Running Man & Orion Nebulae together

[RickBG]

The weather here in Miami hasn't been good lately, therefore I decided to work on the Feb. 2nd acquisition of Orion Nebula to see if I can improve on my processing and incorporate the Running Man Nebula at the same time. I used 1,029 frames at 1.5 sec. Again I had then chosen the "Brain" in SharpCap Pro to analyze my sky (Bortle 8-9) to give me the recommended settings. More needs to be done to further refine this image, but that comes with more experience. Upon close inspection, I notice certain artifacts that could be eliminated if flats, darks and possibly bias frames were added to the mix. I ordered a filter slider draw for the HyperStar 1.9 reducer along with a filter slider blank that goes in it and that will solve the issue of acquiring dark frames at a set temperature (cooled camera). When I zoom in I also notice artifacts around the stars in the jpeg file that are absent in the 16 bit fits format. I suspect it is caused by the compression algorithm used in the conversion process. All this is new to me, and I'm loving the challenges that goes along with it. Clear skies.

Rick

[RickBG]

I decided to revisit the Orion Nebula along with the the Running Man in order to clean up and try to improve on my prior image by using the tools learned in PhotoShop. I continued from where I had left off using the very top photo as seen in the first post above. The first thing I did was to remove the artifacts, long lines or streaks, made up of different colors using the "healing brush tool". Then I did a slight curves adjustment to bring out a little more of the nebulosity and contrast. In order to remove the blown out core, I placed the short exposure image below the longer exposure layer along with a mask and proceeded to paint over the core area to reveal the underlying layer (image of shorter exposure). For those not familiar with this process I recommend going online...there are some great videos on how to do this. Then I proceeded to reduce the size of the stars by using the astronomy tools action pack add on to make the Nebula the main attraction, that is not to distract or take away from the beauty of the nebulosity. In addition, I did some minor tweaking using the "color range" tool. Another lesson I learned when posting, try to paste the "large" not "small" nor "medium" resolution images when using Flickr or else you will see artifacts when posting in SC Forum, especially around the stars...that has been my experience. No matter what, your images will always look better and sharper in 16 bits than 8 bit jpeg. I'm sure this will not be my last time to revisit and improve this image especially as my artistic taste changes from time to time. I have found deep sky astrophotography is very different than planetary in that it is a lot more processing intensive esp. when dealing with nebulosity. Remember, processing is purely an art so go and express yourself the way you want and have fun doing it.
Note, for some reason part of image on the right hand side is clipped off but if you double click on the image you will be able to see the full image.

Rick

[timh]

It is an improvement imo. Less 'posterized' looking perhaps which happens when all the stars look overexposed - more depth and brightness variation in the stars as well as in the nebula. well done

Tim

[RickBG]

Thanks Tim.

Below is another iteration in that I added some vibrancy and saturation to the stars to give it a more colorful look.

Rick