TheSkySearchers

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:59 am Hi Chris,

Thats a huge improvement over your very first one from a few weeks back. Really starting to come together.

What are you doing for noise reduction because I think you may be overdoing it just a shade and losing some structure in the outer dust lanes.

Juno16 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:06 pm You are making fine progress Chris!

Processing is the tough part (for me anyway).

I missed in your post how long your subs are. Is your histogram 1/4-1/3 from the left?
In Bortle 7 skies (like I have) most of the signal is sky background. You will need a good but of data to get decent details on the outer dust lanes without having to use lots of noise reduction.

Most astrophotographers revisit targets each year to apply new knowledge to their last acquisition.

Very nice work on this! There is a lot going on in this hobby and you are doing well!
.

bobharmony wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 2:57 pm Very nice, Chris. The re-visit with the controlled core is a bit more to my liking. M31 turns out to be a difficult object to process as it is so bright and fills so much of the frame. There is a large range from lightest to dimmest detail and it is hard to get both perfect in the same image. You have done a really nice job.

Bob

chris_g wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 6:35 pm

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:59 am Hi Chris,

Thats a huge improvement over your very first one from a few weeks back. Really starting to come together.

What are you doing for noise reduction because I think you may be overdoing it just a shade and losing some structure in the outer dust lanes.

I'm using noise reduction in Adobe's Camera Raw app. Admittedly, I just cranked the noise and color sliders all the way over. I'll check it out and see if I can get it to do better, thanks for the pointer.

Juno16 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:49 pm It's fun to watch your progress Chris!

Good data is easier by far to process. I have skies like you and by far, the best thing that I can do to get better data is more time on target. I have found for most fairly bright nebulae (mag 5-6), I need at least 6 hours on target in my skies. More is still better.

David is right @Jockinireland . PS CR works great, but needs some masking or a super light hand. I sometimes like to use PS CR for small tweaks after processing in PI because it is really fast. Its effects are very strong though. I would like to see his hi-pass workflow too!

There is literally no end to spending money on this hobby! I just downloaded the Topaz DeNoise AI trial and it is pretty dang astonishing! It really reduces noise at several preset levels (also adjustable) but retains details and even seems to increase sharpness. Now I will download the Topaz Digapixel AI. Supposed to really boost the resolution. Maybe I shouldn't!!

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:01 pm
Yes Camera raw noise reduction is good but you need to use it carefully. If you need it for your background you coul apply a mask over the galaxy before applying CR. Carbonis actions plugins for PS are a great set of plug ins to PS specifically for AP and has lots of great tools, including 2 excellent noise reduction scripts which would do a better job than CR It costs about 20 bucks and, if you plan on using PS for a while would be money well spent.

Also, it's possible to do a selective high pass routine which could bring back some structure to your dust lanes after noise reduction.. let me know if you are interested and I'll post a step by step. It's dead easy and can be very effective.

chris_g wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 7:36 pm

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:01 pm
Yes Camera raw noise reduction is good but you need to use it carefully. If you need it for your background you coul apply a mask over the galaxy before applying CR. Carbonis actions plugins for PS are a great set of plug ins to PS specifically for AP and has lots of great tools, including 2 excellent noise reduction scripts which would do a better job than CR It costs about 20 bucks and, if you plan on using PS for a while would be money well spent.

Also, it's possible to do a selective high pass routine which could bring back some structure to your dust lanes after noise reduction.. let me know if you are interested and I'll post a step by step. It's dead easy and can be very effective.

I've got a vested interest in PS now besides the monthly, I also got Star Tools Action Set and their Star Spikes plugin so I'll be on PS for the time being. I'll check out Carbonis too, thanks. I'm always interested in knowing how to improve the images, I see that you posted the flow. Thanks for that as well.

Haven't had to much time to rework the data yet, I was working on another project last nigh. I finally got my mini PC OTA mounted instead of to the tripod leg, it's ugly but it works. Had some cabling issues last session. My "new" dedicated astro DSLR camera should be showing up tomorrow along with the L-eNhance filter. Fun, fun!

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 8:16 pm

chris_g wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 7:36 pm

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:01 pm
Yes Camera raw noise reduction is good but you need to use it carefully. If you need it for your background you coul apply a mask over the galaxy before applying CR. Carbonis actions plugins for PS are a great set of plug ins to PS specifically for AP and has lots of great tools, including 2 excellent noise reduction scripts which would do a better job than CR It costs about 20 bucks and, if you plan on using PS for a while would be money well spent.

Also, it's possible to do a selective high pass routine which could bring back some structure to your dust lanes after noise reduction.. let me know if you are interested and I'll post a step by step. It's dead easy and can be very effective.

I've got a vested interest in PS now besides the monthly, I also got Star Tools Action Set and their Star Spikes plugin so I'll be on PS for the time being. I'll check out Carbonis too, thanks. I'm always interested in knowing how to improve the images, I see that you posted the flow. Thanks for that as well.

Haven't had to much time to rework the data yet, I was working on another project last nigh. I finally got my mini PC OTA mounted instead of to the tripod leg, it's ugly but it works. Had some cabling issues last session. My "new" dedicated astro DSLR camera should be showing up tomorrow along with the L-eNhance filter. Fun, fun!

Hi Chris, I dont know "Star Tools" Plug in, but I think "Star Spikes" comes from Pro-Digital which is where what I call Carbonis Actions comes from. They call it "Astronomy Action Tool Action Set" nowadays.

Good luck with the modded DSLR - what model are you getting?

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:27 pm
Hi @Juno16 Jim,

The high pass routine is really simple

1. Make a new layer by stamp visible(ctrl+alt+shift+n+e) or Ctrl+a / Edit>copy merged /ctrl+v
2. Change blending mode on that layer to overlay or soft light (experiment to see which works best for different images
3. Filter>other>high pass - adjust radius to taste - again experiment - I usually use radius between 15 and 28
4. Layer>layer mask>hide all
5. Make sure you are clicked on the mask but you can see the image then use paintbrush to paint white on the mask over the areas of the image you want to lift, have the brush soft and small enough that its not going too far outside of the area you want.
6. You will see, in the image, the areas you paint over start showing more sharpness , more "structure" etc (actually its just more contrast I think)
7. If you paint over stars within the structure they may become too bright and sharp so change the brush to black and paint a spot the same size as the star to drop it back
8. You can vary the opacity of the paintbrush to increase/decrease the effect in different areas or you can adjust the the overall layer opacity once you are done if you feel its too harsh

Here is a very quickly done example of the core of my andromeda

Before


After


To see it best, Right click on each image and open in a new tab, then you can blink back and forward between the tabs to really see the difference. Even at a quick and rough application you can see the difference it makes.

Let me know if anything's unclear. Have fun!

Take care

David

Juno16 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 18, 2021 10:32 pm

Jockinireland wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 11:27 pm

David

Hey David, @Jockinireland

Your method outlined above is really interesting and works very nicely on the details! Very nice tip!

I just applied your method on a small portion of my M31 image. Just arbitrarily selected a Hi Pass radias. Big difference in the dust lanes.

I am not sure if there is a way to do that in Pixinsight, but it is a pretty cool tool to have to use on the starless image. It also helps bring out the Ha areas in M31 in my image. Thanks again!