Hope ya like it!
Tom
Hey Benjamin, for the NB images I do 1200s subs, for the
Hey Benjamin....the answer is YES. A star as bright as Alnitak will really blow out the entire region around it if you just use your regular exposure times. I haven't found any way to "control" a star like that except by using HDRComposition. I'm not sure what processing program you're using, but Pixinsight is a very powerful tool and my "bread and butter" processing program (I do use photoshop to do some tweaking and color correction). I think they still offer a 30 day trial subscription and then it's like $200 USD for life....which I don't think is a bad deal at all! The exposure times are critical to controlling the really bright stars. To get Alnitak to not be blown out you would need to take 15 or 20s exposures...of course with those short exposure times you wouldn't get any nebulosity......that's where HDRComposition excels. You take 50 or 100 exposures of say 15s and then take exposures of 300-600s and combine the two masters. The resulting image will look like Alnitak is still blown out but then you use this other magical tool called HDRMultiscale Transform and BOOM Alnitak is controlled and the nebulosity from your longer exposures is intact!! You can do all this with aBenjamin wrote: ↑Mon Dec 09, 2019 8:36 pm Thanks for the detailed reply Tom :-) Is star size and colour (in particular Alnitak) managed through this process (given the different length luminance subs) or are you also removing stars/tone mapping/masking etc.? Is it also the benefit of a CCD camera perhaps over a CMOS camera that helps keep things in check? I’ve had nightmares with Alnitak in particular in case it isn’t obvious! That second image is a cracker too! The wider field is nice and I like that dusty nebulosity below the horsehead.
Benjamin, you are most welcome!! I don't process the 1200s NB images in the HDR workflow....BUT if you have the MultiChannel Synthesis Script, you can process the luminance (if you're using aBenjamin wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2019 7:36 pm Brilliant! I use PixInsight already so know exactly what you mean. I’m just reprocessing M42 as an HDR image (have 10s, 30s, 60s, 120s LRGB subs) so am getting on top of that workflow. Did you integrate the really long subs (1200s) in the HDR workflow, or are these processed as starless images to work on the nebulosity ? So many more questions but maybe I’ll just go and explore a bit in the hope of getting close to your wonderful image :-) Again many thanks for sharing the workflow.
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