Another Newbie Image

[roncrouch]

After years of using PSD to process astro-images last weekend I decided to take the plunge and move to PixInsight. What a revelation! I think I have lots of old images on disk that also need to meet PI. This is my first attempt; M-33 with data from the patio. Gosh this is really going to be fun to learn. So many wonderful tools!!   Sorta like learning a new language really.

Location:  Loveland, CO, USA
Scope Stellarvue SV90F / Williams Optics Focal reducer F5.3 -> 377mm with ST2000XM/Baader RGBL filters -> 3.15 arc-sec/pixel
RGB shot binned 2x2: 45 min G; 42 min B; 54 min R. Luminance was 126 minutes total. All data used 180 sec subs.
Frames processed with darks and flats and normalized and median combined using CCDStack.
RBG built in PI; Background neutralized. DBE used to fix significant gradients.
L frame also processed with DBE tool and mildly sharpen before application to RGB with reduction of chrominance noise.
Star mask applied and stars gently reduced by Morph. Transform. At this stage no attempt at enhancing arms.
4 big stars reduced with liquify filter in PSD. Image saved as small jpeg after that.

Cheers all,
Ron

[Lex]

Ron,

Welcome to the club! You did the right choice as you noticed i think  8)
You have done a good job!

Best

[Josh Lake]

What a great start for you! It was an image like this (mine of M31) that made me purchase PI on day 2 of my trial -- it salvaged data that I thought there was little hope for and made it into one of my better images to date.

I've only been using PI for a little more than a year, but it's changed everything for me. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I saw Harry's tutorial on Local Histogram Equalization -- it enhances contrast at the feature level. Dead simple to use, and it might have dramatic results on your image of M33: http://www.harrysastroshed.com/LHE.html

So, what workflow are you using? Ever since Vicent posted his two video tutorial on processing a galaxy, I've used that basic series of steps with a few additions. It's dramatically improved my images.

Cheers!