Wow! Loving all of the renditions and the diversity of results! Thanks everyone!!!!
So as some have figured, the
Ha image is the cleanest from a noise perspective, and that's intentional. It's the largest integration time as I always use
Ha for the Luminance layer and process it separately.
Ha has 26 900s exposures and Oiii/Sii has 10 900s exposures. Here's my
Ha image I processed to use as Luminance. This would have the most detailed work using Deconvolution, nonlinear and linear noise reduction tools, LocalHistogramEqualization and/or HDRMultiscaleTransform, CurvesTrasnsformation and UnsharpMask.
I then recombine
Ha, Sii and Oiii to obtain an
RGB image on which I do color processing. I do very little noise reduction, if I do it would be nonlinear on the individual images prior to combining. I do STF applied to HistogramTransformation to stretch the
RGB image.
I did the BiColor version, which is
Ha to R, and Oiii to G and B using PixelMath. Prior to combining I did do a LinearFit with
Ha as a reference and applying it to Oiii. This results in a stronger Oiii signal and when combined allows for more teal/blue to appear. I did a STF applied to HistorgramTransformation to stretch the
RGB image. And afterwards did minor color saturation to bring blues out a little more. I always use ATrousWaveletTransform with 4 layers and all layers except the Residual disabled to blur the
RGB image. Here is the
RGB image before and after blurring:
I then used LRGBCombination to overlay the Luminance image obtain as above on the
RGB, apply Chrominance Noise Reduction and applying saturation by lowering it from 0.5 to 0.34. Then I do more color work using masks and ColorSaturation/CurvesTransformation. I did some SCNR work and a DarkStructureEnhance at 20%. This is my result:
Hope to see some more renditions! If anyone has questions, do let me know. Would be glad to help :-)
-Brad
Hardware: Meade 8" ACF, Mallincam CF VRC-8 & 0.75 reducer w/ Moonlite 2" CS focuser & High Res Stepper, WO Star 71 w/ Moonlite High Res Stepper,
iOptron CEM60, Modified Canon 450D, Atik 383L+ mono, Lodestar X2, 2" Atik EFW2, Astrodon 36mm 3nm NB Ha/Sii/Oiii Filters, LRGB Gen2 E-Series Tru-Balance Filters, PoleMaster
Software: SkySafari Pro, Sequence Generator Pro, PHD2, PixInsight
Astrobin:
https://www.astrobin.com/users/a028964/
Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradleycr ... roimaging/