I shot this pair in 2023 but was not satisfied with the background detail I pulled out of it. Even I wasn't happy with how hard I had to push to get the background to show to advantage, so I collected more detail on 2-5-24. After working with the new data enough to see that it was a worthwhile addition, I started a new stack of the two years combined data, each set calibrated with its own set of darks, flats, dark flats,master bias and a version of the
APP bad pixel map appropriate to each date.
After weeding out the worst of the frames I wound up with 139 180 second subs and stacked them all using AstroPixelProcessor. Post processing was done with
StarTools, then over to PhotoShop for a dose of NXT. After that I applied some
PS curves to actually
reduce the background levels, something that is NOT typical of my post-processing.
All frames were shot with the D5300 and lights had the Mark Shelley deringing process applied before stacking. The result follows:
As always, comments and criticisms are welcomed.
Bob
Hardware: Celestron C6-N w/ Advanced GTmount, Baader MK iii CC, Orion ST-80, Canon 60D (unmodded), Nikon D5300 (modded), Orion SSAG
Software: BYE, APT, PHD2, DSS, PhotoShop CC 2020, StarTools, Cartes du Ciel, AstroTortilla
