[RCC] Iris and Ghost Nebulae

Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight Request for feedback Deep Sky Nebula
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Vibhor Dodeja avatar
Vibhor Dodeja avatar
Hi,
Requesting your critique on my first DSO image of iris and ghose nebulae. This is my longest integration so far (about 12hrs) and while I feel this field could use a lot more, I want to get the most out of the data I have until I collect more. 

The image can be found here:


The processing is done in Pixinsight and the steps followed are as follows:
- WBPP for calibration and integration.
- Gradient Correction
- SPCC
- StarNet to separate out stars
- HistogramTransfomation to stretch the stars
- GHS on Starless
- HDRMT with lightness mask for core of Iris
- Some curves for contrast and saturation
- MMT for bit of Noise Reduction
- Screen stars back into starless 

Thank you for your time and feedback! 

Clear Skies,
Vibhor
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
My best advice would be to not consider your image finished right out of PI. It's great for astro processing but it's a poor photo editor. If you bring your image into a layer based imaging program like Gimp, Photoshop or my favorite, Affinity Photo you will find that further improvement is possible. These last adjustments will normally be rather subtle but very important. Think of it as the final polish to the process.
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Vibhor Dodeja avatar
Vibhor Dodeja avatar
Tony Gondola:
If you bring your image into a layer based imaging program...you will find that further improvement is possible.

Thank you, Tony, for the tip. I am just starting out and Pixinsight has been my first "image processing" software. I'll look for threads and videos online to help me get started with the other programs. It would help me a lot if you could elaborate what further improvements can be made through traditional photo editors that Pixinsight struggles at, especially in context of this image? 

Thank you again for your time and response!
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
The good news is there's a lot of detail there. I think it would benefit from small adjustments like light and dark balance, color balance and sharpness. I would suggest Affinity Photo. It's not free but it has a very long trial period (a full year I think):

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/

For tutorials, check out the Sky Story channel on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@SKYST0RY
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Dale Penkala avatar
Dale Penkala avatar
1st, very nice image! Stars are round in the corners of the image which is what I always look for myself. They have nice color as well.
IMHO color on pretty much all AP images is a personal taste unless your really trying to do something scientific but when I look at your image I see a faint hint of green. I personally don’t like green to show through in an image. In some cases yes you need to have just a tad to get maybe the shade of a certain color, but I see green in your image. Again this is purely a personal esthetics thing.

As far as what @Tony Gondola is talking about, this can easily be done using masks in PI along with “HDR Multi Trans” “Local Histo Equilze” functions & if your good with curves that also works too. I personally use all 3 and even get into some other process’s. You could go into scrips as well and use the “DarkStructureEnhancer” and that will help accent the darker dust lanes in the image.

All this can easily be obtained in PI but you have to get use to the process of doing it. I would point you to @Adam Block studios and have a look at his options for PI. Fast track and Fundamentals are excellent for people starting out in PI at a reasonable price.

If you are not able to afford them, Adam also has his own YouTube channel that has many of the process and concepts on PI that are free so defiantly check them out. 

https://www.adamblockstudios.com

All in all you have a very nice image that can be as Tony mentions “polished up” using whatever program your most comfortable in.

Congrats and good luck!

Dale
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