filtering with MLT vs. starmask

[mmnb]

I've always really been struggling with StarMask, trying to tweak it exactly to not pick up too much noise, checking the mask over my image to make sure I am getting all the stars, trying to get the ones in front nebulosity etc. 

Adam Block demo'd his star removal technique and starts my constructing a star mask with MLT by simply removing the residual and the very smallest scale components.  Am I missing something or is this straightforward filtering this way much easier?  I just tried it and it seems that I got much better quality star mask with no effort relative to using the StarMask process.

I feel a little silly for such a simple question, but is there something that I am missing? Do others prefer making their star mask one way or the other?

[John_Gill]

Hi,

There is no right way to create a mask, so you can use MLT or AdvStarMask or MaskGen or RangeSelection etc.  Sometime when trying to create the correct mask, I will try a few different methods and different setting to create the "right" mask for the process I want to run.  So remember, to experiment, experiment experiment ....

space is not black
John