What to do when you spend countless hours and end with a terrible image?

[Gary Mansperger]

I was faced with this yesterday after spending all the the last couple weeks of dark sky (mixed with fog and clouds) to get maybe 22 hours of good data. But the image (LDN1174) just was not to my liking and I was a minute from hitting the delete key when I decided to go completely off the reservation in processing. My idea was to create something that only someone with access to better mushrooms than I can get at costco would like. I succeeded! I hope that publishing this on this forum of amazing astrophotographers does not get me thrown off the island! I present what I call "Cosmic Swirl of Light and Color" created from 22 hours of 10 minute HO images of LDN1174 first processed in PI and Luminar Neo, then driven off the edge of the universe. No mushrooms were consumed and only 2 cans of 805. I am pretty sure this is how Van Gogh would have seen it.

[Gary Mansperger]

    This is the straight image which I used to make the above. 

[Stuart Heggie]

Gary, that is one of the coolest creative pivots I have ever seen. Great idea!

Stuart Heggie

https://www.stuartheggie.com/f783431253

On Sat, 2 Aug 2025 at 23:12, Gary Mansperger <mansp...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was faced with this yesterday after spending all the the last couple weeks of dark sky (mixed with fog and clouds) to get maybe 22 hours of good data. But the image (LDN1174) just was not to my liking and I was a minute from hitting the delete key when I decided to go completely off the reservation in processing. My idea was to create something that only someone with access to better mushrooms than I can get at costco would like. I succeeded! I hope that publishing this on this forum of amazing astrophotographers does not get me thrown off the island! I present what I call "Cosmic Swirl of Light and Color" created from 22 hours of 10 minute HO images of LDN1174 first processed in PI and Luminar Neo, then driven off the edge of the universe. No mushrooms were consumed and only 2 cans of 805. I am pretty sure this is how Van Gogh would have seen it.

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[Dipti Gokani]

Gary, 

I love this!

Dipti

On Sat, Aug 2, 2025, 8:12 PM Gary Mansperger <mansp...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was faced with this yesterday after spending all the the last couple weeks of dark sky (mixed with fog and clouds) to get maybe 22 hours of good data. But the image (LDN1174) just was not to my liking and I was a minute from hitting the delete key when I decided to go completely off the reservation in processing. My idea was to create something that only someone with access to better mushrooms than I can get at costco would like. I succeeded! I hope that publishing this on this forum of amazing astrophotographers does not get me thrown off the island! I present what I call "Cosmic Swirl of Light and Color" created from 22 hours of 10 minute HO images of LDN1174 first processed in PI and Luminar Neo, then driven off the edge of the universe. No mushrooms were consumed and only 2 cans of 805. I am pretty sure this is how Van Gogh would have seen it.

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[Kal Krishnan]

Haha! I love it!

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[Joseph Beyer]

It’s beautiful Gary. 

On Aug 2, 2025, at 8:12 PM, Gary Mansperger <mansp...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was faced with this yesterday after spending all the the last couple weeks of dark sky (mixed with fog and clouds) to get maybe 22 hours of good data. But the image (LDN1174) just was not to my liking and I was a minute from hitting the delete key when I decided to go completely off the reservation in processing. My idea was to create something that only someone with access to better mushrooms than I can get at costco would like. I succeeded! I hope that publishing this on this forum of amazing astrophotographers does not get me thrown off the island! I present what I call "Cosmic Swirl of Light and Color" created from 22 hours of 10 minute HO images of LDN1174 first processed in PI and Luminar Neo, then driven off the edge of the universe. No mushrooms were consumed and only 2 cans of 805. I am pretty sure this is how Van Gogh would have seen it.

<Cosmic Swirl of Light and Color.jpg>

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[Mark Scrivener]

Gary,

When I first saw the image I thought you posted a Van Gogh painting. Well done! If pretty pictures are what we are after, that is a win!

Mark

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[Graham Smith]

Very cool picture. What did you use to create the Van Gogh effect?

[Doug Loyer]

Very cool.  Looks like an AI style transfer.

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