Orion Nebula - first light

I have never tried the Orion Nebula before, on account of the brief imaging window. Boy, is it a tricky one to process! In the end I had multiple sets of narrowband images to account for the huge range in intensity!

2 Likes

Hi Buzz,

Great detail!
Colors take a little getting used to.:wink:

Mark

Doh - I hate it when someone says what you have been thinking at the back or your mind…! :slight_smile:
This one is interesting - I blend two sets of NB starless images, with and without HDR but not in the same channels.

2 Likes

A comment on NB colors – targets normally imaged in RGB can sometimes appear strangely colored when imaged in SHO; that is, more strange than usual. A while back one of the PixInsight team suggested an alternate blending formula to use in Pixel Math when combining the individual NB masters:

image

My recent NB image of the Cone Nebula (another target often imaged in RGB) produced a color balance with normal SHO processing that I did not particularly like, so I tried the alternate mixing. I was much happier with the results, as it looked more “natural.”

The resulting image:

Cone Nebula - Alt mix

The result of this mixing will vary greatly depending on the relative strengths of the Ha, SII and OII data in your target but you can get creative with final mix used.

Charlie

Thanks Charlie - I was using the channel SHO-AIP script. After removing the stars in the nebula, I stretched and matched them with LinearFit. I duplicated them and applied HDRMultiscale to one set. I was trying to maximize the difference between the channels. The plain stretched followed a very similar blending as your PM, the HDR one was completely different. These are the ‘naked’ files, which were then themselves blended.

1 Like

@buzz

Your PI skills are well beyond my own and I am enjoying the PI processing tips in your new book. I hope to apply some of those techniques in my next set of targets as soon as our 40 days of rain finish.

Charlie