Astrophotography Processing Challenge March 2024

[AstroBee]

I may be imagining it.... but this is where I sort of see it.....
MarchAPChallenge3Dust.jpg

It's your imagination. That's natural structure in the dust clouds.

[Jockinireland]

I've done a bit of digging around looking at the raw files and varios partially processed ones lights and flat. And while I think I can see what you are looking at, I'm struggling to really be convinced its an anomaly in either capture or processing. i've looked at my other images from around that time with the same rig, and the same flats, and can see nothing in any of them. I've searched a bit on AB and I think I can see it in some of those too. But its such with the varied scales and processing its difficult to say with 100% certainty.

So I'd probably concur with Greg that its structure in the dust clouds and our mind making a pattern of it - there a scientific name for that but I forget it right now

[Jockinireland]

Hi all

Thanks for sharing the data I really enjoyed processing this. My steps are as follows

Pixinsight
Image solver for SPCC
Gradient Correction (new PI process)
BlurXterminator
NoiseXterminator
StarXterminator
GHS to stretch the starless version

Photoshop / Camera Raw
Worked on the starless image using colour sliders to get the nebulosity the colour I wanted
Some colour noise reduction

Pixinsight
On the stars image I used histogram transformation to stretch the starts to the level I wanted
PixelMath to rescreen the stars
Selective colour correction script again to obtain colours and look I wanted
colour mask to try and saturate the Ha below VDB152
Final curves adjustment, saturation & contrast

I also decided to go against the norm with the mirror flipped version.

Thanks Simon

Thats really good, though the flip threw me a bit to start.

Would you care to share how you got on with Gradient correction. A few of us would be interested in how you used it in this instance. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to try it as I find GraXpert does a great job.

[starfield]

I've done a bit of digging around looking at the raw files and varios partially processed ones lights and flat. And while I think I can see what you are looking at, I'm struggling to really be convinced its an anomaly in either capture or processing. i've looked at my other images from around that time with the same rig, and the same flats, and can see nothing in any of them. I've searched a bit on AB and I think I can see it in some of those too. But its such with the varied scales and processing its difficult to say with 100% certainty.

So I'd probably concur with Greg that its structure in the dust clouds and our mind making a pattern of it - there a scientific name for that but I forget it right now

Good deal. I wasn't sure and was worried I created a new feature in post processing.

[gcisko]

Here is my shot at it. It is just stretching in photoshop and a bit of astroflat pro. Nothing special and no cheating with pixinsight :-)

Ceph_DustGcisko-1280x840 by Greg Cisko, on Flickr

[Jockinireland]

Astroflat seems to have done a good job with the horrible gradient. Do you have Hasta L Vista Green (HLVG) on Photoshop. - It may be worth running that on the image as it does, at least on my screen, have a bit of a green cast.

HLVG is a free plugin for photoshop and can be got from here


https://www.deepskycolors.com/tools-tutorials/hlvg/

I took a screenshot of your image and ran HLVG (I hope you dont mind) and got this - I think the colours are better - what do you think?

[Pepper]

Hi all

Thanks for sharing the data I really enjoyed processing this. My steps are as follows

Pixinsight
Image solver for SPCC
Gradient Correction (new PI process)
BlurXterminator
NoiseXterminator
StarXterminator
GHS to stretch the starless version

Photoshop / Camera Raw
Worked on the starless image using colour sliders to get the nebulosity the colour I wanted
Some colour noise reduction

Pixinsight
On the stars image I used histogram transformation to stretch the starts to the level I wanted
PixelMath to rescreen the stars
Selective colour correction script again to obtain colours and look I wanted
colour mask to try and saturate the Ha below VDB152
Final curves adjustment, saturation & contrast

I also decided to go against the norm with the mirror flipped version.

Thanks Simon

Thats really good, though the flip threw me a bit to start.

Would you care to share how you got on with Gradient correction. A few of us would be interested in how you used it in this instance. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to try it as I find GraXpert does a great job.

It was actually the first time I used GC and I really liked it. I have never really got on with Graxpert I think thats my issue. I cant seem to get it to work in PI and I hate having to save it and open GP and do it in there. I also love ABE, and DBE too perhaps I am just a PI fanboy

I watched Sasca Wyss (view into space) on YouTube do a decent tutorial on GC and I basically just followed his steps. I played about with the sliders, but he notes the scale and smoothness should go in sync with each other and also always check the radio box for automatic convergence no idea why...

As above I tried with the scale and smoothness low, medium and high and for this particular image low gave the best results. If you dial in the settings correctly it even removes dust particles it really is a game changer and can potentially fix images where flats did not correct or like me forget to take!

I am very muc new to it but so far it seems amazing to me

[lostone]

Just downloaded, This is going to be a tough one for me to process. I'll see what I can come up with.

[Graeme1858]

Just downloaded, This is going to be a tough one for me to process. I'll see what I can come up with.

We look forward to seeing your work.

Graeme

[starfield]

I've been playing with Gradient Correction a bit and still seem to get better results with DBE taking out the gradients on the edges. Seems to do it without clobbering the HA or PN down in the lower right. I didn't do much either. In DBE I set the tolerance to 4 and then generated a grid. Then I just made sure to move any samples off any strong dust features and away from any bright stars and ended up with a nice flat image.

I've had good luck with Gradient Correction on some galaxy images, but still need to do more study to get it working right on this field.

-Steve

[Rasalgethi]

Tricky one to process. Lots of stars.

I used Pixinsight.

ABE subtract
ABE divide
Masked stretch
Tvgdenoise
Curves

[gcisko]

Astroflat seems to have done a good job with the horrible gradient. Do you have Hasta L Vista Green (HLVG) on Photoshop. - It may be worth running that on the image as it does, at least on my screen, have a bit of a green cast.

HLVG is a free plugin for photoshop and can be got from here


https://www.deepskycolors.com/tools-tutorials/hlvg/

I took a screenshot of your image and ran HLVG (I hope you dont mind) and got this - I think the colours are better - what do you think?

cisko_hlvg.jpg

I goofed around with HLVG but never pursued it much. I probably should look at it again. Many of my new images with the Optolong L-eNhance are producing green glows which Astroflat Pro takes care of. But like you said, it is worth checking out. I'll check my photoshop install to see if I did set it up a few years ago. Thanks!

[gcisko]

I took a screenshot of your image and ran HLVG (I hope you dont mind) and got this - I think the colours are better - what do you think?

I don't mind at all (I know some get freaked out when someone alters their work). The colors certainly flattened out and are less green. So I get your point