Imaged M8 and M20 last night from the horribly light polluted Sydney skies. I'm not sure whether I'm processing the images in the best of manner, so I have uploaded the stacked TIFF file for somebody to have a play with and see what they come up with:
Canon 600D (stock)
Astronomik CLS-CCD clip in filter.
Canon 70-200mm@200mm, combination of f4+f5.6 and ISO800/ISO1600.
Subs range from 1min to 1m 30sec, total of approaximately ~3.5hours.
A few darks taken.
Tracked on a Astrotrack.
I stacked these in DSS, saved the TIFF file (the one uploaded) and processed in PS CS6. I'd appreciate any help and advice, many thanks
I just quickly ran this through Startools with just a wipe (to get rid of BG gradient), develop, and noise reduction.
It looks like the image has those noise lines in it. I don't know what they are though I've seen them in DSLR images before, perhaps someone knowledgeable about such things can chime in...?
Thanks for posting your data, I enjoy the challenge of processing other peoples data. I tried to keep track of the process I performed for this and am far from an expert at this myself. But I hope the below helps.
I used Photoshop for this. Like a couple guys have said above you have some type of stacking artefact in your image so I heavy cropped that section out as best I could.
Next was a couple simple stretching layers using Levels.
Then a Screen Mask Invert to remove some of the noise in the hope that it would also remove the colour banding in the image, it did help a bit but didn't remove it all.
Then I tried something new I have never tried before. This was to attempt to remove that colour banding. Using Topaz DeNoise (a photoshop plugin) I applied the heaviest noise reduction setting (RAW - strongest with debanding) to a new layer. I then changed the blending mode of that layer to "Colour". I repeated this process on a new layer each time and it seemed to really work at removing that colour banding and allowed me to stretch your image further. From memory I did it about 4 times. I think that was the key thing that helped me with your image. I'll remember that trick for my images (unsure if this technique has been tried before to remove colour banding?)
I think the image seems a little "cloudy" in the milky way areas now though but that happened due to my attempts to remove the noisy colour banding. Then I applied some colour enhancement using a technique called saturation block along with some further masking on M8 to not over expose the core.
Anyway, hope this helps! I enjoyed playing with your data, so thanks for sharing it
I just quickly ran this through Startools with just a wipe (to get rid of BG gradient), develop, and noise reduction.
It looks like the image has those noise lines in it. I don't know what they are though I've seen them in DSLR images before, perhaps someone knowledgeable about such things can chime in...?
Hugh that's a fantastic effort! I'll have to download startools and have a go, many thanks.
Thanks for posting your data, I enjoy the challenge of processing other peoples data. I tried to keep track of the process I performed for this and am far from an expert at this myself. But I hope the below helps.
I used Photoshop for this. Like a couple guys have said above you have some type of stacking artefact in your image so I heavy cropped that section out as best I could.
Next was a couple simple stretching layers using Levels.
Then a Screen Mask Invert to remove some of the noise in the hope that it would also remove the colour banding in the image, it did help a bit but didn't remove it all.
Then I tried something new I have never tried before. This was to attempt to remove that colour banding. Using Topaz DeNoise (a photoshop plugin) I applied the heaviest noise reduction setting (RAW - strongest with debanding) to a new layer. I then changed the blending mode of that layer to "Colour". I repeated this process on a new layer each time and it seemed to really work at removing that colour banding and allowed me to stretch your image further. From memory I did it about 4 times. I think that was the key thing that helped me with your image. I'll remember that trick for my images (unsure if this technique has been tried before to remove colour banding?)
I think the image seems a little "cloudy" in the milky way areas now though but that happened due to my attempts to remove the noisy colour banding. Then I applied some colour enhancement using a technique called saturation block along with some further masking on M8 to not over expose the core.
Anyway, hope this helps! I enjoyed playing with your data, so thanks for sharing it
Cheers,
Jason
Hi Jason,
Thank you for processing this and your description. Even though it is a little cloudy it is far greater improvement over my original Looks like it was taken with a modded cam
I reckon that the problem was you have did the convertion 32 bits to 16 bits in DSS. As they say, they aren't a good graphic process. You can use it, but it is not the best tool.
Unhappily your file to download is already in 16 bits. I would like to have it as original 32 bits. The problem in red channel, with much artefacts, probably was improved with that convertion 32 bist to 16 bits
Well, my contribution, with Photoshop CS3. Please, don't ask me what or how I did. I don't remember. But I started with convertion from 16 bits to 32 bits in Photoshop, followed by reduction of red saturation, and many work with mask, layer mask, background selection, noise reduction in red channel, .... It was not easy.
I reckon that the problem was you have did the convertion 32 bits to 16 bits in DSS. As they say, they aren't a good graphic process. You can use it, but it is not the best tool.
Unhappily your file to download is already in 16 bits. I would like to have it as original 32 bits. The problem in red channel, with much artefacts, probably was improved with that convertion 32 bist to 16 bits
Well, my contribution, with Photoshop CS3. Please, don't ask me what or how I did. I don't remember. But I started with convertion from 16 bits to 32 bits in Photoshop, followed by reduction of red saturation, and many work with mask, layer mask, background selection, noise reduction in red channel, .... It was not easy.
That's an incredible difference and it looks fantastic! I hadn't realised I converted it to 16bit in DSS. I'll re-upload a 32bit version tonight. Also I had another go at imaging last night using my 6D. I'll upload that tonight as well. I didn't take as many subs , 1.5hrs worth in comparison to the 600D version which is over 3hours, but i'll be interested to see the comparison
I feel that my process has some lack of red color of nebula and clouds around. So I did a boost. Unhappily some stars are saturated in this color. It was only an essay.
Thanks for the opportunity to process Mohammed. I'm only new to this myself, and have dived into the deep end with Pixinsight, so appreciate all the practice I can get. I like its subtlety. Is this one any good?
Amazing image by the way, alot of data for an SLR and lens.
This one is from the night after, using my 6D this time with a CLS-XL filter. Exposure time was ~1.5hours, 2hours less than the 600D version. No dark frames, but I had a go at bias and flats (first time).
Hi Mohammad,
Apart from my usual processing capers, I found taming the reds a bit tricky on this one, and also took some color noise out of the backround sky.
Some of the stars I was little lazy and were prob over-processed in patches.
Anyway, this was all done in PS CS3, about an hr or so, bit dodgy on left where the sudden gradiant was also. could have trimmed/cropped a few pixel on the edge aswell, but hey, worth a new challange ?
cheers..
Tricky data!
I had a quick go with the 16bit file in AstroArt, Downloaded the 32bit but I think it got corrupted as it wouldn't open.
In no particular order:
Crop, Gradient removal, white balance, Stretch, Curves, etc.
Not real happy with the background colour.
Tried to keep the colour as natural looking as possible.... well, natural for me that is.
Would really like to give it a go from scratch, but downloading 100something canon raw files doesn't appeal much
Looks like it was taken with a modded cam 
