AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

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Graeme1858 Great Britain
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AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#1

Post by Graeme1858 »


Here's the AP Processing Challenge for May 2021.

The processing data repository is all cleared out so this month you have my recent capture of M100 to play with! The stacked .fits file comprise 89 x 120 second light frames, 10 x dark frames, 30 x flat frames and 30 x dark flats. The ASI294MC gain was tweaked up from 125 unity to 180 for this one just to see how it would go. The photons were collected with my 9.25 SCT at 2350mm fl.

Wiki: Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321) is a grand design intermediate spiral galaxy in the southern part of the mildly northern Coma Berenices. It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and is approximately 55 million light-years from our galaxy, its diameter being 107,000 light years, and being about 60% as large. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 and 29 days later seen again and entered by Charles Messier in his catalogue "of nebulae and star clusters". It was one of the first spiral galaxies to be discovered and was listed as one of fourteen spiral nebulae by Lord William Parsons of Rosse in 1850. NGC 4323 and NGC 4328 are satellite galaxies of M100; the former is connected with it by a bridge of luminous matter.

Just click the link below to download the files and process using your preferred software and methods. Then post your results to this thread for us all to enjoy!

AP Processing Challenge No.16 files here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WwDjlQ ... sp=sharing

This is the original posting: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=17645

Please consider submitting some data of your own for future challenges. Just send a PM to a Mod or an email to: tssapchallenge@theskysearchers.com

And as always, have fun with this one! I look forward to seeing how your processing turns out.

Regards

Graeme
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#2

Post by Jockinireland »


First off thanks to @Graeme1858 for making this data available for us all. Its nice data of a target I've not done yet so it was fun.

This is my effort
Challenge_16_Final.jpg
This was mostly in Pixinsight with the following steps;

Dynamic crop
Gradient removal with several iterations of ABE/DBE
Photometric colour calibration
Deconvolution
EZNoise reduction
Masked stertch
Colour saturation (masked)
Contrast with Local HistogramEqualisation
A bit more saturation in Curves transformation.

Then into Photoshop for some minor tweaks including a little more noise reduction and selective sharpening using a selective High Pass routine.

Looking at it now I feel I've overdone the final NR just a tad in the outer faint areas.

Looking forward to seeing what others can do with this.

Take care all.

David.
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#3

Post by Graeme1858 »


That's really good David. It's way better than my original! The improved colour and sharpening has massively enhanced the clarity of the dust lanes in the spiral arms and the star forming regions. The clicked version is frameable!

Thanks

Regards

Graeme
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#4

Post by Sky »


Processed using Photoshop .....

Stretch With Curves
Color Balance
Tone Mapping (reveals faint structure while maintaining bright areas)
Synthetic Background Replacement (removes background gradients and Color Blotch)
Selective High Pass Sharpening
Global Color Saturation and Vibrance Adjustment
Boost Star Color
Level Adjustment (set background to neutral gray)
Challenge-No-16---Graeme1858---M100-SS-dk.jpg
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#5

Post by Jockinireland »


Sky wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:13 pm Processed using Photoshop .....

Stretch With Curves
Color Balance
Tone Mapping (reveals faint structure while maintaining bright areas)
Synthetic Background Replacement (removes background gradients and Color Blotch)
Selective High Pass Sharpening
Global Color Saturation and Vibrance Adjustment
Boost Star Color
Level Adjustment (set background to neutral gray)

Image
Thats come out really nicely. Could you explain or give a link to some details of how you did the "Synthetic Background Replacement". When I used PS (I now use mostly PI but photoshop for some things) i used GradientXterminater but would be interested in how you did this because your background is really nice.
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#6

Post by Gordon »


Okay,

Let's give this a shot!

StarTools using most of the tools with the default settings:
Challenge No 16 - Gordon - M100.jpg
Gordon
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#7

Post by Jockinireland »


Thats nice @Gordon . Very gentle, almost pastel colours.
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
Secondary mount: Skywatcher StarAdventurer

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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#8

Post by Graeme1858 »


Sky wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:13 pm Tone Mapping (reveals faint structure while maintaining bright areas)

That works well.

Regards

Graeme
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#9

Post by Graeme1858 »


Gordon wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 5:14 pm StarTools using most of the tools with the default settings:

That has brought out the satellite galaxies NGC 4323 and NGC 4328 really well Gordon.

Regards

Graeme
______________________________________________
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ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#10

Post by Ruud »


Hi Graeme, thank you for this month's processing challenge.

I think I did something wrong in Fitswork with the first version below: there was hardly any colour detail. I still post it here because it shows a lot of detail in the disk.
Challenge No 16 - Graeme.png
My second try in Fitswork came out with much more colour. I used Photoshop with Topaz (denoise, adjust and detail) on it. This is the result.
Challenge No 16 - Graeme1858 - M100_3d.png
7x50 Helios Apollo 8x42 Bresser Everest 73mm f/5.9 WO APO 4" f/5 TeleVue Genesis 6" f/10 Celestron 6SE 0.63x reducer 1.8, 2, 2.5 and 3x Barlows eyepieces from 4.5 to 34mm
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#11

Post by Graeme1858 »


Thanks Ruud

Both images are good. The spiral arms stand out well. I've not used Fitswork. How do you get on with it?

Regards

Graeme
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ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#12

Post by Ruud »


Hard to say, Graeme. I understand about 20% of the program and though I get results every time, they vary wildly.

The wysiwyg features aren't too difficult to learn, so I've concentrated on those. Must study some tutorials.

A third attempt in Fitswork led to this (after PS):
Challenge No 16 3rd time Fitswork.png
There's no way of knowing which of the 3 versions is closest to realistic.

Here is the Fitswork homepage: https://www.fitswork.de/software/softw_en.php
The program is free and Youtube has tutorials
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#13

Post by Graeme1858 »


A fine attempt no.3! You have brought out more detail with the brighter image.

Turns out I already had Fitswork downloaded! But I've not played with it before. Some of the tools look interesting.

Here's a quick go at my M100 using Fitswork.

Autosave-M100-FW.jpg

I don't think I got the colour balance right or the brightness but the programme looks quite useful. The Pixel Arithmetic looks like a tutorial might be a good idea!

Thanks Ruud

Regards

Graeme
______________________________________________
Celestron 9.25 f10 SCT, f6.3FR, CGX mount.
ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#14

Post by Ruud »


Graeme, I had a uniformly pink galaxy much like yours in my first run.

Have another try if you will. Crop the image a bit: drag a rectangle with the mouse and click on the scissors in the toolbar.

Now try this for the histogram:
R: from 0.02 to 0.05 with gamma 1.36
G: from 0.02 to 0.05 with gamma 1.69
B: from 0.02 to 0.04 with gamma 1.41
The values for the histogram's limits aren't very precise. Aim for something like the relative locations of the peaks in the screenshot.

From Processing -> Color Functions choose Color Corrections and fill in the values from the screenshot
I think you have to read what happens per column.
The old R, G and B values are changed to
new R = +1.58R - 0.3G - 0.3B
new G = -0.3R + 1.6G - 0.3B
new B = -0.3R - 0.3G + 1.64B

Now there is some separation of colours. Later you'll want to amplify the colours further. There is however a slight gradient that is best dealt with now. Apply Processing -> Background Flatten -> Automatic Flatten for Nebula to remove it. The program may appear to freeze. Just give it some time.
capture_001_08052021_145424.png
Save as a 16 bit Tiff. Now you probably have a good starting point for processing in GIMP or darktable.

Darktable 3.4 is an amazing piece of free software. The home page is here: https://www.darktable.org

Have a look at the processing options, there is so much there! https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en ... g-modules/

Or look at the tutorials on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... ktable+3.4
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#15

Post by Graeme1858 »


Thanks for all the information Ruud.

I'll have another go later.

Regards

Graeme
______________________________________________
Celestron 9.25 f10 SCT, f6.3FR, CGX mount.
ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
APM 11x70 ED APO Binoculars.

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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#16

Post by Larry 1969 »


What a cool idea! Processing data on cloudy days!!!
I wasn't sure how heavy of a crop this data would allow for but I went big. Probably too big...
Anyway, I ran this through StarTools and I had trouble dealing with the noise without clipping too much.
It was a good learning experience and thanks for sharing your data!

Larry
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Challenge No 16 - Graeme1858 - M100.jpg
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#17

Post by STEVE333 »


Thought I would join in the fun. Here is my attempt using PixInsight.
Hist_LRGB.jpg
Cheers,

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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#18

Post by STEVE333 »


I boosted the color saturation on the yellow portions and then enhanced the contrast a bit on the same regions. Brings out more internal details.
Hist_LRGB_Boost.jpg
Cheers,

Steve
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#19

Post by Jockinireland »


STEVE333 wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 2:21 am I boosted the color saturation on the yellow portions and then enhanced the contrast a bit on the same regions. Brings out more internal details.

Image

Cheers,

Steve
those are really good Steve, I may have to go back to my version and see if I can brighten it up a bit!
Scope: Skywatcher Evostar 80ED (SW 0.85 FR/FF) on a SW NEQ6Pro
Guiding; SW Evoguide 50ED, ASI 120mm mini
Meade 8" LX200 GPS on wedge (Guided with a cheapo 50mm guidescope and a ZWO ASI 120mm mini)
Sharpstar 61EDPH II (with dedicated 0.8 reducer) with wiliam Optics 32mm uniguide
Camera: ASI2600MC pro. QHY 163M with ZWO 7nm NB filters, Canon EOS700D astro mod
Secondary mount: Skywatcher StarAdventurer

My Astrobin https://www.astrobin.com/users/mackiedlm/
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Re: AP Processing Challenge No. 16 - Graeme1858 - M100

#20

Post by Graeme1858 »


Larry 1969 wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 10:27 pm What a cool idea! Processing data on cloudy days!!!
I wasn't sure how heavy of a crop this data would allow for but I went big. Probably too big...
Anyway, I ran this through StarTools and I had trouble dealing with the noise without clipping too much.
It was a good learning experience and thanks for sharing your data!

Larry

The tight crop really changes the feel of the image. Nice one Larry.

Regards

Graeme
______________________________________________
Celestron 9.25 f10 SCT, f6.3FR, CGX mount.
ASI1600MM Pro, ASI294MC Pro, ASI224MC
ZWO EFW, ZWO OAG, ASI220MM Mini.
APM 11x70 ED APO Binoculars.

https://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/
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