IC434/B33 - My first horse.

[atalas]

Hi Alex

This is a great first go at the Alnitak Region mate!congrats.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Alex,

Well done on your first go. As others have said, flats will help!

I know all about what Alnitak can do to your image.

This is what I had to contend with. And, this is what the final image looked like.

Regards,
Humayun

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Nice image Alex

Sorry, but I couldn't help myself - here's my take on your image. Alnitak's flare is usually too severe to do much with, and I think that we should all sign a petition to have it moved ou of frame.

Well done!

[AlexN]

Thanks Humayun & Chris,

Humayan, That horse head of yours is fantastic! SNR looks perfect!!

Chris, That redo looks great... Can you tell me what you did to achiece the better contrast without losing too much of the nebulosity?

I will gladly sign that petition!

I was saying on the CN forums just the other day.. Alnitak is perhaps one of the worst placed objects in the sky (although if it wasnt for Alnitak, the horse head would be virtually unlit..)

3 Most poorly placed objects in the sky..
1 - The Flame Nebula... It would get so much more attention, if it were not near the horse head,
2 - The Running Man Nebula, It to would get heaps of attention, if it was not placed right next door to one of the most recognizable deep sky objects
3 - Alnitak, If it were mag 4/5, it would be less hated by astro photographers

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by AlexN

Chris, That redo looks great... Can you tell me what you did to achiece the better contrast without losing too much of the nebulosity?

Alex - I first upsized it (yep!) to 2048px wide. I then did a Gaussian Blur to atificially remove some noise. I then adjusted levels to bring the mid tones down a little towards black. Curves next - added some linear contrast and then finally adjusted saturation up just a tad to bring out the colour in the nebulosity. The last step was to then downscale it back to 800 px wide and adjust brightness up a little because this forum tends to darken images a bit for some reason.

Have you got a link to the original? I'd like to see what I can do with it for a bit of fun if you do

[AlexN]

i could upload the unedited tiff if you'd like to have a go at it for me, that'd be great..

Its 35mb, 16bit 3014x2000px If you're cool with that, let me know and I'll upload it


Alex.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by AlexN

i could upload the unedited tiff if you'd like to have a go at it for me, that'd be great..

Its 35mb, 16bit 3014x2000px If you're cool with that, let me know and I'll upload it


Alex.

No problems with that - go for it!

[AlexN]

uploading now....

[AlexN]

It doesn't like the Tiff.. uploading a zip...


Anyone else who feels like having a go at it, feel free..

[Jen]

very nice Alex keep em coming i want a poster size copy in the mail thanx

[AlexN]

finally...

http://users.on.net/~kooliez/alexnastro/Autosave.zip

Thanks

[AlexN]

I had another stab at processing..

Using a few of the techniques that Chris pointed out earlier in the thread, I also copied the red channel, converted it to grey scale and added it as a synthetic luminance layer (blended into the red and blue channels at various levels of opacity/fill)

I think its got more detail that the initial post.. I think the best answer here is capturing more data!

Next time its clear, I'll try and get 12x10min subs and 6x20min subs and see how it goes...

[Jen]

nice Alex lets hope for some clear nites this weekend cheers