RHO Pano - *colour corrected*

[multiweb]

I finally got my 2 panels and stitched them. Wow that was painful. Also took on board all the comments about my previous attempt and tried to beef up the contrast and color saturation. I have a couple of blue halos. I'm not sure if they're internal reflections in the FF or nearby antares. If I had more panels I probably could reject them but not knowing the area very well I obviously shot all the uninteresting parts :P This area is way too big for the ED80. I'll be done next year at that rate so I think next time at Ilford I'll reshoot the whole thing with the hyperstar and ask questions later.

There's a bit for every one: big 1:1 here (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/RhoOph_pano_ED80_ff.jpg)with all the gritty bits [4MB], smaller 1600x1600px here (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/RhoOph_pano_ED80_f.jpg)[1.8MB] and finally a small 1024x1204 square like the attachement but uncompressed here (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/RhoOph_pano_ED80_sf.jpg).

I processed this in CCDStack, registar and CS3. I also was privileged to use a utility called StarWipe (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showpost.php?p=595208&postcount=1)written by a very talented developer in these forums: Ivo Jager. It's a little command prompt utility. Very very cool. :thumbsup:

Hope you enjoy the shots. :)

[jjjnettie]

I do enjoy this image Marc. Beautiful!

[strongmanmike]

Yeh that looks nice Marc!

Sure looks like dust, great job

Mike

[desler]

Very well done Marc, makes me want to cough when I see all that dust. Definitely worth the all the effort!

Well done!


Darren

[jase]

I don't know Marc. You've got to be cruel to be kind right? All the ingredients are there, great details and all, but your histogram is all over the place resulting in the blue reflection nebulosity being muted. Red overwhelms green and blue as seen by the red cast stars. I would suggest manually stretching the blue and green channels using curves. Drop the top of the curve (highlights section) down a little to avoid clipping. Then raise the black point for both channels. Do a channel at a time (blue first as there is reflection neb you can use as a gauge). You'll see what I mean as the image displays colour confidence and the red cast stars begin to pop. See what you think.

[multiweb]

Thanks JJJ. Glad you liked the shot. :thumbsup:

Thanks Mike. :thumbsup: Glad you like the dust. Bit red still I dont' know if it's meant to be that color. I know it's yellow and brown. Blue's hard to get through.

:lol: Thanks Darren. :thumbsup:


Glad you've dropped in. That's the kind of feedback I'm after. :thumbsup: I'm having a real hard time to get that blue colour through on all the shots I've been taking with the ED80 lately and the only common thing to all the shot is my processing. I'll PM you to make sure I got everything you said right. Looking forward to a repro(s). :)

[CoolhandJo]

Still.. avery smooth image. But the comments posted seem extremely helpful..

[TrevorW]

The dust looks like dust nice one Marc

[Tom Davis]

Excellent dust!!

Tom

[DavidU]

Great dusty effort Marc. Nice info from Jase, look forward to the Sidonio.

[multiweb]

Thanks for the kind comments guys. :thumbsup: As instructed by Jase I will play with the channels histograms tonight and see what comes out of it. The name of the game is " no clipping" :P. It's got some nice details so it would be a shame to let the colors bodge the shot. I'll see if I can blend the seam better too and get rid of those blue halos somehow.

[gregbradley]

Great shot Marc. If you are having trouble with getting blue to show through then you should shoot more blue than red and green.

Colour weighting of exposure lengths is common once you know the actual colour weights for your camera and filters. Despite being promoted as 1:1:1 colour exposure times for some filters I think this is largely an exagerrated marketing claim and not true. Also different chips have different QEs at different wavelengths so your chip may be more sensitive to red and green than to blue.

Greg.

[Bassnut]

Excellent on an ED80! Marc, bull to what Jase said :scared3: ;), smoothe and sharp as. Ive seen a lot worse on classy gear :thumbsup:.

[multiweb]

Thanks Greg. I don't think it's the hardware. I definitely bodged the colours. Did a repro and fixed the histograms. Looks a bit better now I think. Bit more vibrant and the channels match.




Thanks Fred. :thumbsup: No Jase was right. The histograms were indeed all over the place. Here are some new links to high-res corrected versions. I've also uploaded a new thumbnail for comparison in the original post.

large (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/RhoOphb_ED80_RGB_cc_ff.jpg)1:1 [4.8MB]
medium (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/RhoOphb_ED80_RGB_cc_f.jpg)1600px [2MB]
small (http://www.multiweb.com.au/astro/RhoOphb_ED80_RGB_cc_sf.jpg)1024 uncompressed [920KB]

Hopefully you guys reckon this looks better. I think it does anyway. The colors are closer to Tom's shot in the bottom right corner so it can't be too far off. :)

[wysiwyg]

Love the rich colours, it really makes the image pop!
Great Job!

[gregbradley]

Yeah I like your repro, nice rich colours and the blue seems just right.

Greg.

[CoolhandJo]

Nailed it!

[Hagar]

Very nice Marc. Smooth as a babies bum. Lovely colour and a wonderful field in the stars.
Well done.

[RB]

I like the corrected version Marc.
This is quite a difficult area to process.

Very nice result mate.

ED80 rocks !! :lol:

[madwayne]

The original was a nice image Marc but the repro really rocks - well done to you mate and well done to jase for sharing his knowledge not just with you but the iis community in general.

Wayne

[multiweb]

Thanks guys. Maybe a bit saturated? Not sure any more but the histogram is not clipped and relatively aligned so it should be all good now. Glad you liked the repro. :thumbsup:

You're not wrong about the processing Andrew. Next time I'm going to plan the way I shoot it and process it better so I can reject those halos as well and get more of the interesting bits in frame. Go the ED80! :)



Thanks Wayne. :thumbsup:

Yep, Jase is a legend:prey2: Will always be straight (right between the eyes) with his assessments. No PC - No BS. That's what I like about him. Constructive criticism is the only way up. Probably learnt everything I know to date about processing from copy/pasting his posts in my 'jase_tips.txt' over the years. Too big to open in notepad now (win32 memory issues :confuse3:) Still learning more today, Geez...when does it end hey? Don't answer that one. :lol: