this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
42 points (100.0% liked)

Astrophotography

1813 readers
41 users here now

Welcome to !astrophotography!

We are Lemmy's dedicated astrophotography community!

If you want to see or post pictures of space taken by amateurs using amateur level equipment, this is the place for you!

If you want to learn more about taking astro photos, check out our wiki or our discord!

Please read the rules before you post! It is your responsibility to be aware of current rules. Failure to be aware of current rules may result in your post being removed without warning at moderator discretion.

Rules




If your post is removed, try reposting with a different title. Don't hesitate to message the mods if you still have questions!


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 3 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] lefty7283@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

M17 is also known as The Swan Nebula (the bright core is swan shaped, esp when viewed visually through a telescope). Also pictured it the M18 star cluster off to the right.

I originally shot this back in 2019 and decided to reprocess it since we have fun new tools and techniques (and I kinda know what I'm doing now with narrowband processing). I decided to keep the palettes similar overall, but with a less agressive stretch and more 'natural' look to the nebula. The noise reduction is a lot better when comparing the images at 1:1 (long gone are the days of TGV/MMT noise reduction!). Captured over 2 nights at the in May, 2019 from a Bortle 7 zone.

Places where I host my other images:

Flickr | Instagram

Equipment:

  • TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian

  • Orion Sirius EQ-G

  • ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro

  • Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector

  • ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm

  • Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm

  • Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm

  • Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope

  • ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding

  • Moonlite Autofocuser

Acquisition: 8 hours 10 minutes (Camera at Unity Gain, -15°C)

  • Ha- 42x300"

  • Oiii- 56x300”

  • Darks- 30

  • Flats- 30 per filter

Capture Software:

  • EQMod mount control. Captured using N.I.N.A. and PHD2 for guiding and dithering.

PixInsight Processing:

  • BatchPreProcessing

  • Blink

  • ImageIntegration

  • DrizzleIntegration (2X, VarK 1.5)

  • DynamicCrop

  • DynamicBackgroundExtraction

duplicated each image and removed stars via StarXterminator. Ran DBE with a shitload of points to generate background model. model subtracted from original pic using the following PixelMath (math courtesy of /u/jimmythechicken1)

$T * med(model) / model

Narrowband Linear:

  • BlurXTerminator

  • NoiseXTerminator

  • STF Applied via HT to stretch nonlinear

Nonlinear:

  • PixelMath to combine monochrone Ha and Oiii channels into color image (using ForaxX's bicolor palette):

R = Ha

G= ((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Ha + ~((Oiii*Ha)^~(Oiii*Ha))*Oiii

B = Oiii

  • SCNR Green

  • LRGBCombination with stretched Ha as luminance

  • Shitloads of curve transformations to adjust lightness, contrast, hues, saturation, etc

  • LocalHistoGramEqualization 2x - one at scale 16 for fine details and one at 512 for large structures

  • More curves

  • DarkStructureEnhance

  • MLT for small scale chrominance noise reduction

  • NoiseXTerminator

  • Even more curves, some masked to just the core of the nebula

  • Resample to 60%

  • Annotation

[–] rvdz@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Fantastic work!

[–] Vakbrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 10 months ago

Breathtaking!