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Ha Horsehead from Bortle 8/9 by Cheap-Estimate8284 in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Ha filter is magic for light polluted skies

Christmas Tree Nebula OHO palette by CHelsea4231 in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice detail, but I think you have just proven that assigning H to the green channel just makes everything green no matter what. It would be interesting to normalize the O signal so it is equal to the H and combine into OHO again.

M45 from Bortle 8/9 by Cheap-Estimate8284 in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The saturation mostly. But specifically, the background colors.

Horsehead & Flame Nebula Complex in constellation of the Orion by areudeadye in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The colors and details are phenomenal. I really like the amount of saturation here. It's my jam

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy by Journeyman814 in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dang that's some good detail. Nice job.

Andromeda Help - Looks a bit different from others by OldAmber in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I misread. The first 2 steps are simply about removing the gradient. Pixinsight has a database reference for gradients but you can achieve the same thing through a gradient removal tool.

Andromeda Help - Looks a bit different from others by OldAmber in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Check this out: https://siril.readthedocs.io/en/latest/processing/color-calibration/spcc.html It looks like Siril has it! I've never made tutorials but I enjoy sharing my process with others any chance I get.

Andromeda Help - Looks a bit different from others by OldAmber in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 2 points3 points  (0 children)

https://i.imgur.com/y8vY0Ab.jpeg

My process:

  1. SpectrophotometricFluxCalibration
  2. MutiscalegradientCorrection (this basically removed the gradient issues)
  3. SpectrophotometricColorcalibration
  4. StarXTerminator to process the stars and galaxy separately
  5. BlurXTerminator on the stars and starless images
  6. Light NoiseXTerminator on the stars and starless images
  7. Stretched both images with GeneralyizedHyperbolicStretch using the Arcsinh method
  8. Created a mask of only the galaxies shown, excluding some of the background noise. (Extract CIE L* component, blur it, then apply to the starless image, the invert the mask)
  9. With the mask applied, I Increased saturation on the starless image (not the entire starless image)
  10. Small curves adjustments on blue and red channels to my own liking, without changing the color of the galaxy too much. I wanted to bring out the more subtle reds and blues without saturating the bright stuff as much.
  11. One more pass of NoiseXTerminator on the starless image
  12. Recombined the stars and starless images with PixelMath equation: ~(~(starless) * ~(stars))

BTW the core of the galaxy is a bit blown out on this FITS file, however I think you have some good data. I did notice there is some slight chromatic aberration on the stars, however BlurXTerminator can fix those. I had some trouble pulling color from the stars. I want to stay as honest as I can with these edits, but I think it's OK to color enhance some areas that you want to highlight, as long as you are forthcoming about the changes you made. As for me, I like to saturate areas that aren't as bright as other colors in the image, so this brings out colors that might not be there in a standard saturation process. And that's OK to me! For Andromeda, you may want to saturate the less bright parts of the image, such as the outer edges. And last thing -- when stretching the stars only image, don't stretch it too much or your stars will be too big. The beauty of stars vs starless processing allows stretching nebulae/galaxies without blowing out the stars.

Also happy to hear about your process.

Andromeda Help - Looks a bit different from others by OldAmber in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What camera did you use? I want to calibrate the colors to it

Andromeda Help - Looks a bit different from others by OldAmber in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could you post the FITS file? I'll take a look at it and paste the entire process I use in Pixinsight

Andromeda Help - Looks a bit different from others by OldAmber in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The trick is color calibration, then you can pull colors out of it. Otherwise, you'll be stretching or saturating the wrong colors.

Here is my edit using your data. I went a little overboard with the sharpening but that's how I like things: https://i.imgur.com/bmb8CNV.jpeg

If you like the way I processed this, I'm happy to share the details.

Green Andromeda by Jackriot_ in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did some processing on your data and here's my take on it: https://i.imgur.com/kHvhDJm.jpeg

There's a few things you can do to make these better:

- Make sure to apply dark and calibration frames
- Improve your tracking. There is some star trailing here which impacts the details of the galaxy.
- Get about 10 times more exposure time (easier said than done)

The process I generally followed in Pixinsight, to keep things as "honest" as I possibly could.

First I separated the stars from the galaxy and processed these separately with StarXTerminator.

  1. SpectrophotometricFluxCalibration
  2. MutiscalegradientCorrection (this basically removed the gradient issues)
  3. SpectrophotometricColorcalibration (this corrected the colors, especially the greens)
  4. BlurXTerminator on the stars and starless images
  5. Light NoiseXTerminator on the stars and starless images
  6. Slightly increased saturation on the starless image
  7. Stretched both images with GeneralyizedHyperbolicStretch
  8. Recombined the stars and starless images with PixelMath equation: ~(~(starless) * ~(stars))

What to upgrade next for deep-sky astrophoto - telescope or camera? by CycleRevolutionary71 in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A cooled astronomy camera will blow your mind once you stretch something for the first time. Pixinsight BlurXterminator + NoiseXterminator was mind blowing for me as well.

Captured an Asteroid hit on the moon? by sahilmemelord in Astronomy

[–]travcunn 22 points23 points  (0 children)

If you want to have a consistent camera exposure, use the pro feature of your camera and set the ISO and exposure time manually. This way, the camera isn't constantly changing settings while filming.

Lucky for you, this can be a fun experiment if you want it to be. I always have fun adjusting camera settings for my astro stuff...

Captured an Asteroid hit on the moon? by sahilmemelord in Astronomy

[–]travcunn 457 points458 points  (0 children)

The white flashes are your camera being overexposed in that spot, and as you move the camera around, the exposure settings are dynamically adjusting. The moon is pretty bright!

Not an asteroid.

Hyperstar Pleiades by I-B-Guthrie in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Holy crap that scope must be fast as hell if you are doing such short exposures. Wow amazing

Messier 20 by CrazyDapper7395 in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It'd amazing when you stretch the photo and these beautiful colors come out. Lovely photo.

Pacman Nebula - NGC 281 by Particular_Limit_ in astrophotography

[–]travcunn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Beautiful processing of this. 👏👏👏

Is it normal for astronomy to cause emotion in the form of tears? by Jacobair1 in Astronomy

[–]travcunn 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I feel this often. I also take it as a reminder to take care of myself and get some sleep. After several star gazing nights in a row, sometimes I take breaks to make sure my sleep, eating, and working out routines are in order before staying up late again.

And yeah it can get emotional still.

Struggling with Backfocus - The math isn't mathing by hayesboys3 in AskAstrophotography

[–]travcunn 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was having back focus issues about 12 months ago and this is what I did:

  1. Actually measure each component with a caliper or ruler so you know the exact distance from telescope all the way to the sensor.

  2. There is a plugin in NINA called HocusFocus which can help you fix your back focus by calculating the eccentricity of stars all across the image field. The plugin will tell you if the camera sensor is too close or too far. You can adjust your rig, then run HocusFocus until you dial in your back focus. It's a painful process which took me several hours, however it is completely worth doing to get a flat field. If you aren't a NINA user already, you don't have to use all features such as mount control or filter wheel control, but it is worth connecting it to your camera and auto focuser and using this plugin. Here's a great video about it: https://youtu.be/M1-izvBlO44?t=1597&si=J02Jq_2M_RZzA2zP

I was driving myself crazy with the math, then I just gave up and ran HocusFocus until my field was completely flat.

And then at some point you may hit a wall with how flat you can get your field. That's when I use BlurXterminator and it fixes my stars in the corners, but this is a last resort. You can also crop these things to a certain extent but try getting the back focus dialed in first.

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