NGC7822 HOS with RGB stars etc

[Carole]

Some some further work on this image:

Cropped a little, RGB stars added, Star reduction technique, and selective sharpening.

Original post:
http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=11813.0

New image:

[ApophisAstros]

i know it was dual rig but cant wait  to get images as stunning as this when i get my 460ex ,
Zoomed in and took a journey through the different features and detail,
Roger

[Carole]

Thanks Roger.  I am still learning various processing techniques even after 9 years at it, it's a long long learning curve and doubtless there are still more things to learn.

Been struggling with adding RGB stars to narrowband, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.  I think I made a bit of a pigs ear on this occasion, will try to do better next time, been getting some ideas from other's on Astrobin where quite a few people seem to do this. Trouble is many use Pixinsight, so it's trying to find those that use Photoshop.

Still not happy with the red component of this image, I was trying to emulate one I saw on Astrobin, but just can't seem to achieve the pretty pink colour of that image.

https://www.astrobin.com/403890/?nc=all
He has a lot more data and Astrodons.   

I look at some of those fabulous images on Astrobin, and use them as something to aim for, but of course many of them have copious dark skies and better kit, but always good to have something to aspire to.

Carole

[Roberto]

Carole

It looks very nice to me and the stars are not bad at all.  When I used Photoshop, I always referred to Bob Franke's method:  http://bf-astro.com/starColors.htm for RGB stars on narrowband masters.  PixInsight definitely makes this an easier process for me now.

Roberto

[Carole]

Thanks for the tutorial Roberto.  there was at least one aspect of that which I wasn't doing which will help and that is reducing the whiteness of the NB stars before adding the RGB stars and this explains why blend mode lighten wasn't working.  Another tutorial I got was to use a clipping mask and blend mode colour to blend the RGB stars.

Will plug away at this and hopefully eventually will get something that works well.

Carole

[NoelC]

Really interesting Carole.
Very colourfull too.

Noel

[Carole]

Thanks Noel.  I am going to possibly write adding RGB stars to a NB image as a tutorial, or maybe when I am feeling a bit more confident in the work flow, do a video tutorial for it.

I tried a combination of the tutorial I had before and Roberto's tutorial link and added RGB to my M16 I did last year.  I often take RGB to add to NB images, but only sometimes manage to actually use them.  In the case of M16 I found RGB but had never added it to the final image.

Now added
https://www.astrobin.com/full/342719/F/

Carole