Flaming Star IC405

[JR]

I've been struggling to deal with moonlight gradients and clouds in images taken a week ago. After a sub by sub sift to get rid of the worst I ended up with only 25 minutes integration out of 2.5 hrs, comprising 5 five minute exposures. I stacked with DSS and processed using Pixinsight.

Images were taken with a ZWO asi533 MC Pro at gain 250 and cooling to -11°C using a 12nm Astronomik Ha filter on an Esprit 80ed f5/400. They were calibrated with 30 darks, no flats or bias.

IC405 is both an emission (of red Ha wavelength light) and a reflection nebula (of blue star light from the star AE Auriga off the interstellar dust). AE refers to spectral class A and the E to Ha emission. The Ha nebulosity in the image is shown in monochrome and no blue light was collected due to the use of a narrowband pass Ha filter. AE Aur is about 1500 light years away, spanning some 5 light years, and is passing through the constellation of Auriga. It's believed to have originated in the trapezium of the Orion nebula and been displaced from there along with two other stars.

The olympic torch Flaming Star is a good nickname. Hopefully better weather will allow improved results and some colour, but when, who knows?

James

[tcos...@gmail.com]

Hi James
That's a very nice image you have got there and well done for persevering with removing the Moon gradients. It’s a shame that we had a couple of lovely clear nights last week but with a full Moon! You have framed the subject well with the torch shape clearly apparent. I took a colour image of this target back in 2018 but with too small a field of view (ie too close up) and with the torch not exactly held vertically! Yours is altogether a much better composition and something to try to emulate in future. How are you finding using Pixinsight? Is it better than Photoshop or is it just a different approach?
Cheers
Tim C

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[JR]

Tim

Thanks very much for your kind comments.

I well remember your blue dragon image I think it was. I can't believe it was over two years ago. I hope to get further along the imaging line weather permitting and get up to that standard.

I think Pixinsight far exceeds Photoshop in many respects but it isn't software you can pick up by trial and error. Being able to buy it VAT free as an outside EU purchase was helpful though.

It gets 0/10 for customer facing and is proud of it. It needs to be 'taught', in practice self taught and on a rigid curricular basis. No dipping in and out and no short cuts. I found a very helpful Youtube video on step by step processing some Rosette nebula data. I followed suit, pressing pause a great deal for over two hours to do the same with my Flaming Star data. Being able to iconise the processes and stack them as a work sequence in a corner of the screen is really helpful. I have a screen shot reference for future use.

In fact I've found there is a fairly standard workflow but you often need to know which parameters to set, which is utterly impenetrable without following footsteps (wavelet noise reduction in particular) and suspect I will never be able to use a large % of the capabilities though I'd benefit if I could. I'm only as good as the most complicated youtube video I can still understand! Luminance layer masks are easy and work well. STF is genius as are 'auto background extraction' and 'background neutralisation'. Generally Pixinsight scores well by being astronomy orientated unlike PS.

James

Sent from my iPad

> On 5 Mar 2021, at 20:32, tcos...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi James

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/croydonastro/cad701d711fe%24967a1eb0%24c36e5c10%24%40gmail.com.

[tcos...@gmail.com]

Hi James
Thanks for the insights regarding Pixinsight! (pardon the pun). From what you say it does take some concerted effort to learn so maybe I will leave it to either a holiday or if and when I retire! I found Adam Block's courses on CCD Stack and Photoshop to be brilliant. I like structure and workflow and for me Adam's courses revolutionised the way I process images and made a huge difference to the quality of what I produce. They were not cheap but took one through everything step by step, explained some of the theory behind the tools and showed how to use them in combination. I think he has done a course on Pixinsight too so will probably get that at some point.
Cheers
Tm C

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[JR]

That's a good plan Tim. There's a limited time free trial as well. You could use any convenient integrated and calibrated unprocessed image to get a good idea. The basic principle is that Pixinsight works with Processes, which are pretty much the equivalent of PS Actions, though with a system for applying them that feels somewhat eccentric. It works well once you get the hang of it.

James



Sent from my iPad

> On 7 Mar 2021, at 09:59, tcos...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi James

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/croydonastro/0ad401d71338%2492061f10%24b6125d30%24%40gmail.com.