a lasso and Feather set to about 20px (original image) and run the noisy areas through noise reduction. I use a program called Neat Image that has a Photoshop plug in, but you can download free noise reduction programs like community edition of Noiseware, Noise Ninja etc….
I then flatten the image, save it and its all done. (these steps in total take about 10 mins once you are used to them)

Best Regards
Chris Venter

[iceman]

Excellent effort guys, great reprocessing by everyone. Continually amazes me how giving people are around here - no keeping things close to their chest, trying to be the best. People are willing to share their techniques in order to help make everyone a better astrophotographer.

Top effort.

[acropolite]

I like your rendition best mike EDITED (I meant paul; sorry Robby, I know you South Sea Islanders are easily confused); who's to say what's correct, but yours is the most pleasing to the eye. Of course you had a masterpiece to work with.....:painting:

[Robby]

Which one is Mike's shot? I only see processing from Paul,Paul,Chris,David,Tony & myself... Am I missing something??

[Robby]

Thanks for your details Chris.. You have some new things for me to try next time as well..!!! Thumbs-up to this thread. Good to see such a good free exchange of info. I remember posting an imamge on another forum in the early days and some dude doing a re-process and coming up with heaps more detail. When I asked what he did, his arrogance was such that I have never vistied that forum since!! If someone screws with your image, then it is your right to know what they did I reckon. At least that's what I reckon.
Awesome stuff people.
Cheers

[davidpretorius]

we call everyone Mike down here in tasmania. ssshhh, he doesn't realise he is doing it!!

[seeker372011]

This is a great thread...great processing tips...and not to lose sight of the fact that if Tony hadnt got his focus and tracking and so on spot on there wouldnt have been all that detail to bring out in the first place.

big thumbs up all around :thumbsup:

[Rodstar]

Beautiful shots Tony, Robby and Paul. They all show up different aspects....all contribute a lot. Robby & Paul: I assume that you had different exposure times in the red and blue bands?? Does that account for Robby's having a greater blue component?

[cventer]

They are all the eact same image just processed differently. Just highlights how much artistic licence the photographer has when it comes to processing the image.

The other big factor is that everyones monitor is different and what looks great on one screen looks lousy on another.

I calibrate my monitors twice a month using a pantone Calibration Spyder to make sure I see things the way they are intended.

Best Regards
Chris Venter

[Striker]

Thanks for going to all that trouble Chris.....thats going to keep me busy for a while once I work out what it all means....lol

And thanks again to all who spent the time to contribute to this post.

Rod....Robby processed the same stacked image as we all did...he just used different levels and processing technique....you too can have a go if you like.

[acropolite]

My excuse is that I just finished the beer shoot :drink: for the August photo challenge. Tough work, but someone's gotta do it...

[Striker]

Hi All,

I had a go at some longer exposures on the Lagoon for comparison and done some guiding test.....I need to fine tune a lot more with guidedog but thought its not worth doing tonight as its windy.

This is 3 x 120 second exposures ISO 400 stacked in K3CCDTOOLS guided with my SAC Mintron...I used a 6.3 focal reducer on my C11 which brought my FL down to around 1900mm....I don't know how to flatten the field.....I did no dark frames and no noise reduction.

Comments and advice welcomed.

[davidpretorius]

beautiful, i will try my new downloaded freeware version of neat image on it

[[1ponders]]

Nice reprocess Tony :cool2:

[[1ponders]]

I shoulda read more carefully. I didn't realize it was a new shot. Any chance of getting a chance at that one Tony.:D No shooting going on here tonight :(

[davidpretorius]

i know, i know, i know, i will be very excited when i get to tony's stage, but it is really great that i almost take possesion of other forum member shots as if it were my own. have a little play in photoshop, tinker here, tinker there.

great atmosphere guys!

[beren]

Top work again Tony ....impressive

[Striker]

No worries guys....I will up load the original to my webby as file "Test 4"

You will see what I mean about flattening the field as its got a prenounced circular effect that dissapears to the edge...any help with this is much appreciated....or is it jst my light polution...maybe I need to take slightly shorter exposures...

Download at http://www.users.on.net/~striker/

[rumples riot]

Tony when I imaged this target earlier in the year I went with 4 minute exposures and got them to total 41 minutes. I had to get my polar alignment pretty good though as I did not have a guide scope at that stage. Also I suggest a lower ISO around 600. You will get great images with any subs totalling more than 30 minutes. To create flats you need to make a light box and as far as dark frames are concerned I just use the noise reduction system in the camera and find that this is nearly as good as creating darks during the night. I am not certain whether the 20D has NR reduction in camera.

Anyway mate, you are doing really well with your images and I suggest that you use that camera also for terrestrial shots. It is a fine camera and capable of much more.

[[1ponders]]

There's great info in there Tony. I tried a Jerry Lodriguss' unsharp mask technique on it. I've not tried it before very successfully, but I think if you muck around with it you'll be able to pull heaps of detail out. Didn't do much else with the colour except my usually fluffing about with levels and curves. Oh and I cropped it as there seemed to be quite a bit of vingetting.

[Striker]

Thanks Paul and Paul,

I got heaps to learn and need to try different techniques...I noticed whilst using the 6.3 FR the ISO needs to be much lower then at F10....2 minutes at ISO800 just made it look like a light bulb but at f10 was much darker.