IC 4685 - A Baby Octopus in Sagittarius

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

nice one Andy, really like the colours on this one - good to see an rgb! you've done well considering it is from city skies.

Cheers Russell, LRGB from the 'burbs is always a good challenge, but I'm starting to get my head around it!
Thanks to a few good tips & suggestions here, the results are improving each time!

Originally Posted by Cosmic

Cool depiction of that dso. Colours look really nice here.

Thanks Daniel, I worked really hard on them so I'm delighted that you enjoyed them too!

[Atmos (Colin)]

Nice colour and detail in the Ha Andy, well captured and processed. Still not sure where these clear skies are that you've been seeing

[gregbradley]

A wonderful image Andy. Your tricky processing paid dividends. I know how some images just fall into place and others need to be coaxed and pushed.

One comment and its not a defect but perhaps a way of enhancing the image further. I have seen some astrophotographers manage to get the golden stars to really pop and bring out the gold. I am not 100% sure how they do it, I presume its some combo of selective colour or other colour tools in Photoshop.

But if you can manage that it would be even better as these are stars after all and they are balls of fire.

Greg.

[codemonkey (Lee)]

That's an absolute cracker, Andy. Love it! I'd been considering imaging this area too, but I finally got some galaxy imaging done instead... and I'm glad, this would be a really hard act to follow.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

Nice colour and detail in the Ha Andy, well captured and processed. Still not sure where these clear skies are that you've been seeing

Hey Colin, we had a run of 5-6 clear nights last week! Thanks for the nice feedback

Originally Posted by gregbradley

A wonderful image Andy. Your tricky processing paid dividends. I know how some images just fall into place and others need to be coaxed and pushed.

One comment and its not a defect but perhaps a way of enhancing the image further. I have seen some astrophotographers manage to get the golden stars to really pop and bring out the gold. I am not 100% sure how they do it, I presume its some combo of selective colour or other colour tools in Photoshop.

But if you can manage that it would be even better as these are stars after all and they are balls of fire.

Greg.

Goodness gracious Great Balls of Fire!
Thanks Greg, I'll keep that in mind on the next one

Originally Posted by codemonkey

That's an absolute cracker, Andy. Love it! I'd been considering imaging this area too, but I finally got some galaxy imaging done instead... and I'm glad, this would be a really hard act to follow.

Cheers Lee - I was very happy with the results this time, using LUM as well as Ha for this really helped minimise the noise too. Looking forward to your next series of images!

[Paul Haese]

It's a good attempt from the burbs and light polluted region and it would have been difficult undertaking the task of processing it. I know a lot of people have made very favourable remarks but there are something things with this image that I think need correction Andy. There appears to be a salmon look to the entire field and nebulosity. The outer star field should be golden in colour and the blue stars appear to be muted. On the high resolution and to some extent the native view on Astrobin there appears to be areas of speckle from sharpening or the use of decon, I am not sure which. Added to that what appears like over smoothed noise control (detail in IC1274 is almost non existent). Potentially a nice image but just some things letting it down.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

It's a good attempt from the burbs and light polluted region and it would have been difficult undertaking the task of processing it. I know a lot of people have made very favourable remarks but there are something things with this image that I think need correction Andy. There appears to be a salmon look to the entire field and nebulosity. The outer star field should be golden in colour and the blue stars appear to be muted. On the high resolution and to some extent the native view on Astrobin there appears to be areas of speckle from sharpening or the use of decon, I am not sure which. Added to that what appears like over smoothed noise control (detail in IC1274 is almost non existent). Potentially a nice image but just some things letting it down.

Rather than respond to yesterday evening's rude & condescending post by someone (not Paul) accusing me of deception. (It's since been removed) I'll instead respond to Paul's much more constructive criticism above

I've posted this comparison between our two versions of this object as a good example of the variance in outcomes,
driven by conditions. Paul's were taken under pristine dark skies and mine under heavy suburban LP. (I trust you're ok with this Paul?)
The original Ha data speaks for itself, the outcome, star colours etc. are dependant on how much Ha is contributing to the final image

[Paul Haese]

I don't have any objection but I think it is more than just the imaging conditions. Processing plays a very large part in my opinion.

I have included a 530 minute Ha I took of the region. No stretching just native process. It looks very similar to yours.

In my processing I chose to reduce the overwhelming effect of the Ha data on the end result. In the end I think I used an opacity of below 50%, simply because of the wash it was producing even in lighten mode.

Overall I have observed there appears to be a propensity for people to use the whole amount of the NB data in their images. This often skews the results with LHaOIIIRGB images and affects the way the object is portrayed. Ultimately this is dealers choice and just one of many observations among astrophotographers with experience.