M42 "Trapezium Taming" Advice

[Ken Pendlebury]

Hello,

I am reprocessing some older data of M42 as part of my trial and am having a bit of trouble taming the trapezium.  In other "layer-based" applications there is a technique that uses multiple layers of different exposure and levels of stretching to resolve these very bright areas.  I don't see a way to accomplish this immediately n PI.  So far (in PI) I have used the HDRWavelet module and while creating a dramatic difference, a large part of the trapezium remains unresolved (fully saturated).  I'm thinking this is because the linear data is fully saturated so no process will be able to resolve this smaller area.  Nonetheless, I have seen several fully resolved M42 images processed with PI so I'm thinking I may be missing the way to combine my shorter exposure data here.

Any advice is appreciated.

Regards,
Ken

[vicent_peris]

Hi Ken,

please, upload some JPEG images (raw and processed) to be sure what are you doing.


Regards,
Vicent.

[Jack Harvey]

In the Gallery section on the M 42 and Environs thread this addressed to some extent.  Message 8,

The center was a bit of a problem area.  It was saturated in the trapezium area so I had planned on that and made some 1 minute integrations for each filter as well as the 900 sec intelgrations.  Then using CCDStack i used a technique call missing values where you replace all the pixels in the 900sec with a adu of over say 50,000 with pixels from the 1 minute integration images.

[ManoloL]

Hello:

http://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=913.0

Best Regards

[Simon Hicks]

Ken,

Try the HDRComposition script. This is a ready made script to do this, i.e. it combines as many different exposure length images as you want. I have problems using it with my PC...runs out of memory, but you may have more luck.

Cheers
         Simon

Ha, ha, ha! ManoloL pressed the send button 1ms before me!

[dhalliday]

I have been trying to get the "Eskimo"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveh56/4415911850/
The core is like crazy bright...its a star,but shows up as a blob.
I tried applying a small lum mask over the core....very clumsy.
So if I take some 15 second exposures,and some 60's...this can blend them..?
Any one else have any experience using this ?
Dave
(10,0045)
 
PS Had a look at that site...

Jeez...thats just the kind of high tech stuff that gives me ulcers...!!
I guess my question is....a 2-3 minute shot gives me a good outer shell...and maybe 15 seconds for the core...
Would I shoot,calibrate,stack TWO sets of exposures...and feed the final products (2) into this infernel machine...?
Or do I need a whole series of 120/90/60/30 etc files..??
I would have to do this with a RGG and then a seperate Lum..?
Sounds a lot.
Anyone else deal with a situation like mine differently..??

Dave

[Ken Pendlebury]

Wow...

Is pretty much all I have to say.  You folks who write this stuff are brilliant.  Thanks for pointing this out...I followed the instructions and using 5 different sets of exposures from 2 sec to 10 min, I was able to produce this in about 30 min:

Wide Field Original is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenastro/4420886659/sizes/o/

Cropped, Larger version is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenastro/4420894979/sizes/o/



Again, thanks for the help here.

[Niall Saunders]

And 'WOW' right back at you, Ken.

That is a VERY nice image.

Cheers,

[dhalliday]

Ken
That is great!!...as nice as any I have seen.
So...were those 5 sets of stacks you used?
How many frames/stack ?
Tell us more !!

Dave

[Harry page]

Hi

I like the detail and good use of the HDR script , But I must say the colour is way to blue    , the running man is lost in the blue mist

I am sure this can be sorted 


Regards Harry