Playing with M42

[jjjnettie]

I've been a little bored tonight.
So, inspired by Freds starless M8 I thought I'd try the same on the image of M42 I'd posted a few days ago.
It's all been good fun and I learnt some skills along the way too.:)

[strongmanmike]

:eyepop: Oh nooooo you have Freds Starless desease :scared: run and grab a bottle of Southern Comfort...quick!

Interesting, nebulosity and detail always stand out when you shrink or get rid of the stars.

Mike

[jjjnettie]

Oooh, I might try a starless eta carina next!! I wonder what that will look like?

[jjjnettie]

ewww, eta looks simply awful naked.

[gbeal]

The mind boggles.

[Hagar]

Now that looks diferent JJ. I think I like it with stars. I even light M42 with difraction spikes.
Interesting concept only Fred would come up with this Idea.
Nice M42 though with some lovely detail but please put your stars on, you'll scare the natives.

[Lester]

That really hi-lights the nebula without the stars to distract. Your processing skills are astronomical.

Nice Jaenette.

[AlexN]

JJJ, Eta doesnt look too bad starless if you really push the data after the star removal...

Once you've removed the stars, you can generally be a lot more aggressive with your processing as you don't have to worry about retaining star colours or bloating the stars out... Try hitting this image with a few more itterations of levels and curves to see what i mean...

I posted a starless Eta a little while back... I liked it, though i think i only got 3 reply posts... hehe.. different strokes for different folks I guess..

[jjjnettie]

Alex, I already did what you suggested on this M42.
Stretched it to the limit, then layered the original starry m42 over top, adjusting the opacity to suit.
It made the dust between m42 and the running man really pop out.

[DavidU]

That's kewl as ! Very different.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thum bsup:

[Bassnut]

OOH yes, I do like that JJ :D, very.......naked indeed (mm, must try that on M42 myself). To be fair, Jase was the one who originally seeded that evil starless thought, well, and southern comfort :thumbsup:.

I especially like the alone-out-in space composition, very different, and striking, havent seen that before on M42. And as you may have found, processing/stretching becomes much more enjoyable without pesky ballooning/artifact city stars :P.

Nice to see you stepping out of the box JJ, original and very enjoyable to view.

[telemarker]

Unusual!! Now for a starless 47Tuc:P:P:D

[jjjnettie]

Thanks Fred, I enjoyed doing it too.
LOL must post it on facebook.

[DavidU]

How was the technique done? Most interested.

[AlexN]

David - I don't know how JJ executed her star removal, but heres a quick idea of how I do it...

Using the ”Dust & Scratches” filter, with the radius set to 12, and threshold to between 45-150. (I judge this by looking enlarged image. Set the threshold so that the center of the brighter stars disappears, but the image stays sharp) Apply this filter.

Then lower radius two points to 10 and set Threshold to between 30-80. Again, use the enlarged image quality and details as a guide.

Repeat several iterations with lower values. More, finer iterations produces a better result than fewer aggressive iterations.. In the last iteration radius should be 1 and the Threshold between 3-10.
If there are leftovers from brighter stars, use the clone tool or the spot healing brush to remove them.

Generally, i find there is sometimes some faint artefacts left after doing this. If this is the case, usually a selective blur will tidy it all up..

[DavidU]

Thanks Alex.

[jjjnettie]

It pays to play around with the settings. Each star field is different. M42 is a lot easier to manipulate than Eta Carina.