M20 - Opinions please

[pvelez (Pete)]

I've been refining my PI skills of late - but I have a long way to go yet.

Attached are 2 versions of M20. I was unhappy with the first and so started from scratch and produced the second. Looking back at the initial version, I'm less unhappy with it.

I'd appreciate any comments or criticisms.

I am pleased with the raw data. This comprises about 5 hours each of R, G and B and 8 hours of Lum. Taken with STX16803 mounted on PW CDK12.5 up at Coona.

I plan to add some Ha to this - when the moon is up.

For the purists, no deacon. But the saturation might be a bit heavy for some - I do like a bit of colour!

Pete

[Paul Haese]

The first one is best, don't like the second at all. All the detail has been lost in my opinion. First is very nice, good colours, nice overall. Larger resolution would be nice though.

[TimberLand (Justin)]

Your scope is out of my league and but you are getting results that you should by the look of it. WOW. Looking great. I agree the first as the second is washed out in the highlights.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

first one is just about perfect Pete. Colour is great and resolution looks fine at this scale.
Why not use deconvolution?

[RickS (Rick)]

First one is better IMHO too, Pete. Hard to tell how well you've captured detail without a higher res version. I always look for the stellar jets at longer FL. If they are missing then there's something wrong.

Decon is fine used in moderation

Cheers,
Rick.

[gregbradley]

First one is better. A bit too much green in the background that is throwing off the colour a little bit and watering down the blue reflection neb.

Greg.

[alpal]

Hi Pete,
The first one is better - the 2nd one is washed out in the brighter areas.
If you post the RAW stacks maybe we could all have a go at it?
The data is very good but I'd need to see the full number of pixels.

cheers
Allan

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Yes probably the first one, its allowing the subtle teal green hues in the outer nebula to be seen which are lost in the second version, as has been mentioned the displayed size is a little small to make a decent assessment.

Generally (as you would know ) I'd say good on you for not using decon or wavelets but... if you get it right and it is subtle they can be a good tool...just have to be veeery careful in their application

Mike

[astronobob (Bob)]

Great Going there Pete, Agree with the detail loss, tho I do like the rich colours, in paticular the blue intensities in the second and am wondering how'd it look with the Blues layered 'with a large feather' into the 1st leaving the central good stuff alone ?
Nice show ..

[rally]

Pete,

Seems to me that both images are processed very similarly with near identical detail except for the final stretch.
Whereas you have lifted the faint red outer nebulosity in one by increasing the levels and producing a brighter image but gone for a darker background in the other which has the appearance of being less washed out.

Certainly blending Ha will lift that outer red detail - look forward to another few hours !!

Was your question more about final presentation or some other level of processing ?

[pvelez (Pete)]

Thanks everyone for your comments

My own preference is the first as well - but I came to that conclusion only after tinkering with the second for an hour or so.

I think I have been confronted recently with a challenge that is new to me - lots of data. I find that after doing a non-linear stretch using STF, I need to tone the stretch down a bit. The Lum represented over 8 hours of data and so the faint emission nebula has much more prominence than I have been used to. I guess this is one of the joys of imaging from a dark site.

Here is a link to a larger image if anyone wants to look around this.

http://www.pbase.com/equitius/image/156438869

I'd be quite happy to post the masters and let others have a go. I'll look at how to do this via Dropbox

Pete

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

That big version shrunk to 50% on my screen, so I can take it all in at once, looks good Pete

Mike