Image Processing Competition SPSP17 Subject images available now

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by iceman

So please keep your "this is crap" comments to yourselves,.

Mike, just so we are clear....

I for one, think Monte's image-processing challenge has great merit! and rather than a "bah humbug!" look forward to seeing the best teased out of the data offered.

[avandonk]

Originally Posted by montewilson

Thanks Mike - and to all those who are concerned the data is not perfect, they are telling me something I already know. I chose it exactly for that reason, because it is a challenge.

It's not called the Image Processing Cakewalk. The fact that these are not easy to work with will show who really knows their stuff and who knows only how to stack the pretty colours.

By the way Bert, nice Carina shot, what was it taken with?

It was taken with the Canon 5DH and Canon 300mm F2.8L at f/5. The f/5 was achieved with a circular aperture in front of the lens to stop it down. This was to done to not have diffraction spikes around all the bright stars due to the leaves in the iris of the lens.

I had no intention of sabotaging your contest. I was just saying if Jase could extract that image out of your data I am really not doing the best with mine own data. If I used adjectives that were not suitable I am sorry.

It turned into a senseless slanging mess and again I am sorry. I will never again retaliate in word.

Bert

[TrevorW]

Ok my attempt at the data (first LRGB ever processed) all done in DSS and PS7

picked 5 best frames from each set, balanced each frame cleaned them up a bit before stacking and adjusted size so all the same, stacked in DSS, saved as a FITS file, opened in PS7 using the FITS converter, converted to RGB adjusted in PS7 for levels, curves and color balance

Cheers

[tornado33]

This is my effort.
Anti Blooming Gates rock

I am assuming they used data with strong blooming and other defects to make the competition more challenging.

I left the blooms in, I was just keen to see what detail Id end up with. I did remove some of the hot pixels manually along with a satellite trail (I used all of the subs)

This is only the 2nd LRGB image Ive ever processed, the first a Ghost of Jupiter image from a 12 inch RCOSS GRAS telescope

I wonder how long the subs are and what scope and camera they were taken with?

Seeing as I was processing data thats not mine I had to have a play with Berts beautiful image, just a little tweak with Photoshop. Its a beautiful mosaic. Hey, thats a good idia for the 2010 astro processing comp, a mosaic
Scott

[montewilson (Monte)]

I believe it was taken with a reasonably large RC I am not sure about the exposure times though. I will see if I can get that information.

[montewilson (Monte)]

Here are the details of the image:

M81 Bodes Galaxy

LRGB : L 60min Bin 1, RGB each 25min Bin 2, all 5 min subs.

Taken on a TAK Epsilon 250 and ST10XME (GRAS G5 in New Mexico)

[rat156]

Here's my go at it Monte...

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the SPSP, but I plan to in the future!!

Keep up the image processing comp, I love it. It's great to be able to see your results compared to others (who may have more skill or experience in this area).

I'd like to add my processing steps, so others know how I got my result.

1. Loaded all the pics for each colour or the clears into CCDStack in turn. I manually rejected the two blue frames that were the wrong way up as they looked worse than the rest.
2. As they are already calibrated I removed any blooms and then any hot/cold pixels, then imputed the rejected pixels. This removes a lot of the very small artifacts.
3. Registered the frames (CCDStack)
4. Normalised the frames (CCDStack)
5. Data rejected the frames (Sigma reject 10%, CCDStack)
6. Averaged the colour frames, summed the luminance frames. I needed to average combine as there were an uneven number of exposures for each colour. Summing the luminance gives more headroon for stretching/sharpening I've found.
7. Saved each combined frame, loaded the R,G,B and L frames back into CCDStack to register them, saved the registered frames as 32bit FP fits files.
8. Removed the L frame from the stack and normalised the rest, saved as normalised frames.
9. Opened the registered and normalised frames in PS.
10. Stretched each colour frame in the same manner, I have a hrad and soft stretch curve saved. Adjusted the levels black point after each stretch.
11. Final levels adjustment on a bit of sky background set to 89%K (eyedropper tool, 11x11 pixel average).
12. Combined RGB to one file to produce the colour, removed any noticeable artifacts with the Spot healing tool.
13. Bumped the saturation up by about 50%.
14. Processed the Luminance in about the same way, until I was happy that I hadn't blown out the core, but still had lots of detail in the outer arms.
15. Lassood the galaxy, then select->colour range of most of the galaxy, missing the very outer faint fuzzy bits. Applied small and large unsharp masking.
16. Pasted the Luminance over the RGB and changed the blending mode.
17. There are some green artifacts in the background (from light pollution no doubt), so I adjusted the green saturation point to remove this.
18. Did the same with the cyan saturation to reduce some halo's around the brighest stars.
19. Saved then saved for web and devices to reduce the file size to under 200k.
20. Posted here.

Cheers
Stuart

Seems there is something up with the image upload, I'll post the pic later, don't want to lose all that typing! (Hint, try uploading the jpg file, not the psd, Doh!)

[montewilson (Monte)]

Hi Stuart - thanks for putting up such a detailed list of steps. You spent plenty of time on it. I would be interested in seeing a larger version if you are planning on posting one.