Seeking advice to improve my 5th year Horsehead Nebula image - Forums

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2 days ago

Hello everyone. I’m entering my fifth year of astrophotography, and this image of the Horsehead Nebula makes me incredibly proud. However, I want to ensure that I’m maximizing the potential of the data I’ve collected. I would greatly appreciate any advice you can offer to enhance this image, whether it involves modifying a step I’ve already taken or incorporating additional steps into the process. I want this image to serve as my inspiration to dive deeper into astrophotography.
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📷 IC434V4.png
Integration: 15.9 Hours total / 952 × 60 subs / 3 panel mosaic

Equipment: ASI533MC Pro / Apertura 60mm FPL-53 / Sky-Watcher SA GTi / Optolong L-eNhance

Software: Siril / PixInsight

Processing:

Stacked in Siril using Naztronomy’s OSC Script
Cropped Image.
Applied AutoDBE Exported .FIT file for editing in PixInsight.
Applied BlurXTerminator: Correct Only.
Updated Astrometry and applied SPCC.
Applied BlurXTerminator: 40% Stars / 40% Non-Stellar.
Unscreened and removed stars with StarXTerminator.
Applied NoiseXTerminator at 70% on starless image.
Used MAS to stretch image.
Curves Adjustments: Made slight adjustments to blue and green channels to add contrast in darker regions of image. Made overall s-curve adjustment to RGB/K to add contrast and boost saturation.
Used Seti Astro's star stretch script to stretch star image with color boost at 1.50 and SCNR checked.
Combined starless with star images with image blend script.
Exported as PNG.

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Justin Pickens

Topic starter

New contributor

2 days ago

I’ll add that I’m pretty darn red-green colorblind so if colors just look off, please let me know how you’d correct that.

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andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

2 days ago

Not sure it is going to help but the way I see it is that is too red and there a way too few stars or much else besides. It is also way too soft.

Dan R

2 days ago

Justin Pickens · Feb 9, 2026, 03:08 PM
I’ll add that I’m pretty darn red-green colorblind so if colors just look off, please let me know how you’d correct that.

Fantastic image and it’s nice to see another colourblind astrophotographer! I always struggle with red/green/brown, particularly the faint/darker reds that are so common in these images, you’ve done a great job here though.

Not that I’m an expert myself but feedback-wise I’d say that your stars feel a little ‘quiet’ if that makes sense, especially Alnitak as I fully expect to see a big, bright and almost domineering Alnitak in images of the Horsehead. Also, the little nebula under the Horsehead (NGC 2023) seems a tad green to me but I appreciate that’s coming from another colourblind person 😅 Just my two cents on the image though - it’s impressive regardless!

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Justin Pickens

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2 days ago

andrea tasselli · Feb 9, 2026 at 03:10 PM
Not sure it is going to help but the way I see it is that is too red and there a way too few stars or much else besides. It is also way too soft.

I’ll work on the red, unfortunately it’s a hard color for me.

As for the stars, I didn’t do any sort of star reduction. When I bump up my stretch I can see a few more stars, but it causes so crazy star bloat on the larger one. Do you have any suggestions on how to bring back more of the finer stars without blowing out the larger ones?

How would you recommend sharpening the image?

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Justin Pickens

Topic starter

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2 days ago

Dan R · Feb 9, 2026 at 03:19 PM
Justin Pickens · Feb 9, 2026, 03:08 PM
I’ll add that I’m pretty darn red-green colorblind so if colors just look off, please let me know how you’d correct that.
Fantastic image and it’s nice to see another colourblind astrophotographer! I always struggle with red/green/brown, particularly the faint/darker reds that are so common in these images, you’ve done a great job here though.
Not that I’m an expert myself but feedback-wise I’d say that your stars feel a little ‘quiet’ if that makes sense, especially Alnitak as I fully expect to see a big, bright and almost domineering Alnitak in images of the Horsehead. Also, the little nebula under the Horsehead (NGC 2023) seems a tad green to me but I appreciate that’s coming from another colourblind person 😅 Just my two cents on the image though - it’s impressive regardless!

I’ll go back and work on the colors (My colorblindness is the bane of my creative existence). I was afraid I added too much green.

I’ll try stretching the stars again! Thank you!

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Trey Wood

New contributor

2 days ago

So to start, I think the image looks good, however, I would offer some suggestions.

1. As Andrea mentioned previously, it is very red. After you do the initial stretch with MAS, I would take it into curves and for the red channel, you could try to decrease the background (left side of the S curve). This would help with the area under the horsehead in making it darker and less bright. This will allow the brighter areas around the horsehead and flame to pop more. You could mask the flame nebula and decrease its red saturation to make it more of an orange/white color. Would be slightly more accurate while also improving the contrast between the two nebulae.

2. Also since you are shooting with the L-Enhance, so Ha, Hb, and OIII, you can download some pixinsight scripts here for https://cosmicphotons.com/scripts/. Download the NarrowbandNormalization and Colourmask.
You can find videos online about how to use them but could provide you with a different color palette that could help with your red/green colorblindness while also putting a different spin on the image. With colormask, it also helps A LOT with bringing pop to your colors without altering the background.
https://youtu.be/th93qf1VdTI?si=JlbAnEyflYhJNdlg&t=536 - this is showing how narrowbandnormalization can fix a fully red image, like you have. He also shows how to use the color masks (but not how to create)
https://youtu.be/6Kg3jfaGgeM?si=liTa4iyOkaqwj7Lu&t=160 - this can show how to create them.

**editing because I just thought that with the individual color masks, they are black and white visually, and that could be a way to show you how much of a color is in the image for the colorblindness thing. Just a thought

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Justin Pickens

Topic starter

New contributor

2 days ago

📷 IC434V6.pngBased on responses from Andrea and Dan, I made the following changes:

1. Brought down the red, maybe not enough…

Removed green (I hope…)
Stretched the stars further to brighten larger stars like Alnitak and bring in some more of the smaller stars.
Added an iteration of HDR Multiscale Transformation to try to sharpen the image.

Do y’all think this helped or made things worse?

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Justin Pickens

Topic starter

New contributor

2 days ago

Trey Wood · Feb 9, 2026 at 03:34 PM
So to start, I think the image looks good, however, I would offer some suggestions.

1. As Andrea mentioned previously, it is very red. After you do the initial stretch with MAS, I would take it into curves and for the red channel, you could try to decrease the background (left side of the S curve). This would help with the area under the horsehead in making it darker and less bright. This will allow the brighter areas around the horsehead and flame to pop more. You could mask the flame nebula and decrease its red saturation to make it more of an orange/white color. Would be slightly more accurate while also improving the contrast between the two nebulae.

2. Also since you are shooting with the L-Enhance, so Ha, Hb, and OIII, you can download some pixinsight scripts here for https://cosmicphotons.com/scripts/. Download the NarrowbandNormalization and Colourmask.
You can find videos online about how to use them but could provide you with a different color palette that could help with your red/green colorblindness while also putting a different spin on the image. With colormask, it also helps A LOT with bringing pop to your colors without altering the background.
https://youtu.be/th93qf1VdTI?si=JlbAnEyflYhJNdlg&t=536 - this is showing how narrowbandnormalization can fix a fully red image, like you have. He also shows how to use the color masks (but not how to create)
https://youtu.be/6Kg3jfaGgeM?si=liTa4iyOkaqwj7Lu&t=160 - this can show how to create them.

**editing because I just thought that with the individual color masks, they are black and white visually, and that could be a way to show you how much of a color is in the image for the colorblindness thing. Just a thought

I’ve got those scripts so I’ll give them a go. I didn’t use narrowband normalization as I wanted to use the traditional color palette. I did a fun version using DBXtract, Foraxx and NN to make this fun colored one after night 2 (had about 10 hours of integration).

📷 Rainbowww.png
I’ll try the color mask tool out this evening!

Trey Wood

New contributor

2 days ago

Justin Pickens · Feb 9, 2026, 03:54 PM
Trey Wood · Feb 9, 2026 at 03:34 PM
So to start, I think the image looks good, however, I would offer some suggestions.

1. As Andrea mentioned previously, it is very red. After you do the initial stretch with MAS, I would take it into curves and for the red channel, you could try to decrease the background (left side of the S curve). This would help with the area under the horsehead in making it darker and less bright. This will allow the brighter areas around the horsehead and flame to pop more. You could mask the flame nebula and decrease its red saturation to make it more of an orange/white color. Would be slightly more accurate while also improving the contrast between the two nebulae.

2. Also since you are shooting with the L-Enhance, so Ha, Hb, and OIII, you can download some pixinsight scripts here for https://cosmicphotons.com/scripts/. Download the NarrowbandNormalization and Colourmask.
You can find videos online about how to use them but could provide you with a different color palette that could help with your red/green colorblindness while also putting a different spin on the image. With colormask, it also helps A LOT with bringing pop to your colors without altering the background.
https://youtu.be/th93qf1VdTI?si=JlbAnEyflYhJNdlg&t=536 - this is showing how narrowbandnormalization can fix a fully red image, like you have. He also shows how to use the color masks (but not how to create)
https://youtu.be/6Kg3jfaGgeM?si=liTa4iyOkaqwj7Lu&t=160 - this can show how to create them.

**editing because I just thought that with the individual color masks, they are black and white visually, and that could be a way to show you how much of a color is in the image for the colorblindness thing. Just a thought
I’ve got those scripts so I’ll give them a go. I didn’t use narrowband normalization as I wanted to use the traditional color palette. I did a fun version using DBXtract, Foraxx and NN to make this fun colored one after night 2 (had about 10 hours of integration).

📷 Rainbowww.png
I’ll try the color mask tool out this evening!

For this image specifically, throw into pixinsight, crtl + i to invert the image, run scnr on the inverted image. this will remove the magenta color from the image. Do that and see which you prefer. At the end of the day its a personal preference thing, but this is a very common practice, magenta is not typically a sought after color.

TiffsAndAstro

2 days ago · Edited: 2 days ago

Justin Pickens:
Trey Wood · Feb 9, 2026 at 03:34 PM

So to start, I think the image looks good, however, I would offer some suggestions.

1. As Andrea mentioned previously, it is very red. After you do the initial stretch with MAS, I would take it into curves and for the red channel, you could try to decrease the background (left side of the S curve). This would help with the area under the horsehead in making it darker and less bright. This will allow the brighter areas around the horsehead and flame to pop more. You could mask the flame nebula and decrease its red saturation to make it more of an orange/white color. Would be slightly more accurate while also improving the contrast between the two nebulae.

2. Also since you are shooting with the L-Enhance, so Ha, Hb, and OIII, you can download some pixinsight scripts here for https://cosmicphotons.com/scripts/. Download the NarrowbandNormalization and Colourmask.
You can find videos online about how to use them but could provide you with a different color palette that could help with your red/green colorblindness while also putting a different spin on the image. With colormask, it also helps A LOT with bringing pop to your colors without altering the background.
https://youtu.be/th93qf1VdTI?si=JlbAnEyflYhJNdlg&t=536 - this is showing how narrowbandnormalization can fix a fully red image, like you have. He also shows how to use the color masks (but not how to create)
https://youtu.be/6Kg3jfaGgeM?si=liTa4iyOkaqwj7Lu&t=160 - this can show how to create them.

**editing because I just thought that with the individual color masks, they are black and white visually, and that could be a way to show you how much of a color is in the image for the colorblindness thing. Just a thought

I’ve got those scripts so I’ll give them a go. I didn’t use narrowband normalization as I wanted to use the traditional color palette. I did a fun version using DBXtract, Foraxx and NN to make this fun colored one after night 2 (had about 10 hours of integration).

📷 Rainbowww.png
I’ll try the color mask tool out this evening!

I liked you first version for its drama.
I like this version because it's beautiful.

Maybe tad over saturated. Maybe not.

I can't begin imagine how difficult processing this sort of stuff must be, but you're doing a remarkable job.

Running stars only through gimps (all free) unpurple filter works well on my 72ed.

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

2 days ago

Justin Pickens:
📷 IC434V6.pngBased on responses from Andrea and Dan, I made the following changes:

1. Brought down the red, maybe not enough…

Removed green (I hope…)
Stretched the stars further to brighten larger stars like Alnitak and bring in some more of the smaller stars.
Added an iteration of HDR Multiscale Transformation to try to sharpen the image.

Do y’all think this helped or made things worse?

A bit too scarlet now. You want the flame nebula to show up its "true" colours. And I wouldn't use any sharpening at all and more so no BXT. The scale is small enough not to need it, I think. What an auto-stretched version with only CC applied looks like? Even with an L-ENH you should be able to pick some broadband signal.

Tony Gondola

Frequent contributor

2 days ago

Have you considered a monochrome rendering? The image is already rather monochromatic and would be a lot more beautiful if you just went with that. Like the old pictures we grew up with. Black and white can sometimes convey a sense of mystery and wonder in a way that’s very special.

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Justin Pickens

Topic starter

New contributor

1 day ago

Tony Gondola · Feb 9, 2026 at 06:09 PM
Have you considered a monochrome rendering? The image is already rather monochromatic and would be a lot more beautiful if you just went with that. Like the old pictures we grew up with. Black and white can sometimes convey a sense of mystery and wonder in a way that’s very special.

📷 B&W.pngI love it.

SonnyE

Frequent contributor

1 day ago

Tony Gondola · Feb 9, 2026, 06:09 PM
Have you considered a monochrome rendering? The image is already rather monochromatic and would be a lot more beautiful if you just went with that. Like the old pictures we grew up with. Black and white can sometimes convey a sense of mystery and wonder in a way that’s very special.

That was what I liked the most about shooting Mono. I really like B & W for its lack of distractions.

Tony Gondola

Frequent contributor

1 day ago

Justin Pickens · Feb 9, 2026, 07:07 PM
Tony Gondola · Feb 9, 2026 at 06:09 PM
Have you considered a monochrome rendering? The image is already rather monochromatic and would be a lot more beautiful if you just went with that. Like the old pictures we grew up with. Black and white can sometimes convey a sense of mystery and wonder in a way that’s very special.
📷 B&W.pngI love it.

To my eye, that’s really wonderful. The gradations of tone just show so much better.

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Justin Pickens

Topic starter

New contributor

1 day ago

📷 IC434V8.pngI don’t know if I botched in on this one, but I tried to get some more natural color in the flame nebula, tone down the red, and remove the green and magenta…. Hopefully I didn’t fail at it all.

Ralph Kimball

1 day ago

Well here’s a different take on IC434. 50×300 seconds, Ha only. Where did the stars go in the other images? I like the stars…📷 Wallpaper2.png

Rick Krejci

1 day ago

The reflection area below the horsehead is too green. Normally it should be more in the light blue range and not have much green since it’s not an Oiii emission.

I wouldn’t use 40% BlurX for stars for a widefield image. I would normally max out about 20% and only go to 30% for longer focal lengths Would probably look more natural and gaussian than doing 40% then trying to brighten them

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Justin Pickens

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New contributor

1 day ago

Rick Krejci · Feb 9, 2026 at 08:45 PM
The reflection area below the horsehead is too green. Normally it should be more in the light blue range and not have much green since it’s not an Oiii emission.
I wouldn’t use 40% BlurX for stars for a widefield image. I would normally max out about 20% and only go to 30% for longer focal lengths Would probably look more natural and gaussian than doing 40% then trying to brighten them

So I think this is my final effort for today. I bumped both stellar and non-stellar down to 20%. I also bumped up the stars as much as I could based on @Ralph Kimball response.

I know I have a long way to go, but hopefully I employed some of the recommendations in this thread correctly.

📷 IC434V11.png

Rick Krejci

1 day ago

Looks much more to my liking! The yellow of the flame comes through better and the reflection area looks great! Like the stars as well.

SonnyE

Frequent contributor

1 day ago

Justin Pickens · Feb 9, 2026, 09:51 PM
Rick Krejci · Feb 9, 2026 at 08:45 PM
The reflection area below the horsehead is too green. Normally it should be more in the light blue range and not have much green since it’s not an Oiii emission.
I wouldn’t use 40% BlurX for stars for a widefield image. I would normally max out about 20% and only go to 30% for longer focal lengths Would probably look more natural and gaussian than doing 40% then trying to brighten them
So I think this is my final effort for today. I bumped both stellar and non-stellar down to 20%. I also bumped up the stars as much as I could based on @Ralph Kimball response.
I know I have a long way to go, but hopefully I employed some of the recommendations in this thread correctly.
📷 IC434V11.png

Now that is much more to my liking, Justin.

Sorry your vision is such a bugger. But it looks like you can rise above it.

Good Job!

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Jeff Russell

New contributor

1 day ago

I would be sorta curious to know what kind of white balance / channel mixing looks good to your vision. In a sense you’ve signed up for the “red and teal” color palette the filter admits, but to my understanding this is a palette that’s hard for someone with red/green blindness to see!

Sometimes accommodations are made to shift the colors into yellow/violet, to help people with such conditions see the color contrast. Might be a fun secondary revision to add to the final gallery post.

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Michael Roland

New contributor

21 hours ago

Justin, nice photo… To each his own on colors and saturation. Here is my attempt at Horse Head With Skywatcher Esprit 100 ED, processed in Siril : https://app.astrobin.com/u/N9XY?i=lrh36i

Best regards, Michael

Rick Krejci

21 hours ago

Michael Roland · Feb 10, 2026, 08:50 PM
Justin, nice photo… To each his own on colors and saturation.

I think that there’s general agreement that stars should range from reddish to white to blue/use some sort of calibration. Your image shifts all bright areas to green. If that was your intent, then I agree that “to each their own”