Backyard Astrophotography: The Eagle Nebula/Pillars of Creation! (37 hours!)
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2023
- In this video I show the processing work flow I used on this shot of M16, the Eagle nebula.
Gear used for this shot:
Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 8
Camera: ZWO ASI294MM
Mount: Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
Processed with Pixinsight and RC-Astro suite
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RC-Astro:
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Music:
'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
#astrophotography
#pixinsight
#hubbletelescope - Věda a technologie
you know what it is totally up to you if it is too contrasty or not. I like it.
Thank you! You are right :)
The final version looks FINE to me. Nice detailed workflow. I too can't image M16 enough ... both in broadband and in narrowband. And now, with these super narrow dual-band filters for OSC, there still is yet another option.
- Patrick -
Thanks Pat! I'm telling myself I will take a break from M16.. at least in narrowband for a little while... but we'll see the next time it comes around, lol.
the source files are very high quality - it's cool
Thanks!
Thats a great image. I've processed mine 3 times and just can't get what I want out of it. I'm inspired now to give it a 4th try. Great vids. Keep them coming!
Thanks! Most of my images have been processed a few times before the "final" version :)
Looking very nice James I think a very nice sharp pillars and I like the balance overall.
Thanks Ollie!
That's a great result James, especially given the challenges associated with imaging a target that low in the sky, I would certainly be pleased if I had captured that. I really like the GHS tool. It took me a while to get to grips with it but it's now my favourite method of stretching. Lastly, I don't think an image is ever really finished, I am forever tweaking my images as I always learn something new when reprocessing them.
Thanks Pete! M16 peaks at 45° so not too low. You are right.. our images are never truly.. done. lol
@@DSOImager Ah yes, you're in Texas, I thought you were further north for some reason! From my location in Scotland M16 only gets to around 17° and is buried in the skyglow coming from Aberdeen.
@@petesastrophotography That's got to be a little frustrating. I'm in a good spot..I can even poach some targets that are considered southern hemisphere targets.. if I'm willing to point the scopes low.
That’s excellent James! The pillars of creation is one of my favourite DSO’s. I think the final image was just right, the main pillar was not too bright for me, the image had so much detail and great colours! Great analogy by the way about the British desert tank🤣 And who’d of thought that inverting the image and adding blue turns it yellow!!
Nice job mate and clear skies!
Thanks Simon!
Some of the coolest camo jobs came out of the North African campaign IMHO. Thinking about picking up a M3 Grant in 1/35th just so I can paint it :)
@@DSOImager I’d like to see that😀
@@SimonsAstro I'm a much better astrophotographer than a scale modeler.. but if you're interesting you can see some WIP pics here: imgur.com/a/M8zv0g6
@@DSOImager Interesting James, are they yours?😀
@@SimonsAstro Yep, those are mine. Something to keep me busy when it's cloudy ;)
So you're the one who has all the clear skies this season LOL. Even when the skies are clear around here (rare of late), they're full of smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I still haven't gotten true first light with my 15028HNT... and I got it months ago.
The Pillars look good. Maybe a touch too sharp, but I like contrast. Really shows off the details of the structure.
LOL.. I get a few nights of clear skies.. and I'm the one hogging all the good weather!
That said.. I would be peeved big time to see clear nights wasted by smoke. We need to park a hurricane over Canada for a few days. I am waiting to hear how your 15028HNT performs so I do hope you guys get some clear nights.
I pushed it a bit too far perhaps on the pillars... trying to squeeze it for all its worth. I probably should not be looking at the Hubble image while I process mine, lol.
@@DSOImager I've actually had the scope out a few times, but those were doing nothing but adjusting tilt. It is absurdly sensitive to minuscule off-axis amount. Like, NINA will say "you're off by 5 microns" and ASTAP says "that's 39% extreme tilt". I'm hoping the next clear night I'll actually get the tilt to an acceptable level.
On the bright side, the scope has held collimation really well. I ended up buying the Ocal. That really let me nail the collimation. Far easier than using the little 1.25" eyepiece thing that came with the scope.
@@JonnyBravo0311 I've shield away from Newts due to my perceived view that they need constant.. almost nightly collimation checks. That said.. I like the idea of fast speed for the really faint stuff.. especially all this recently discovered O3 bits floating out there. I could just go hyperstar but I want to keep the filterwheel.
@@DSOImager you just nailed the reason I didn’t go the Hyperstar route… no EFW. Single filter per night or taking flats and changing filters in the dark? I’ll pass.
Very nice final image. No, I don't think it is too contrasty. The colours in foreground, background and the pillars are well balanced. I really like the way you process the data to bring out stunning images and then share the details. I learn a lot from your videos and a BIG thanks for that.
37 hours on the same target...now it's clear who is stealing all our clear nights...LOL!!!
LOL
Thanks! I'm glad you are getting use out of these videos :)
Really nice M16. Congratulations!
Which filters (and size) do. you use for the 294mm?
Thanks! I'm using 1.25" filters. These were 6nm Astronomiks.
First things first James..... stop hogging all the clear skies!!🤣. The image looks fantastic but as you say, the tweaking never stops. If you are worried that the core/pillars are too bright, you could overlay a luminance layer, even if only around the core and pillars. Because I found the Ha to be really bright when I was imaging this target and noticed that most of the pillar detail was in the SII, I made a combined Ha and SII luminance in photoshop but I kept the Ha there to maintain the bok globules which would have been lost if I used the SII only. But you could always overlay just a SII luminance around the pillars. I'm also trying to learn to use the GHS tool but still very much finding my feet with it (currently I have 2 left feet 😂).
Logan, I'm just taking what the sky gives me... I promise! 🤣
I did go back and tweak it a little more.. should get it up on astrobin later tonight. I just ended up making a range mask and pulled back on curves... that said.. what you suggested sounds really interesting. My PS knowledge/skills are very basic... i need to learn more. Are you making masks in PS and then applying a lum layer to only specific regions? Maybe I need to scour your channel and see if you've posted a video on how to do this. :)
@@DSOImager I actually applied the luminance to the whole image but that was because I blurred the colour part to cancel out the colour noise. I also used one of the blending modes to mix the ha and siii but that was to keep the Ha features. The mask tool in PS is super easy as you can paint exactly the size and shape you want so just select the pillars or there abouts to apply just that part of the Lum layer.
Hello! Excellent image congratulations. Right now I'm collecting data on my M16 from Bortle 7 sky. It's been almost 20 hours but I'm going for more. I did a quick processing to see how I'm doing and I tried to use the GHS script to stretch the image but I didn't like the result and when I saw your video I confirm that it seems to be effective for LRGB and not for narrowband, although I don't have much experience using it. Of all the traditional stretching that I did I liked a lot and I see that with the data that I have I already achieved a decent image. I will continue collecting more data and looking for a tutorial on CZcams on how to use GHS in narrow band. Greetings!
Thanks for commenting. I think with NB, an unlinked autostretch does such a good job with balancing the colors without blowing anything out that I still use it.
20 hours on M16 is nice! Keep going! :)
Hi! I share this video: GHS & Narrowband --czcams.com/video/C9x43Kbyd90/video.html-. Clear skies!
Lovely image! How many hours can you capture data a night? I am at 33 degrees N, and I can only see it for around 3.5 hours and night.
Thanks Bill! I'm at 30.5° N. It takes M16 five to six hours to rise and set, ~30° to ~30°. In that window I usually get 4-5 hours worth of data. That said.. a good portion of this data was collected in chunks of just a couple of hours during the early mornings of April and May, just before sunrise.
Hi James. Last years data was also the same scope and camera combination? Also, do you keep your flats and darks together too ? Within the same folder to use the previous years data? Beautiful image as always btw!!!
Thanks Isaac! Yes.. the prev data (2 years ago!) is from the same scope/camera combination (edge8 & asi294mm). I do keep the calibration frames.. although if all stacking is done in pixinsight, then technically you only need to keep the calibrated light frames. The older data was back when i was still using DSS for stacking duties. I did have old flats and darks.. and restacked them in PI this time around.
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