Helix Nebula Work in Progress

[Craige]

With all this cloud / wet weather at the moment slowing my Helix project down, I thought I would have a go with some of the data I have already collected. So still very much a work in progress.

LRGB with my ZWO 174MM Cool. Processing in PixInsight and PS.

Any thoughts to make this better would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Craige

[RickS (Rick)]

Looks pretty good, Craige. I presume you didn't stretch it further because of limited SNR? Would be nice to see a little colour in the stars too.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Craige]

Thanks Rick.

The SNR is limited and when I did stretch more it wasn't good. More data required. I'll have a play with the colour in the stars. Is there a process in PI for star colour manipulation. I have a basic routine for process in PI at the moment.

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

Craige

Originally Posted by RickS

Looks pretty good, Craige. I presume you didn't stretch it further because of limited SNR? Would be nice to see a little colour in the stars too.

Cheers,
Rick.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Craige

The SNR is limited and when I did stretch more it wasn't good. More data required.

We always need more data, Craige

Originally Posted by Craige

Is there a process in PI for star colour manipulation. I have a basic routine for process in PI at the moment.

You can mask them (a clipped luminance mask will get stars and other bright areas, or a star mask will isolate just the stars) and then apply a CurvesTransform boost to the Saturation curve.

For extra guru points you can mask the stars and apply MMT, disabling the first few layers with the Target set to Chrominance. This will blur the colours in the stars and is useful if you have white, blown out star cores.

Cheers,
Rick.