Image Processing Competition SPSP17 Subject images available now

[montewilson]

Hi Guys and Girls - Here is the link to download the images for the Image Processing section of the Astro Imaging Competition for the SPSP17. If you are coming to the event and think you are good at putting together astro images now's your chance to prove it.
It is an M81 in LRGB. There are subs for all the channels and when finished is a very attractive image.

As with any other entries for the competition you will need to print them on plain or glossy paper at the correct size as per the rules and bring them to the SPSP. You will then enter your shots at that time at the registration desk.

See the ASNSW site www.asnsw.com for a copy of the rules and the "read me" file in the folder. There are a few rules you need to beware of to avoid disappointment.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/801317/SPSP%202009%20Processing%20Competit ion%20M81.zip

You should get a Zip of the images. The total is about 64Mb.

Best of luck

Monte Wilson

[iceman]

ooh an image processing competition! Interesting! I hadn't read the rules yet.

Thanks Monte.

[iceman]

Just saw the new categories:
http://www.asnsw.com/spsp/imagingcomp.asp

A great step forward. More work for the judges no doubt, but I can see that "issues" discussed here after the last SPSP imaging comp, and after the DM awards, have been considered and rules defined to address them.

I especially like that the widefield category really is for wide fields now.

Well done to the organisers!

[montewilson]

We thought it would be fairer on those who have to set up each night and get far less chances to advance their skills level. We are open to trying new categories each year. This is one way and next year we will see what else we can think of to make it fairer and more inclusive.

[Barrykgerdes]

I downloaded the images. Now how do I process them. The only image prcessors I have don't even open the tif files.

What programs do I need .

I will be at the SPSP. Is there a special beginners award for trying?

Barry

[montewilson]

Hi Barry I am not sure what to suggest definitively. I know PhotoShop, CCDStack and ImagesPlus will all do it, but if you pose the same question in the software forum someone will probably suggest other suitable programs.

http:/http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=13

We don't have a beginners section this year but we are looking at that for next year. At least with the image processing it is a level playing field.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Monte. Thanks

I will try some of those other programs. I have Photo Shop and have done a fair bit of manipulation of images but I have not done any merging since playing with a Meade 416 and colour wheel about 12 years ago and have not tried stacking images at all. I will play around if I can get enough time.

Barry

[montewilson]

CCDStack has 30 day trial with full (read 100%) operation. It is really good and easy to use too.

Go to www.ccdware.com

[jase]

Great initiative Monte - Kudos!

Darn need to be there to enter...guess someone representing me would be cheating.:P;)

[montewilson]

Have a go anyway and post it here..... You wont win anything but it would be interesting to see what is possible with the images.

[jase]

Monte - Would suggest you either provide the calibrated FITS for the user to successfully remove the blooms or remove the blooms before converting them to TIF. Bloom removal while in TIF format can be erroneous.

Also, for the benefit of others - RGB is binned 2x2.

[Bassnut]

Jase

I tried bloom removal on one of the TIF subs with CCD stack, it works fine.

[jase]

I'll take your word Fred. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses. What's life without a challenge...

[avandonk]

Gave it a quick bash with Registar for stacking and ImagesPlus for combining. Used clone stamp in PhotoShop to get rid of hot pixels before combining in IP. No noise removal.

Bert

[montewilson]

Nice effort - you can see the faint outer arm at the top right.

[jase]

Thanks for a play with the data Monte. Enjoyed it, even though I didn't spend much time. Changed the framing for something different - actually on purpose as the stars in the bottom right of frame are out of focus. Looks like camera tilt. Once again, thanks!

[Bassnut]

Nice work Jase, thank christ you dont actually really want to enter :P

[montewilson]

Dude - I am going to compare this with whomever wins at the star party to see if it is better. This is really nice well done!

[avandonk]

Yes Jase I have tried to follow your explanations of processing but get lost at the the first bit I do not understand. If you can get that image out of that data I have a lot to learn. My expertise is not faint galaxies but I will keep plodding on and hopefully get better with time. After all the only person you are really competing with is yourself!

So much to learn so little time.

Thanks for all the fish/explanations.....

Bert

[multiweb]

Here's my shot at it. :) I cropped it coz I don't know how to get rid of the blooms. :shrug: My camera doesn't bloom.

[Bassnut]

Gaud Mark, get real :D. For 1, real cams bloom, lifes tough. ;) 2. Way too noisy, not hard to fix :whistle:. And anyway, why you posting that pic here :thumbsup:?.

[multiweb]

:lol: Dude! Are you menopausal? Cut the winging, lay off the sauce, have a beer, enjoy life. Sheeesh...

[jase]

I wouldn't compare it against anything to be honest. The more I look at it, the more I can see problems. Stupid things like applying colour noise reduction after the GradientXterminator process caught me out - rather critical when you have the balance background colour checked in the plugin. As I indicated, I didn't spend much time on it. Its great to see other imagers having a shot at such data. Its actually pretty good to work with as the luminance lends itself well to being stretched quite hard. Hope to see more results from others and of course I hope the competition goes well. Having the same data offers an equal field (just like stock car racing) - comes down to skill instead of the bantering "my equipment is better than yours". Who cares I say - its what you can do with the data that counts.:)

[multiweb]

It's good to see what others do. Although I am not entering the competition I actually learnt more tonight by playing with this data and using your final result as a reference. It showed me that even using the same source data the end result shows the way every user processes all of his own data. It has this "personal touch" regardless of how it was acquired. My processing is always a bit blurry and soft. I realised that I couldn't get close to the sharpness and details you got out of it so that made me rethink a lot of things I took for granted in my processing flow because you used the same source files. Good exercise. :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Wasn't sure whether I'd have a go at processing someone else's work.....(frankly it wasn't a great data set...simply wasn't in focus)

but had a go anyway.....

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/images/gx/spss/pjwpro_m81.jpg

Couple of cosmetic blemishes/blooms that still need a tidy up....

Used MaxIm for the grunt work, and Photoshop for the final layering colour balance and crop.

[multiweb]

nice and smooth :thumbsup:

[Peter Ward]

Thanks Marc (BTW I liked your processing as well) .....you could spend more time with this data set. Selective contrast enhancement, deconvolution, further gradient reduction....the list goes on.

The problem I had was with the data..when you see double diffraction spikes you know you have: a close binary
or less that perfect focus.....which is the *one* thing we can all get right ;)

[avandonk]

Am I missing something as I think the data is crap to what I am used to. It is noisy and full of artefacts. Sorry

The fact that Jase could tease out the image he did from what to me is poor data is a revelation. I am not used to
playing with this type of pathetic data. It is still crap if you have to use elaborate methods to get a final image. You are
all kidding yourselves.

Bert

[Peter Ward]

Hummm....decisions decisions. Noise from thermal electrons, cosmic rays
and overflowing signal. Or, no noise due signal attenuation and low dynamic range plus square stars from undersampling due Bayer binning.

You pays your money and takes your chances... ;)

[avandonk]

Peter Ward see here 23MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.com.au/2009_04/mosfL.jpg


Bert

[Omaroo]

Thanks for this little challenge Monte. Sheesh! You try and do people a service and you get stabbed in the face for it! Nice! :rolleyes:

I've never combined channels before, so please excuse my effort. It was done totally within CS3 - from manual alignment and rotation of each set of subs using marker stars and guides to creating smart objects for each channel set to finally adding luminance. Eeks! There has to be an easier way, but I'm comfy with PS so I stick to it. I'll have another go later to get some more luminance out of it somehow, and do a better job on inter-sub alignment. I've managed to introduce quite a bit of noise too, which is a little undesirable. Thanks though!

[Peter Ward]

Nice wide field Bert, but looks flat to me. And the stars are simply not well sampled or resolved. I had to scale a section of your data around 800% to get the following roll-over demonstration :

http://www.atscope.com.au/BRO/gallery38ro.html

Square stars. QED?

[avandonk]

Can you show me that for the whole image? Thought not. You are are amazing peter.

Bert

[dugnsuz]

Apples and Oranges guys!!
The FLs are too far apart to compare - I enjoy both by the way!!

[Peter Ward]

Bert's comment, and I quote.

"It is still crap if you have to use elaborate methods to get a final image"

....apart from precipitating my previous post, also made me realize there was indeed merit in an image processing comp at the SPSS (well done Monte and crew!).

The SPSS sample data not withstanding :) ...... data can be excellent, but is plagued by a rough exterior that needs to be gently peeled away to reveal the true beauty beneath.

Hubble CCD datasets are a good example.

The RAW frames are (almost) tragic. Noise and Cosmic rays abound. Fortunately, the seeing, focus and tracking are literally diffraction limited....and any noise can be removed completely once its nature is well understood (even spherical error :) )

To avoid all this noisy grief, why did NASA choose not to fly a CMOS device?

They wanted maximum QE, resolution and dynamic range.

Elaborate methods are indeed used for Hubble Heritage images, but last time I checked it was a Fairchild back illuminated CCD in low earth orbit in preference to a Canon CMOS.

[Peter Ward]

Bert, the point was: despite the albeit *very* wide field, your data is under sampled. Even blind Fredy can see the stars are blocky. I simply high-lighted this fact via the roll-over.

[dugnsuz]

Legitimate question - as widefield images are my thing at present, how does one "optimally sample"? 10 min subs at iso1600?

As for the quality of the images provided...If that's what we've got to work with...so be it!

Doug

[jase]

No point me putting my spiel on this, might as well quote it.

"Sampling refers to how many pixels are used to produce details. A CCD image is made up of tiny square-shaped pixels. Each pixel has a brightness value that is assigned a shade of gray color by the display routine. Since the pixels are square, the edges of features in the image will have a stair-step appearance. The more pixels and shades of gray that are used, the smoother the edges will be.

Images that have blocky or square stars suffer from undersampling. That is, there aren't enough pixels being used for each star's image. The number of pixels that make up a star's image is determined by the relationship between the telescope focal length, the physical size of the pixels (usually given in microns, or millionths of a meter), and the size of the star's image (usually given in arcseconds).

...

Unfortunately, we don't have as much control over the size of the star image, which will vary, depending mostly on the seeing conditions of the observing site. Mountaintop observatories often have 1 arcsecond (or better) seeing, whereas typical backyard observing sites at low elevations in towns or cities might have 3 to 5 arcsecond seeing.

A good rule of thumb to avoid undersampling is to divide your seeing in half and choose a pixel size that provides that amount of sky coverage. For example, if your seeing conditions are generally 4 arcseconds, you should achieve a sky coverage of 2 arcseconds per pixel. If your seeing conditions are often 1 arcsecond, you'll want a pixel size that yields 0.5 arcseconds per pixel. The following formula can be used to determine sky coverage per pixel with any given pixel size and focal length: Sampling in arcseconds = (206.265 / (focal length in mm) )* (pixel size in microns)"

Quoted from http://www.ccd.com/ccd113.html

Cheers

[iceman]

This thread is for monte to share the data for the SPSP processing challenge.

If you don't like it, don't process it. Don't enter the competition.

So please keep your "this is crap" comments to yourselves, and Bert and Peter, let's not turn this thread into another argument between you two.

[montewilson]

Thanks Mike - and to all those who are concerned the data is not perfect, they are telling me something I already know. I chose it exactly for that reason, because it is a challenge.

It's not called the Image Processing Cakewalk. The fact that these are not easy to work with will show who really knows their stuff and who knows only how to stack the pretty colours.

By the way Bert, nice Carina shot, what was it taken with?

[Peter Ward]

Mike, just so we are clear....

I for one, think Monte's image-processing challenge has great merit! and rather than a "bah humbug!" look forward to seeing the best teased out of the data offered.

[avandonk]

It was taken with the Canon 5DH and Canon 300mm F2.8L at f/5. The f/5 was achieved with a circular aperture in front of the lens to stop it down. This was to done to not have diffraction spikes around all the bright stars due to the leaves in the iris of the lens.

I had no intention of sabotaging your contest. I was just saying if Jase could extract that image out of your data I am really not doing the best with mine own data. If I used adjectives that were not suitable I am sorry.

It turned into a senseless slanging mess and again I am sorry. I will never again retaliate in word.

Bert

[TrevorW]

Ok my attempt at the data (first LRGB ever processed) all done in DSS and PS7

picked 5 best frames from each set, balanced each frame cleaned them up a bit before stacking and adjusted size so all the same, stacked in DSS, saved as a FITS file, opened in PS7 using the FITS converter, converted to RGB adjusted in PS7 for levels, curves and color balance

Cheers

:D

[tornado33]

This is my effort.
Anti Blooming Gates rock :)

I am assuming they used data with strong blooming and other defects to make the competition more challenging.

I left the blooms in, I was just keen to see what detail Id end up with. I did remove some of the hot pixels manually along with a satellite trail (I used all of the subs)

This is only the 2nd LRGB image Ive ever processed, the first a Ghost of Jupiter image from a 12 inch RCOSS GRAS telescope

I wonder how long the subs are and what scope and camera they were taken with?

Seeing as I was processing data thats not mine I had to have a play with Berts beautiful image, just a little tweak with Photoshop. Its a beautiful mosaic. Hey, thats a good idia for the 2010 astro processing comp, a mosaic :)
Scott

[montewilson]

I believe it was taken with a reasonably large RC I am not sure about the exposure times though. I will see if I can get that information.

[montewilson]

Here are the details of the image:

M81 Bodes Galaxy

LRGB : L 60min Bin 1, RGB each 25min Bin 2, all 5 min subs.

Taken on a TAK Epsilon 250 and ST10XME (GRAS G5 in New Mexico)

[rat156]

Here's my go at it Monte...

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the SPSP, but I plan to in the future!!

Keep up the image processing comp, I love it. It's great to be able to see your results compared to others (who may have more skill or experience in this area).

I'd like to add my processing steps, so others know how I got my result.
Loaded all the pics for each colour or the clears into CCDStack in turn. I manually rejected the two blue frames that were the wrong way up as they looked worse than the rest.
As they are already calibrated I removed any blooms and then any hot/cold pixels, then imputed the rejected pixels. This removes a lot of the very small artifacts.
Registered the frames (CCDStack)
Normalised the frames (CCDStack)
Data rejected the frames (Sigma reject 10%, CCDStack)
Averaged the colour frames, summed the luminance frames. I needed to average combine as there were an uneven number of exposures for each colour. Summing the luminance gives more headroon for stretching/sharpening I've found.
Saved each combined frame, loaded the R,G,B and L frames back into CCDStack to register them, saved the registered frames as 32bit FP fits files.
Removed the L frame from the stack and normalised the rest, saved as normalised frames.
Opened the registered and normalised frames in PS.
Stretched each colour frame in the same manner, I have a hrad and soft stretch curve saved. Adjusted the levels black point after each stretch.
Final levels adjustment on a bit of sky background set to 89%K (eyedropper tool, 11x11 pixel average).
Combined RGB to one file to produce the colour, removed any noticeable artifacts with the Spot healing tool.
Bumped the saturation up by about 50%.
Processed the Luminance in about the same way, until I was happy that I hadn't blown out the core, but still had lots of detail in the outer arms.
Lassood the galaxy, then select->colour range of most of the galaxy, missing the very outer faint fuzzy bits. Applied small and large unsharp masking.
Pasted the Luminance over the RGB and changed the blending mode.
There are some green artifacts in the background (from light pollution no doubt), so I adjusted the green saturation point to remove this.
Did the same with the cyan saturation to reduce some halo's around the brighest stars.
Saved then saved for web and devices to reduce the file size to under 200k.
Posted here.Cheers
Stuart

Seems there is something up with the image upload, I'll post the pic later, don't want to lose all that typing! (Hint, try uploading the jpg file, not the psd, Doh!)

[montewilson]

Hi Stuart - thanks for putting up such a detailed list of steps. You spent plenty of time on it. I would be interested in seeing a larger version if you are planning on posting one.