TheSkySearchers

This time we have some quite amazing data courtesy of Rob @yobbo89 . This is especially exciting for us northerners as its something we cant image from up here. This is a mosaic of NGC 3576 - "The Statue Of Liberty Nebula" and it is a wonderful target and wonderful data. Robs original post is here so you can see what we have to play with viewtopic.php?f=66&t=16875&hilit=ngc3576

This is pure narrowband data with files for each of Ha, Sii and Oiii so if anyone is unsure how to handle this type of data drop me a PM and I'll try to help. I know how to do it in APP, PI and - roughly- in Photoshop. For Startools you'll need to ask someone else, perhaps Ivo @startoolsastro

Rob has provided the data as 16b fits and 64b Tiff - I have saved down a 16b tiff also. All are accessible here https://1drv.ms/u/s!Alj6NhuYfZtW20pNsme ... Q?e=QLtogi

Be warned the 64b tiffs are about 1Gb EACH so you'll need a decent amount of processing power to handle them.

Download what files you want and process in your software(s) of choice then post in this thread. The purpose of the APP Challenge is to share techniques so we can all learn and grow in our abilities so please describe your process steps and any special tricks you used to get your result. If you have been finding something difficult to do with this data - tell us and hopefully someone will be able to help.

NOTE - OUR DATA POOL IS GETTING LOW AGAIN SO IF WE DONT GET SOME MORE DATA SOON I'LL NEED TO CUT THIS BACK TO MONTHLY INSTEAD OF EVERY 2 WEEKS So- Please consider submitting some data of your own for future challenges. Just send me PM and I'll take it from there.

Enjoy the challenge.

David

What fabulous data, and such a treat to process something I could only drool about previously since it is in the wrong hemisphere.

Gigantic files (guess partly from being a mosaic), my poor PC nearly couldn't cope with them, final files made smaller.

How do you post bigger images on this forum?
This is the full size on my Astrobin staging area (since it is not my image).
https://www.astrobin.com/full/heixmb/0/

Processed in Photoshop. Mostly levels and curves and selective colour, and a bit of High pass filter.
Ha added in for a second time as a luminance layer.

Carole

Carole, just WOW!! On a different note, we put a size limit on all postable pictures. This is to help preserve server disk space. Just like you did, if you would like folks to see the bigger version then go ahead and use a link to either Astrobin or Dropbox or some other site that helps host pictures.

Also, great data from Rob.

Cheers

That's a great rendition Carol. What did you use to process it?

Also, a left click on your image opens a larger version. Then a right click and open in a new tab opens a bigger one.

Regards

Graeme

Hi Carole, that's a great result.

Could you drop it in the AP Challenge thread with some details of your processing steps so others can see how you got there. (Edit - No worries, I moved the posts!)

Scratch that, Graemes moved the posts in here.

My fault for putting my "advertising" posts up with exactly the same name

Thanks

David

Wow such excellent data processed in Startools 1.8.506 Alpha which is now public release https://www.startools.org/downloads , one drive link to startools log https://1drv.ms/t/s!Alj6NhuYfZtW21gsbiz ... I?e=7Ga1jo massive data binned to 25% and still a respectable size ,first process which i will redo now @yobbo89 has said what the channel capture times are in his original post , so thank you @yobbo89 for sharing . regards Dave

Mk 2 process startools1.8.506 log https://1drv.ms/t/s!AlYf19b9AD6CcYFZBu4 ... g?e=45Viym colour looking better after weighing channels in compose mode startools 1.8.506 .

Thanks for the fantastic data Rob @yobbo89

When I started on this I decided that Robs original was so good I did not want to just try to emulate that but wanted to produce something different. I decided to try for a “Classic Hubble” look with greens (I know-that’s not fashionable at the moment), golds and blues. I also wanted to try to crank up the contrast and colours to increase the overall “drama” of the image.

So my workflow, starting in Pixinsight, was

Crop, Rotate
No BE because I felt I could not do that without the risk of losing some of the background nebulosity which I really wanted to show.
Decon
EZ Denoise on Sii & Oiii (not on Ha- didn’t need it!)
HT to bring each to non-linear
Range masked stretches with HT/CT to get brightness levels up on Sii/Oiii
Combine with SHO-AIP as LRGB with Lum=Ha, R=Sii, G= Sii*0.3 +Ha*0.7, B= Sii*0.15+Oii*1,
Then tried LHE and HDRMI but neither was what I wanted so combined the two 50:50 in Pixelmath.
A few tweaks in Curves and HT for sat/lum/contrast
DarkStructureEnhance Script for a bit more drama
Tried Unsharp mask but even with masked stars it was looking nasty so didn’t bother
Moved to Photoshop for some selective color and saturation adjustments and a selective High Pass
Slight tweak in levels for balance and background
…et voila!
This data is so good it deserves to be seen in higher resolution than a small jpg so I have put it up in a private astrobin staging area here

That's a great rendition Carol. What did you use to process it?

Also, a left click on your image opens a larger version. Then a right click and open in a new tab opens a bigger one.

Thanks, I used Photoshop, and Registar to register as cropped the edges off each channel mosaic so needed registering again. I don't use any other processing programme as happy with Photoshop.

Mostly levels and Curves and selective colour, I finally put the Ha on top as a luminance layer.

Carole

PS thanks for the tip on the image size.

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Sat Jul 24, 2021 10:50 am Thanks for the fantastic data Rob @yobbo89

When I started on this I decided that Robs original was so good I did not want to just try to emulate that but wanted to produce something different. I decided to try for a “Classic Hubble” look with greens (I know-that’s not fashionable at the moment), golds and blues. I also wanted to try to crank up the contrast and colours to increase the overall “drama” of the image.

So my workflow, starting in Pixinsight, was

Crop, Rotate
No BE because I felt I could not do that without the risk of losing some of the background nebulosity which I really wanted to show.
Decon
EZ Denoise on Sii & Oiii (not on Ha- didn’t need it!)
HT to bring each to non-linear
Range masked stretches with HT/CT to get brightness levels up on Sii/Oiii
Combine with SHO-AIP as LRGB with Lum=Ha, R=Sii, G= Sii*0.3 +Ha*0.7, B= Sii*0.15+Oii*1,
Then tried LHE and HDRMI but neither was what I wanted so combined the two 50:50 in Pixelmath.
A few tweaks in Curves and HT for sat/lum/contrast
DarkStructureEnhance Script for a bit more drama
Tried Unsharp mask but even with masked stars it was looking nasty so didn’t bother
Moved to Photoshop for some selective color and saturation adjustments and a selective High Pass
Slight tweak in levels for balance and background
…et voila!



This data is so good it deserves to be seen in higher resolution than a small jpg so I have put it up in a private astrobin staging area here

very nice rendition of my data , the stars are nice and the ha is crisp

loaded Ha as luminance like the colour better processed in startools 1.8.506 log https://1drv.ms/t/s!AlYf19b9AD6CczEbl8Wj0Ex1DKc

Rob ... great narrow-band data set .... 22 hours of image acquisition .. building 3 large image mosaics ... what a monumental task. I couldn't ask for anything better for my first try at narrow-band image processing ... thanks!

My take on this image was processed 100% using Photoshop. Most of the processing was done using predefined "action" sets

* Resize images to 1800x1333 to speed up processing
* Three (3) iterations of the "BIG STRETCH" action
* Global noise reduction on the OIII and SII images only, using the free Google Nik Colllection
* Duplicate the three images and remove the stars on one set using the "RemoveStars" action
* "Tone Mapping" for the starless images using the NikCollection to bring out faint nebulosity
* Deconvolution of the starless images using the "Deconvolution" action
* Remove residual star artifacts on the starless images using "Despeckle" and "Dust & Scratches" (faded) tools
* Combined the 3 starless images using the "Hubble Palette Creation" action
* Combined the 3 star images using the "Hubble Palette Creation" action
* Copy and pasted the starless image onto the star image then combine using "Blend" with "Lighten" option
* Minor color adjustments using "Levels", "Saturation" and "Vibrance"
* Selective sharpening using "Unsharp Mask"
* Selective noise reduction using Nik Collection
* "Flatten" Image and crop out black bands around the perimeter

The Nik Collection for Photoshop is a very useful set image processing tools that every PS user should have. You can download the free Google version from the Internet Archive website:

https://archive.org/details/nikcollection-full-1.2.11

Completely agree with everyone about the wonderful quality of the data. Processed in PixInsight. So nice to see so many beautiful processing approaches on this data.

PROCESSING APPROACH - PixInsight:
Noise reduction on all three channels (MultiscaleLinearTransform)
Stretched
Boosted the Sii and Oiii images with RangeMasks applied to boost the nebulae while protecting the background.
Combines SHO data with PixelMath
SCNR applied to SHO image to remove the Green
Noise reduction with TGVDenoise
Created starless version
Extract Luminance from starless image
Sharpen Luminance image
Perform LRGBCombination to slightly blurred starless image. Sharpened Luminance used.
Used UnsharpMask to slightly sharpen image with nebula mask applied.
Used Pixelmath to combine the stars from SHO image with starless image.


Steve

@Sky that's a super version. You mention several astro specific actions - remove stars, Hubble pallete creation etc. Are those from the Annie's Actions set? Also, where did you get the Deconvolution action?

I think you have done a very fine job if that's your first NB processing. Well done!

some very nice renditions, i forgot to add that i used clone stamp on that bottom star where you see a bit of red and blue, it's a seem artifact on one of the frames. you need the right feather settings if you're running a seam through a bright star in pixinsight ..

might i add ,the small bottom nebula looks like a egyption scarab beetle

yobbo89 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:31 am some very nice renditions, i forgot to add that i used clone stamp on that bottom star where you see a bit of red and blue, it's a seem artifact on one of the frames. you need the right feather settings if you're running a seam through a bright star in pixinsight ..

might i add ,the small bottom nebula looks like a egyption scarab beetle

Thanks for that Rob. I had been wondering if it was some sort of nebula and had intended to do some digging today.

I see your Scarab. My wife says there are a couple of faces in the orange right of centre looking up at Lady Liberty. I think she had too much red wine.

i forgot to add that i used clone stamp on that bottom star where you see a bit of red and blue, it's a seem artifact on one of the frames. you need the right feather settings if you're running a seam through a bright star in pixinsight ..

I also wondered about that and whether to clone it out. But then decided I ought to leave it in.

Carole

Here's mine. Using PixinSight, I started with Pixel Maths. I did RGB>SHO and just for fun, RGB>HOS and RGB>OSH, with an STF Autostretch on each one to see what we got. The SHO was monotonal green and the OSH was predominantly blue, as you would expect. The HOS whilst looking a bit pastely (is that a word?) the range of colours was brilliant, so I went with that one.

ABE - not much change since the background is mostly nebula!
DBE - likewise
ColourCalibration
TVGDenoise
CurvesTransformation - S curve. And I was hoping to play with the Hue adjustment but I couldn't better it!


Regards

Graeme

Thats nice @Graeme1858 .

A very different palette but effective nonetheless

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:03 am @Sky that's a super version. You mention several astro specific actions - remove stars, Hubble pallete creation etc. Are those from the Annie's Actions set? Also, where did you get the Deconvolution action?

I don't have the Annie's Action set, however I do have Astronomy Tools Actions that I find to be very useful.

The "Deconvolution " action along with "Hubble Palette Creation" and "Boost Star Colors" are included in a free action set called "Beta Action Set 1." The Deconvolution name is a bit of a misnomer since it relies heavily on the PS "Smart Sharpen" algorithm.

The free "Troy's Astro Actions v0.9.2" includes "Remove Stars" along with "Big Stretch" and some other nice actions.

Another free action that I find to be very useful is "Star Bloat Removal" which only reduces bright bloated stars leaving smaller stars untouched. There is a good degree of control over which bright stars are chosen.

If anyone is interested in these free actions, let me know and I'll get them to you