NGC 6914 - what's black and blue and red all over?

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Stevec35

That's a great image of a lovely field Rick. The northerners must be glad they have Cygnus. So much photogenic stuff there.

Thanks, Steve! I think we should take up a collection to move Cygnus southwards

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Yeah excellent result Ricki beautifully processed and what a field, very enjoyable view, they should all listen to you from now on, cheers

Ta, Mike. My wife doesn't listen to me so why should anybody else?

Originally Posted by DJT

I really like the way this is composed as you are drawn into the reflection nebula in the centre.

great image, marvellous colours.

Interested in the process of getting 6 people to agree imaging targets! An excellent choice!

Thanks, David. It didn't take much arm bending on this one. Actually, target selection hasn't caused any arguments so far. It helps that I'm a northern hemisphere newbie and any object is a good one as far as I am concerned!

Originally Posted by Leonardo70

Wondeful Rick...congrats ! Top result.

Thanks, Leo. Look forward to your version.

[pvelez (Pete)]

That is an absolute cracker! (I was going to type phwoar! but decided that might send the wrong message)

At some point you might give us a step by step view of how you process these images - its such a natural looking image but I'm sure the process wasn't straightforward to reach this point

Pete

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks, Pete! Here are my processing notes. Some of it is in shorthand but hopefully it's not too hard to decipher. I'm happy to explain anything that isn't clear.

Pixinsight:
- Remove satellite trails
- BPP calibrate/register (ref image:"ngc6914-Light-Luminance-1200s-Bin1-W-20151008-050349.fts")
- Integrate all for best SNR
- Integrate noise weighted L/R/G/B -> Ls
- Crop all

RGB:
- [L]RGBCombine
- BGN, CC structure detection
- MLT linear mask nr (medium)
- Masked Stretch
- RangeSelection mask sat star cores: Convolution blur
- ACDNR, heavy on chrominance
- Curves: cyan -> blue
- RGBWS 1:1:1
- Star mask: MLT chrominance blur (layers 1-4)
- Clipped lum mask: Curves Sat+

Lum:
- Decon
- MLT linear nr (light)
- Blend: HT stretch | MS Stretch/core fix
- Rangemask | Convolution: HT reduction
- Star mask: MT Selection
- HDR mask: LHE, HDRMT

Ha:
- MLT linear nr (light)
- HT stretch
- HDR mask: LHE, HDRMT

Blend:
- Lum/Ha blend
- Max(Blend,Ha)
- Clipped Lum mask: MLT sharpen
- HT slight stretch

LRGB:
- LRGBCombine Blend/RGB
- Blue mask: B+, L+
- Clipped Lum mask: Sat+
- DSE
- ICCProfile -> AdobeRGB
- Rotate 90 CCW

[codemonkey (Lee)]

Nice work Rick! Thanks for posting the processing notes and congrats on the IOTD :-)

[RickS (Rick)]

Thanks, Lee!

BTW, here's a couple of small Easter Eggs. GN 20.22.7 aka Parsamian 22 at top left and GN 20.22.1 at bottom right. Simbad classifies them as reflection nebulae but there are claims (mostly in German) that they are Protoplanetary nebulae. They are about 52x23 arcsec and 30x25 arcsec in size.

Cheers,
Rick.

[andyc (Andy)]

Very nice image, quite a project! And the notes are useful too, good to see your working The little nebulae are very pretty too

[pvelez (Pete)]

Thanks for the processing notes Rick - plenty to chew on there

Pete

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by andyc

Very nice image, quite a project! And the notes are useful too, good to see your working The little nebulae are very pretty too

Thanks, Andy,

Originally Posted by pvelez

Thanks for the processing notes Rick - plenty to chew on there

Pete

My pleasure, Pete. Let me know if anything in there needs further explanation.