Heart Nebula Reprocess Making Blue "Pop"

[STEVE333]

Prompted by helpful suggestions from bradleybcraig and Micke187 I've been experimenting and then searching on YouTube for a tutorial on how to bring out the Blue in HOO images. I found a very helpful tutorial by RockyMountainAstro that was easy to follow and worked very well. A link to the tutorial is below:



I followed the tutorial and was able to produce the image below on my first try. I was "blown away" by how well it brings out the blue as well as golds. It also taught me that all the details in a NB color image is in the Luminance. Even though my imaging session tonight was washed out by fog I'm still in a great mood because of learning how to do this new processing. I hope you enjoy this image as much as I do. For comparison my original processing is shown in the second image below.

New Approach
Heart_Bicolor by STEPHEN KING, on Flickr

Original Approach
Heart Hoo by STEPHEN KING, on Flickr

Comments welcomed.

Now I have to go out and bring in the equipment because of the fog - Grrrrrrrrr

Steve

[Micke187]

Very Nice! Yep that was a big difference indeed!
Must say you got alot of good signal of the o3 too and it really does pop!

[STEVE333]

Very Nice! Yep that was a big difference indeed!
Must say you got alot of good signal of the o3 too and it really does pop!

Thanks Micke and thanks for motivating me to find this new processing technique. I really like it.

By the way it was only 4 hrs of 10 min exposures for the O3, but, apparently it was enough.

Cheers - Steve

[MariusD69]

Amazing images! Great job, Steve!!

[BABOafrica]

Wow...

I just finished saying how much I liked the original.

Well, this re-pro brings out the blue ... as if we were talking about a completely new image.

So beautiful.

BABO

[Micke187]

Very Nice! Yep that was a big difference indeed!
Must say you got alot of good signal of the o3 too and it really does pop!

Thanks Micke and thanks for motivating me to find this new processing technique. I really like it.

By the way it was only 4 hrs of 10 min exposures for the O3, but, apparently it was enough.

Cheers - Steve

Well 4hours of 10min on this target is plentiful to bring out the o3. For more is to reduce color noise so it wont be grainy. But this image looks really smooth actually

[bradleybcraig]

NIce job, Steve! And kudos for pushing your processing skills!! Honestly you would be surprised at the results when you produce a color image that looks 'over the top' or even ugly and overlay with a really highly processed Luminance layer :-) I have moved from an approach of if I'm planning on capturing 10 hours of Ha, then I also need to capture 10 hours each of Sii and Oiii to if the target only has really strong signal in Ha then I will capture the most data there and get a hour or two on the other channels - basically to just achieve a decent chrominance noise level. I want the highest signal to noise ratio on the Luminance image. Color doesn't matter as much, just enough data to achieve a pleasant color palette.

[STEVE333]

NIce job, Steve! And kudos for pushing your processing skills!! Honestly you would be surprised at the results when you produce a color image that looks 'over the top' or even ugly and overlay with a really highly processed Luminance layer :-) I have moved from an approach of if I'm planning on capturing 10 hours of Ha, then I also need to capture 10 hours each of Sii and Oiii to if the target only has really strong signal in Ha then I will capture the most data there and get a hour or two on the other channels - basically to just achieve a decent chrominance noise level. I want the highest signal to noise ratio on the Luminance image. Color doesn't matter as much, just enough data to achieve a pleasant color palette.

Thanks Brad. Your response to Ram concerning how to get details back into his beautiful Squid project is one of the main reasons I started looking through YouTube to find some help. I can't thank you enough for "pushing me" in this direction. I've always enjoyed your images, so, I knew that you know what you are talking about.

Thanks for the tip on how to apportion the data collection time. Right now there are several days of clouds ahead, so, I'll be going back to some recent NB images to try this approach on them.

Cheers

[STEVE333]

This is my second attempt at using the processing techniques from Teagan's YouTube tutorial. I do believe it is a bit better all the way around. Learning a new technique is always a challenge.

Bicolor_2 by STEPHEN KING, on Flickr

Hope you like it.

Steve

[Peter802]

Fine image Steve, I great improvement.
Well done.

[mbocca]

Steve,

Your image looks beautiful. I have a full set of narrowband and wideband data on this and was finishing the NB processing when I saw your post with the link. I watched the link last night and started to work with the OIII and it really improved. Hopefully, when I process what I have it will approach what you have obtained here.

Great work.
Mike

[STEVE333]

Steve,

Your image looks beautiful. I have a full set of narrowband and wideband data on this and was finishing the NB processing when I saw your post with the link. I watched the link last night and started to work with the OIII and it really improved. Hopefully, when I process what I have it will approach what you have obtained here.

Great work.
Mike

Thanks Mike. I'm glad the tutorial helped you also.

As for your new image, why not make it better than mine? I look forward to seeing your result.

Steve

[Jockinireland]

they are all super images steve. i've used that tutorial on data from my L-Enhance and its really great,. I prefer the second blue one for the stronger contrast in the detail.

[Astrovetteman]

What else can I say?? BEAUTIFUL!!!
GREAT IMAGE!!
Tom

[JohnP_1]

Nice image Steve. I like the detail and processing.

[jthommes]

Steve,
Your second attempt seems the winner IMHO.

I do find myself a little torn about the the Ha/OIII combine using some form of "Blue Pop". I have my pixel math set up to do the "Blue Pop" with Ha combine in one step with starless versions of both Ha and OIII. (Iadd the RGB stars after.) I can get a wide range of Ha tone from red to orange and OIII tone from blue to teal with highlights at the higher intensity levels. The question I am torn with is which is the best color tone? The conclusion I have come to is that it depends on the object and my mood. Seems undisciplined doesn't it?

Did your Heart nebula image employ any starless processing?

[STEVE333]

Hi Jim - I also use PixelMath to combine the Ha and Oiii for the G-channel.. I put multipliers on the Ha and Oiii for the G-channel such that the multipliers always add up to 1 (e.g., 0.7xOiii + 0.3xHa). I haven't played with the intensity of the Ha for the R-channel or the Oiii for the B-channel.

I also just play with the portions until I like the result.

I didn't use any starless processing on the Heart. My telescope tends to have halos around the brighter stars, so, I have a technique that makes a "HaloMask" to remove the halos. Other than that I just did normal processing. The NB definitely helps to control the stars. Also, the technique of using a RangeSelection mask to protect the surrounding stars while stretching the nebula helps significantly with the star control.

I used the same approach (RangeSelection mask) on my recent SHO image of the Heart nebula. I like how it turned out.

It's so much fun when you learn a new technique that really works!

Steve

[Hankmeister3]

Outstanding. Thank you for tinkering and sharing, Steve.

[depratnt]

Steve, the differences here area amazing! Since making the tutorial, I have adjusted me Bicolor workflow but I am so glad to see that it has helped. From the looks of it, the colors are significantly improved!

Welly done, my friend!

[Ylem]

Very nice