New Trifid

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

This was taken tonight between interminable clouds. 10" reflector. Unmodified Canon 450D. Lights six minutes worth with darks/flats/dark flats. DeepSkystacker and StarTools. I was out for a few hours and these are the only usable ones, damn those clouds!
Advice, critique, tips gratefully received...
Graham..

[Stu Ward]

More data will bring out the Red better, but thats in the lap of the gods with the current persistant cloud deck.
You have good focus, but something i fell foul too and have been advised against is making the background sky too black.
You are losing quite a lot of data by doing this.

Stu

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Cheers Stu, I see what you mean. I look at the pic this morning and think, must have been a late night! I will have another go I think.
Graham

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Just had another crack, cheers
Graham

[Stu Ward]

Certainly brought out more of the red.
But i think you are really pushing the data you have now, as you are starting to get overprocessing noise.
Have you inked the background with the PS Levels ink dropper ?
If so, this is something that you should really try to avoid.
If you look at my firsat go at Trifid i did the same thing. Brings out the lovely colours, but from a reality point of view, you are misrepresenting what is actually there.
For 6 minutes of data, you have done really well, the results will get much better with more photons.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

I don't have PS. I agree about getting more photons, it was a terrible night last night with cloud and then the nearly full moon was about 35 degrees away. I set out to get about an hour of data but as stated before I got six minutes in the end! Clouds have been hanging around down her for what seems like months.
At least I got some darks taken!
Thanks Stu for pointers.

[irwjager (Ivo)]

Hi Graham,

Respectable results and Stu is giving some good advice here. I'm seeing some anomalies as well with the blackness of the background.

Did you use the Wipe module by any chance? If you did, try using the 'Add Headroom' setting of the bottom-end treatment parameter instead of the 'Clip <0' setting.
In addition, when using the Development module, try using a the smallest Normalize Filter value possible (or leave it 'Off').

I'd love to hear how you processed this image!

Cheers,

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Hi guys - from the same Moonwashed night, similar number of exposures etc. I have tried to keep the colours as natural as possible and used the add headroom in Star Tools. Still could do with lots more photons but considering the full moon was not far away...
Cheers
Graham

[midnight (Darrin)]

Graham,

Good attempts considering your battle with the moon and clouds. The repro of the Triffid is much better.

Definitely need more data.

Good luck!

Darrin...