Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
Not sure whether drizzling makes a difference when the FWHM is already 4-5 pixels (1.6-2”).
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The more pixels to play with the easier it is to process for me I find. Then you bin2x2 back to native res. I tried both ways and by blinking I can see a difference visually. So here's what I do, and it seems to work for me.
I do all the calibration in CCD Stack, dark/bias/flat fielding/bad pixel map then save the calibrated subs in a directory as FITS 32 bit float.
I then flick through them manually. Depending how many I have in total I decide what "I can live with" rather than filtering the lot based on FWHM or excentricity or background/contrast etc... then pick a "good one" to register everything on.
From there I go in PixInsight and do a StarAlignment/Integration/Drizzle Integration and generate two XISF and FITS combined files for each size. Native and drzlx2.
I load the native res FIT file in Startools and make a TIFF star mask and save it.
I go in PS and double the size of the mask then save as a drzlx2 TIFF mask again. I find startools had a harder time to do a starmask with big fat stars. Maybe it's me (Ivo can chime in) and there's a way to do this but I find it easier to resize the native starmask.
I go back in startools and load the upsized drzlx2 FIT file
I load the upsized starmask and do all my things. Stretching, slight deconv then bin 2x2. Then again do another run of devonv and final noise reduction. Save as TIFF 16bits.
Finally load the channels in PS in layers, do the channel blend. If your SNR is good you might only need a very slight noise reduction. I use Noiseware professional from Imagenomic. I like it because you can do a very tiny noise reduction while increasin the contrast and sharpening at the same time.
If I want extra details I use Topaz(2) Details and if your SNR is good you select the "Micro Contrast Enhancement" preset which is pretty aggressive but can work. Otherwise you use the "Feature Enhancement" which is a lot smoother. Then you make two Topaz layers and apply one as darker color first then the other layer as lighter color.
Then you can tweak your color balance and season to taste, levels, contrast, etc... to something you like. That's how I did this one.
