TheSkySearchers

We have no data for AP Processing Challenge No. 14!

Would anybody like to make a submission?

Regards

Graeme


Edit - We have now!

Thats a pity, I'll put something up in a few minutes.

Thanks David.

Top man you are!

I have replied to your pm.

Regards

Graeme

JockinIreland has saved the day!

David has submitted his Messier 45 data for us all to enjoy.

From Wikipedia - The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. It is among the star clusters nearest to Earth, it is the nearest Messier object to Earth and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.

Just click the link below to download David's data then process as you like using your preferred software and methods. When you're done post your results to this thread for us all to enjoy!

This is the AP Processing Challenge No. 14 data file link.

Thanks David.

This is David's original posting.

Please keep the submissions coming in for future challenges. Just send a PM to a Mod or an email to:

tssapchallenge@theskysearchers.com

Have fun!

Regards

Graeme

Hi All,

This is my M45 data from November last. It is as stack of 3 different exposures 120, 180 and 240s all combined.

There are some obvious dust bunnies because at the time I was having problems with dust motes moving around between flats and therefore not calibrating out - I think it was due to the automatic sensor cleaning on the camera which is now disabled. They are nasty but can be got rid of with judicious cropping and the good old healing brush! Good practice for you. there is also a not so nice gradient but again good practice to get rid of it and its supposed to be a challenge!

Skywatcher 90ED, canon 700D,(FL510, pixel size 4.3micron if you want to do photometric calibration in PI) NEQ6,

Have fun - look forward to seeing what you can do with it!

i'll give it ago , are we posting here ?

yup, thats the plan. look forward to seeing what you do with it because I do like your own images very much.

i drizzled , split the channels ,balanced then recombine . worked mainly on the blue channel, theres a bit of detail in green but i couldn't controll the noise ..

@yobbo89 how do you drizzle on a stacked image. I thought that had to be at the stacking process?

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 4:38 pm @yobbo89 how do you drizzle on a stacked image. I thought that had to be at the stacking process?

just run it through your stacking software and stack it by itself, it won't stack
obviously but it will run the post soft through with it after .

I had some 'extra' time today and gave it a try.
Here's the shortened version of the steps used in StarTools.

yobbo89 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:00 pm i drizzled , split the channels ,balanced then recombine . worked mainly on the blue channel, theres a bit of detail in green but i couldn't controll the noise ..

Nice one Rob.

You brought the colours out really well.

Gordon wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:56 pm I had some 'extra' time today and gave it a try.

Great nebulosity Gordon.

Must have a go at this one tonight!

Regards

Graeme

Here's my go:

Pulled into Gimp
Curves
Levels
Curves
Levels
Curves
Levels
Exposure
Colour Balance
Saturation
Sharpen
Flip Vertically
Rotate Anticlockwise
Crop


Regards

Graeme

Here is my try with PixInsight. Hope you like it.
Steve

Another great example!

STEVE333 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:59 pm Here is my try with PixInsight. Hope you like it.

You have brought out the background stars well without overexposing the sisters and their Mum and Dad!

Regards

Graeme

@Graeme1858 @Gordon @STEVE333 All good goes.

Steve, I love how you have controlled the bright stars but got lots of fine nebulosity and even good background stars. How did you do all that, star removal? Starnet++

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:11 pm @Graeme1858 @Gordon @STEVE333 All good goes.

Steve, I love how you have controlled the bright stars but got lots of fine nebulosity and even good background stars. How did you do all that, star removal? Starnet++

I didn't use Starnet++ to control the stars. Here is what I did:

• Do normal linear processing (Remove gradients, color calibration, noise reduction)

• Perform a mild stretch of the image.

• Make a copy of the stretched image.

• Remove the stars from the copy using Starnet++

• Blur the copy to remove sharp structures.

• Use PixelMath expression max(stretched, f*blur) where f was adjusted till the "dust bunny" was eliminated but the nebulosity was left unchanged. Call this fixed image "Repaired"

• Extract the Luminance image from Repaired

• Sharpen the Luminance image then reduce the noise

• Combine the sharpened image with the Repaired image using LRGBCombination (with only L checked in LRGBCombination (This step sharpens the nebulosity structures while actually slightly reducing some of the stars)

• Make a star mask for the LRGB image.

• Apply the star mask to the LRGB image and then increase the color saturation to add color to the stars

That is the basic approach I used.

Steve

@STEVE333 Thanks for that - that seems like a really cool method - I'm going to give it a go this week-end.

Hi all this is my attempt at Jacks m45,I used my Serif affinity and stacked in Affinity.I used prodigital software to take out light pollution on the image.Then I adjusted the blue level quite aggressively and then used astrophotography background to increase the black. Thanks
Andy