Image Critique/Feedback

[wild ocean]

1000th message

[bold iron]

?

[vivid hornet]

yeah discussing about this lp

[wild ocean]

this thread now has over 1000 messages

[vivid hornet]

and etc

[bold iron]

do we get a prize

[vivid hornet]

nice one

[wild ocean]

na you guys are good. just wanted to point that out

[bold iron]

surely

monetary compensation

jk lols

[vivid hornet]

nice

give me money

jk jk

man light polution are baddd

very

VERy

hate it

[bold iron]

use 70mm lens

u have apsc sensor

ull get somewhere around 2-3s shots i think

this is 30 mins exposure at 50mm

or something like that

but taken in bortle 5/6

taken like a year ago

and ive lost the photo with stars in it

[vivid hornet]

looks great

you use star removal?

[bold iron]

yeh

starnet

[vivid hornet]

sometimes it do be looking like it denoised brutally

when you do star removal

[bold iron]

it doesnt after you put the stars back in though

the stars cover up the ai generated parts

kindof

but sometimes like this example it can look a bit off

but it gives you an idea whats in your images

[vivid hornet]

teagg

yeahh

[bold iron]

also this specific image has gone from beind a tif file to a jpeg to a screenshot so the quality is down the drain

[vivid hornet]

ahh i see

no wonder

[vivid hornet]

yes

sometimes blueish thing

and i somewhat dont like it

[bold iron]

the point is the using a wider lens with a faster aperture can get u bettwe framing

and get u better results

and is easier to do

and flexible

ok im gonna sleep now

gl

[vivid hornet]

Thank you

[bright prairie]

oii? and background is a bit blobby

otherwise no notes

[wild ocean]

4hrs 36mins.
thoughts?

stock dslr and 80%moon

[bold iron]

on ur new mount?

[wild ocean]

yes

[bold iron]

lucky duck

looks fire for 80% moon

litrelly

cuz the flame nebula is there...

[vivid hornet]

thoughts on this?

background kind of hell to fix 😦

Nvm still sucks

[patent ether]

I’ve never had a problem with planes either

[wild ocean]

its really lacking intergration. that would be the main thing to improve on

[spark wave]

Hm maybe it's just cuz live right underneath a flight path lol :p

[vivid hornet]

Yeah

Planning to make a diy star tracker

Maybe 5-10 second exposure will help

Rather than 1s

[wild ocean]

lets play a game of left or right

and how do i improve the background on the right

[glossy roost]

Right

[white elm]

Right

[dry blade]

right if bg was fixed, maybe overlay them to get best of both

maybe like this sorta thing

[wild ocean]

Did you do a dbe on it?

[dry blade]

i literally just downloaded the 2 files and overlayed lol

is this better?

[wild ocean]

Oh lol

[dry blade]

@wild ocean ?

is this gooderer

[wild ocean]

Yes

[dry blade]

https://tenor.com/view/mug-root-beer-gif-25280166

[wild ocean]

Mmm. I wonder how it tastes

[dry blade]

like rooobbbeeeeeerrrr

https://tenor.com/view/sfm-soldier-tf2-meme-american-gif-24728385

[tawdry flume]

if you have pixinsight, masking

[vivid hornet]

so i did some reprocess again

idk about this

[bright prairie]

background is clipped (perfectly dark, your losing detail), too much contrast, color of nebula is bad

[vivid hornet]

I kinda like the color

[vivid hornet]

Hmm

How would you process?

[bright prairie]

my processing method is scuffed and only I should do it

[bright prairie]

like in software or the end result?

[vivid hornet]

From stacking to end result

Yeah i kinda need solution at this point

[bright prairie]

i dunno watch some siril tutorials

[vivid hornet]

I use siril to stacking

[bright prairie]

watch the tutorials to get better ig

[vivid hornet]

I hate it when i use background extraction my color of nebula turns into orange orange thing

Maybe just lack of integration time

What to expect

Only 7 minutes only

Lmso

Lmao

[bright prairie]

yeah thats not enough

[vivid hornet]

At bortle 9 also

So... yesh

[bright prairie]

yeah thats not enough lol

[vivid hornet]

😂

[dry blade]

could you share the data

[vivid hornet]

Sure

[dry blade]

huh

[vivid hornet]

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KcerbTFFdqXgxZ54mwXXx6cgs3OeKsHP?usp=sharing

[vivid hornet]

sorry wrong paste

lmao

[dry blade]

what was that code lol

[vivid hornet]

its.. just python lmao

[dry blade]

lol

[vague meteor]

processing critique none at all, but do get more data on Oiii and maybe broadband too?

[idle dove]

I’m tryna get it all done by christmas 🎅

Some clean nights ahead so maybe i can achieve more data

Broadband though idk

[vague meteor]

what

looks cloudy for a few days tho

[vague meteor]

yeah do narrowband first ofc

im just a stan of LRGB images 😭

[idle dove]

Ill be that soon

[vague meteor]

why soon lmao

[idle dove]

Cuz my stuff hasn’t arrived yet

[vague meteor]

why not start today!!

which stuf

[idle dove]

Im mono now

Well not now, my cone is still osc

But from like 2025 onwards ill be mono

[vague meteor]

WAIT ACTUAL?

www

[idle dove]

Yea

[vague meteor]

ah same that

[idle dove]

It should all arrive by christmas

[vague meteor]

everyones going mono on this server basically simultaneously and its funny

like the meganerd OSC people

[vague meteor]

2" filters with ares pro why?

[idle dove]

Cuz that ares pro is gonna become a peosdeion later down the line

Then it’ll become a Zeus

[vague meteor]

ahh ok

coldd

why not get poseidon to begin with

money?

[idle dove]

It’s like pokemon evolution

[vague meteor]

nah but i feel like if u just get 36mm instead of 2" u can probably save enough to get the poseidon

[idle dove]

That’s why i only bought LRGB to start with aswell as the narrowbvad filters im looking to get range in the 2-3k$

[vague meteor]

ah ok

[idle dove]

Ill hop to some b1-2 these holidays and revolutionise the world

[vague meteor]

as long as you arent too attached to Oiii, the OSC should be fine for most narrowband stuff

you can see how insane my Ha is with the Samyang

[idle dove]

Should of bought a canon lens adaptor aswell

I have a really good roki

[vague meteor]

my roki is not bad but pretty sus in the corners

esp on bright stars

[idle dove]

I remember mine had like crisp edges at f2 on my full framed dslr

[vague meteor]

get one that is like a filter drawer or wheel

its pretty nice

super simple OTA

[vague meteor]

nah thats mad

my corners with blurx

i dont have a raw example unless i dig out data

[dry blade]

1.8 hours unmodded b7

[wild ocean]

Isn't that my process

[dry blade]

no

[wild ocean]

[dry blade]

grrrrr

[dry blade]

https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1314792940778033152

[vivid hornet]

Hows mine?

[dry blade]

?

[dry blade]

wdym

[vivid hornet]

Yeah this one

Depends on you tho

[dry blade]

gimme some time im editing my own data rn

[vivid hornet]

Kk no prob

[wild ocean]

thinks?

[clear cypress]

Hi, I would workl a bit levels and curves and some background neutralization, its a bit on the purple side

[white elm]

Looks good, but I’d increase the contrast of the horse head and the stars but that’s just my preference

[wild ocean]

i like

it wins an astrology image/10 for me

also yea this region is hella beight for a stock dslr. i got 26ish mins on it and got some decent details on the taranntula

[dry blade]

Yeah yours was smelt

Smexy

[dry blade]

@hexed ginkgo

[dry blade]

@thorny slate bnewest image

[oak swan]

What could be improved with these images?

[dry blade]

too yellow

[wild ocean]

needs a colour calibration/background neutralise

[oak swan]

Sounds good, I’ll have to work on that tomorrow. I just used the Seetstar de-noising feature

[compact wagon]

Tried taking a few quick photos with 15PM 10s exposure, one captured andromeda (I think), images are edited and the location was not ideal due to light pollution

[dry blade]

1 hr 32 mins

[thorny slate]

Dammnnn

[hexed ginkgo]

good but bit too purple looking for my taste

but subjective

i would shift it more red tho

[dry blade]

kk

yes daddy

[dry blade]

mabe you should try it...

[thorny slate]

Just a silly little nebula named after a spider

[wild ocean]

Looks really good imo. Get more int on the Ha

[dry blade]

dont have any filters

[wild ocean]

Get more int overall

[dry blade]

I was going to but my guiding was goofing up so I imaged carina

[idle dove]

1 111 1

[wild ocean]

Where oiii

[dry blade]

where is oiii arc

[idle dove]

What

This isnt captured with oiii

[idle dove]

This is only LRGB

There is no oiii filter i used

[dry blade]

I said

Where is the oiii arc

[bright prairie]

mid

[wild ocean]

ong bob dropped a good image

[dry blade]

Lil bit of green noise

[bright prairie]

starless shows the sins

[bright prairie]

its a reprocess of this lol

[dry blade]

https://tenor.com/view/holy-moly-gif-2379897567703251318

You have improved heaps

[bright prairie]

the method of how i got it there is horrible and only I should be subject to it

[dry blade]

Wait until you see my processing

[bright prairie]

you at least use like siril

[dry blade]

(I may or may not use a very cursed photoshop filter that rhymes with ramera caw)

[dry blade]

Why don’t you

[bright prairie]

haven't put aside the like 2 hours needed to learn it

[dry blade]

It’s not that hard pls try

[bright prairie]

mine was running starnet on the old image and importing that into gimp, layering that, flattening it and stretching so the stars are the same brightness

i have watched 0 tutorials and have entirely reinvented the wheel

[dry blade]

lol

[bright prairie]

if it works it works

(it barely works)

[vague meteor]

it's missing the oiii arc (i'm late)

[dry blade]

Fried to smithereens

[runic lake]

My attempt at the heart nebula, reprocessed a few times. B5 skies. 750mm 6 inch Newtonian reflector. Captured with a canon dslr 650d. Just over 4 hours. (I know I got the framing wrong for this target)

[oak swan]

Still looks really good, I love the vast amount of stars you can see along with the diffraction spikes

[runic lake]

Appreciate the kind feedback, thank you!

[soft crane]

Please be as harsh as possible, give me your strongest opinions.
It’s only 1 hour of data.

[dry blade]

core cookesd

[vague meteor]

i think the first issue you should fix is the background, it stands out as very purple to me, as well as uneven

for the core, HDR is not too difficult these days, i personally iterate MMT masks, but there is a script which does a similar thing automatically called "iHDR"

i also notice your noise pattern looks super weird. eventually you want to get Pixinsight if you can afford, and use the tools that offers (DeepSNR is the best, MMT also works well)

it looks super plasticky and blob-ish

if you can get those 3, things down (colours, HDR, and noise management), you should be on the way to a pretty nice image

[soft crane]

Thank you very much, I will work on that.

[vague meteor]

yeah good luck :)

[oak swan]

Just reprocessed these two images again. For some reason when I tried colour correcting Orion it kept making the whole image red, maybe it is supposed to be red but it just looked off

Also both pictures are with a Seestar so they’re not the greatest in terms or resolution

[runic lake]

I’m a newbie by every stretch but I do like the Orion one. Background looks good, core isn’t too blown out. Could probably do with some longer exposures for the nebulosity which I’m going to try when i shoot Orion next. Short exposures for the core, long for the nebula

[wild ocean]

Thoughts?

[dry blade]

too much denoise

[wild ocean]

I had black holes in the image

Grax helped removed then

[dry blade]

maybe try healing brush if you have ps

or i can do it for you

[wild ocean]

I'm sending over the data soon maybe ish so you can give that a run

[paper bloom]

Did I deep fry this enough

[oak swan]

I think there’s room for more lol

[paper bloom]

Ok I’ll keep going

[paper bloom]

I present the rosette nebula it’s supposed to be color but it just baked the color out of it

[oak swan]

Now that is deep fried

[thorny slate]

That ain't deep field that burnt

Fried

[bright prairie]

that is not merely burnt, that is reduced to smoke

[paper bloom]

That’s supposed to be a color image

[thorny slate]

Oh my.

it's like 2 colours in total

[thorny slate]

nah it's Atomized

[paper bloom]

This is the original picture only sharpened it and other stuff no color stuff tho

[bright prairie]

guessing this is an iphone pic, its completely average and just looks like phone astro. stacking and or using a lower mm eyepiece for more zoom would improve things (or just stacking if you dont have more zoom available or like that framing)

[vivid hornet]

Not an iphone pic...

[bright prairie]

dangit

[vivid hornet]

You know what

Its a stack pic

Its kinda worse than the single frame

Somehow

[wild ocean]

your image as a gradient

[wild ocean]

get a bit more int on the tail. looking great tho

[dry blade]

okok

if its clear tonight ill get like another hour bc i wanna focus on other stuff

[thorny slate]

Damn 11 mins worth of data on m83

[wild ocean]

wheres the rest of the colours

[paper bloom]

Needs more data

[paper bloom]

Also needs more data

[bright prairie]

anything besides needs more data

[paper bloom]

Did you use calibration frames on this image it looks like there’s what I’m guessing is hot pixels and a lot of them

[wild ocean]

revive

[idle dove]

Give me feedback

[wild ocean]

giga chad

[vague meteor]

traps are clipped 😞

[spark pike]

This is my older 3h pleades attempt, how can i improve it?

[dry blade]

try shooting in rgb

[spark pike]

wdym im shooting with a mirrorless

[dry blade]

sorry im used to https://discord.com/channels/794642864218439681/1337566901496320101

can you up the saturation

[spark pike]

yeah i should do that

but then the noise gets very visible

[dry blade]

hmm

maybe get more integration

[spark pike]

yea im going to get more this and the other night

[white elm]

I’d increase star color saturation

[dry blade]

they have like 0 colours sadly

[vivid hornet]

I really need feedback

I want to improve

[wild ocean]

defo need to drop back on the very aggressive denoising

working towards getting a better background extraction

as for the noise, thats just more intergration

your stretching seems fine

[vivid hornet]

Does using graxpert make the data look soft?

[vivid hornet]

Can you show me how to get better at it?

[wild ocean]

with the red squares remove them off the nebula. if you get black splotces, either remove or add squares there

play with the smoothing

[vivid hornet]

Red squares?

Whats that

[wild ocean]

When doing background extraction

It generates a grid

[vivid hornet]

Ohhh i see i see

Thanks

[wild ocean]

whys it 168MB

[tawdry flume]

bro drizzled 4x

[white elm]

galaxies look a bit purple ish

[ornate yarrow]

Maybe it's my screen but to me it looks like it has a very very small green tint 🤏

[thorny slate]

I see the Purple..

[hushed ore]

yeaa im still learning how to process galaxies color wise

online tutorials/advice has not been very helpful

[thorny slate]

Fair enough for me you just gotta get the hang off it..

Just mess around the the Buttons until it looks nice

[wild ocean]

So i'm just curious about this: From my instagram page, what do you think is my best image?
https://bit.ly/4dchke3

[ornate yarrow]

Your latest image. LMC + tarantula

[dry blade]

LMC or one of the Orion constellation targets

[tawdry flume]

orion neb

[scenic nest]

Hoping I can get some feedback on this? I just picked up my first monochrome camera and this is about an hour of combined LRGB data. Also my first time using ASTAP to stack since I was having trouble figuring out how to stack mono in DSS. I know I blew out the core but I’m not sure why there are the weird artifacts on the core of the nebula and the bright blue stars

[white elm]

Stab me with criticism

[ornate yarrow]

How did you stretch your stars and nebula?

[scenic nest]

I used starnet in siril to seperate the stars and nebula. Nebula got a slight asinh transformation and then GHS. Stars got a histogram stretch while recombining the images. But the weird artifacts on the core and bright stars were there from the beginning after ASTAP stacked everything

[lusty dove]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1312515194550882355/1346243104126009364/M42_Orion_Nebula_feb_1_2025_processed-min.png?ex=67c8cb98&is=67c77a18&hm=eb5ec5c4bd1569b2477095b1e9b58b90e3fa385776ee627620dba747fac9e64f&

[vague meteor]

@scenic nest @white elm @lusty dove
u guys all have similar problems.

1. background correction. if you have pixinsight use MGC its without a question the best way to correct your background. (ideally use own data, or just use the MARS files). if you dont have pixinsight, perform a careful dbe, and that means try the best you can to avoid touching even close to nebulosity, aim to ONLY put control points on true background. i prefer to undercorrect (have some bare residual gradients) than overcorrect (dark areas or weird colour splotches all over your image). i use graxpert for DBE, (the RBF model not the AI one) mainly because i like the interface

2. please correct your colours properly. its super easy to do it right. option 1: (preferred) SPCC. first platesolve your image so pixinsight/siril knows what its dealing with. then run SPCC with a background region defined. this region should be AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to neutral grey, and doesnt need to be unnecessarily big. a small box approximately 30x30 pixel is enough. option 2: standard colour calibration. simply open colour calibration, define a background region (as per the method 1), and draw a small box around the whitest star you can find as the white reference. how to tell its white? look at good images online of the same region, and compare you stars to theirs. this will set the neutral white point of your image. SPCC basically does this process but with scientific data + equipment based calibration

@white elm processing-wise, your image is probably the better out of the 3, but colours arent perfect (difficult with your fov), and there are horizontal lines across ur image (probably current or walking noise)

@scenic nest ur data looks best out of the 3 by far, but the processing needs a ton of work. try to do the points i said and you will probably be 70% of the way there. if you dont have pixinsight, i would highly recommend getting it and learning it, it is the best investment into astro for me behind camera/scope/mount

@lusty dove you do need more data, but thats an easy excuse a lot of people make. you can improve a lot simply through processing. try learn either pixinsight or siril, the former if you can afford it but siril is good on a budget.

oh and another thing:
until youre quite advanced in processing, just use autostretch/histogramtransform. it is so underrated. so many images blow out the core, but it is impossible to do so with the stretching methods aforementioned. i use GHS (must be very careful and know how it works), the histogramtransform, then very slight curves stretch. histogram is probably 60% of my actual stretching

[wild ocean]

amazing advice

[white elm]

I did use graxpert dbe but didn’t actually put the squares over the background. My fov is small (imx290) had to crop a bit cuz of artifacts, idk why I get that line in my images even tho I dither

[white elm]

I’ve been using ghs but ngl idk what it actually does, I just move sliders till it looks good.

[white elm]

Yea really good advice I really appreciate it 🤝

[lusty dove]

thank you so much!!
i remember when selecting the background i also selected the very edges of the nebula which is probably why the colors are weird

[white elm]

I shall re edit and apply the advice and see how it goes

[vague meteor]

put the points manually. first try very little points like 5 or so, then increase them if u can based on the first iteration

[vague meteor]

yeah never touch the nebula with the points. also i recommend combining the RGB image first then correcting gradient

[white elm]

Do you change the grax model to do that or stick with the AI one ?

[vague meteor]

the RBF one. AI basically guesses where the background is, ive had like 1% of cases where the AI actually performs better than carefully selected RBF model points

[white elm]

Gotcha I’ll start doing that instead, can I select areas of the image that have faint dust/nebulosity or must it be a black background?

[vague meteor]

don't select it if you can avoid it. by selecting faint dust, the model thinks that area of the image has bright gradients and will overcorrect it, however, IF by selecting that area you can remove significant real gradients, then its probably worth doing. give different sample placements a try

[hushed ore]

thoughts?

[idle dove]

It’s an alright start, if you aim to pull out ifn expect to be imaging for many more sessions, for what’s available now id make the bg darker so there remains more focus on the current thing shown which is the galaxies, another thing id adjust is adding a bit of curves or saturation for only m81 to add a lil blue to the galaxy. Now the bg itself looks decent as it appears pretty neutral coloured and the star colours seem decent (maybe a tad more saturation, remember to try and keep the stars ideally yellow/orange and blue for the most part).

[hushed ore]

I felt like the bg was a bit light so thanks for helping me decide on that haha. Also is there a way to only mask M81 so i can boost its saturation only? I have been struggling to pull much color out of m81 even though this is about 5 hours of integration.

[hushed ore]

thoughts?

[tawdry flume]

Why is it purple?

m81 should not be purple, and m82 should not have that weird red shell to it. The Ha jets in M82 do not look like that

[vague meteor]

looks like some kind of selection/masked saturation or colouring. not great i prefer the first one. although, the darker background is nice. i disagree with qqq in that the stars are a problem. perhaps if the rest of your workflow was perfect, you can think about stars more but for now theyre very good imo

[hushed ore]

appreciate the feedback! back to processing i go 🫡

[hexed ginkgo]

Too washed out in the red, oiii needs a boost, eya carina is fried yet the other star colours need fixing

[dry blade]

the blurx person put a halo around eta carinae sadly

pre blurx

also im struggling HARD with oIII

[hexed ginkgo]

Nah the colours

[hexed ginkgo]

It’s like, yellow

[dry blade]

should it be white or like orange or something

[hexed ginkgo]

The dust

[hexed ginkgo]

Red but not like lightsaber red

[dry blade]

i got you

[hexed ginkgo]

https://tenor.com/view/darth-vader-im-ready-lightsaber-star-wars-gif-15851238

[dry blade]

defo needs a redo (in pix)

[hexed ginkgo]

Forgot to say colour noise as well

[tawdry flume]

Nice

if you're ever struggling with colours, sometimes I find that it helps to process each channel individually and then re-combine the stretched images using different palettes. I find this works best for Foraxx

[hexed ginkgo]

It could very easily be balanced in pix curves

S curve on the red channel would fix it

[tawdry flume]

clipping simulator

not a particularly good method

[dry blade]

I don’t have pix

[hushed ore]

I know there's walking noise, so i tried my best to suppress it.

[wild ocean]

part of me doesnt really like the galaxy brightness paird with the grey background.
use arcsinh stretch black point to make your background darker and that should be the trick for them to go well together

[hushed ore]

how's this?

[wild ocean]

better!

you can try going in for another crop down to make the galaxy more of the subject

depends on how many pixels youve got

[hushed ore]

true

[wild ocean]

there you go

[hushed ore]

appreciate the feedback

[tough heart]

What could make this better

[spark wave]

Stars look a bit weird, perhaps bit out of focus or eyepiece vignetting?

Processing wise, could probs bring out more shadows or midtones - highlights are quite bright already

[tough heart]

I believe the stars may have been a tad out of focus and the eyepiece might be doing something funky

[hexed ginkgo]

Better processing, looks like was was done with an amateur rig so don’t know if there’s much you can really do in that department

Like better balanced background

Both colour and brightness wise

[tough heart]

Yeah I did this untracked with my 114/500 and my Samsung s20

[dry blade]

more contrast and saturation

[patent ether]

Saturation is a personal preference

But yeah I’ll fix the contrast

[dry blade]

You asked for critique lol

Quick run through with phone

[spark pike]

how can i improve this with starnet? I tried streching with siril, rig is in my profile and i took 150s 200 iso frames in b2-3

[wild ocean]

star reduction

this will allow you to see more nebulae

thoughts?

[hexed ginkgo]

Apart from the core of tarantula, this is a really nice image

Well rounded

[dry blade]

Gyatt

[dry blade]

@wispy yarrow this is the actual feedback

[wispy yarrow]

👍

[wild ocean]

Revive

[ripe magnet]

Critique one of my early images. (Low res screenshot, not really that bad normally)

@wild ocean you wanted it revived so be critical

[wild ocean]

Apart from the extreme lack of integration, the image itself is overstretched and oversaturated. Stars are oversaturated so having less saturation would help or even making the image starless would make it better.

[ripe magnet]

I think it’s an hour lol

[wild ocean]

No wonder

[ripe magnet]

And I processed it before I knew about GraXpert and doing Star/non Star seperate

[ripe magnet]

F/1.8 and stock dslr. Got a decent amount of Ha

[bold iron]

My opinion is that it's too red

But my monitor isn't colour calibrated so on mine it looks more pinkish before I view it on a phone screen

Other than that I think I've brightened up the core of the statue of liberty nebula

[wild ocean]

red are overstretched. this region is heavy star dense so bring them back - dont run too strong of a star reduction

[bold iron]

Ye I was thinking the same thing with the reds

I'll do a reedit and send back

Eventually

[ripe magnet]

Criticize mi image
@wild ocean

1 hr btw

[wild ocean]

dear lord

[ripe magnet]

You like the spikes!

[wild ocean]

1. remove those star spikes. theyre abyssmal.
2. running man is compleletly blown out. either save it or crop it out as its distracting.
3. i can tell your background has been SCNR'd. Revert that

[ripe magnet]

What’s SCNR

[wild ocean]

Subtractive Chromatic Noise reduction

remove green noise

[ripe magnet]

Where’s there green noise?

[ripe magnet]

I only used GraXpert Denoise

[wild ocean]

theres no green noise in your image and bc of that your background colours are imbalenced

[ripe magnet]

So I shouldn’t have removed green noise?

[wild ocean]

correct

[ripe magnet]

And the spikes are amazing btw so

[wild ocean]

you do you

[ripe magnet]

Vintage lens things

[ripe magnet]

Rate it out of 10

[wild ocean]

5

[ripe magnet]

hmmmm

ok

[tawny swallow]

Insanely good dust for 1 hour though nice!

My turn now. First time doing galaxies, but please lemme know how i can improve

[ripe magnet]

Cigar Galaxy looks odd

[tawny swallow]

maybe its cuz i focused more on m81 while processing

[ripe magnet]

Yea looks like there’s no Ha, red, or whatever it’s called there very strange

[tawny swallow]

there seemed to be some of that when I was procesing the image. but at that time M81 seemed to dim and underprocessed. Maybe processing m81 blew out m82. thanks for pointing that out tho

[ripe magnet]

Bode’s colors look good. I think maybe some HDR and sharpening could be helpful

[tawny swallow]

alright thanks!

[thorny slate]

Reminds me of the DSS on Stellaruim Web

becuase... of how blown out they are

[wild ocean]

This is good work Bob.
Your background noise could be neutralised better and not too clipped which can be fixed by getting more integration

Apart from that, run some blurx. Will sharpen the galaxy

[wild ocean]

How to improve

[dry blade]

mask better

take all of yee shots at night

[wild ocean]

[dry blade]

very obvious around the buildings, also were these at a different fl?

[wild ocean]

Same fl, different regions of sky

I'll do generative fill

Apart from that how is it?

[dry blade]

grrrr

[dry blade]

🟪

[wild ocean]

Thanks

[dry blade]

im just saying you can fix the gradient

it wasnt meant to be a roast

[wild ocean]

I didn't like the grey background so that's why I made it blur

Blue

[dry blade]

like if this region was more orange

hmm, maybe do a light mask before making the bg blue

[sturdy spear]

ideas?

its quite cropped and i did some fast processing

im still not great at processing

the background is also a little weird

[ornate yarrow]

Do you dither?

[sturdy spear]

i believe so yeah

at least i had it on and it mightve failed the last half an hour or so

[ornate yarrow]

critique wise I think the image would benefit from less stretching to make the backround a bit less busy also your stars appear to be a little dim overall and some contain this weird artifact within them

[sturdy spear]

are those stars clipped?

[ornate yarrow]

i dont think so, but all of the stars appear almost pale and flat. I would assume that something went wrong when you were stretching them

[wild ocean]

idk if its me but your stars are green

also what happened here

[daring cedar]

a couple yes

I suffer from ca

I use an old lens

[wild ocean]

my condolences

[daring cedar]

it cost me only a 130 bucks though

[daring cedar]

no worries dude, I got a slight upgrade today

[wild ocean]

nice small upgrade

[daring cedar]

yea just a small gift for my self

the size difference is pretty big lol

[wild ocean]

im interested to see how the esprit performs on the heq5

[dry blade]

stars having a fiesta

[tawny swallow]

Disco disco

[daring cedar]

Hell yeah

[daring cedar]

guiding is swaying from .5 to 1. but that could be bc I have some high clouds

I do have a belt mod though

[wild ocean]

key word is "processing"

[proud mirage]

I think more integration time and a longer fl

[wild ocean]

thats not processing advice.

[ripe magnet]

need more integration on the LMG(?).

the 2nd one looks blurry idk.

stars are really big in Orion, maybe make them smaller. The dust is also not very clear, very bright orion. the stars look fuked

[proud mirage]

Lol they look great I’m just kidding

[wild ocean]

i think orion stuff is bc its a tight crop in, the slightly wider fov makes the stars look better

its been blurx'd so it shouldnt be having fat issues

its not clipped btw. ive seen the histogram

[ripe magnet]

yea thats a better crop

I wish you got more Ha in Orion

and more dust

[gilded sail]

It looks a tad bit too blue from my eyes I think

[ripe magnet]

hurts my eyes

[gilded sail]

I would just reduce the intensity of the blue channel as it kind of looks like you’ve decreased the image temp. For ref, here’s The image if you just increase temp slightly

[wild ocean]

Stock dslr moment

[wild ocean]

I'll probably go somewhere in between mine and this

[dry blade]

orion is kinda overly blue in the bg, the core colour is good but bg is leaning towards purple, carina is too warm, and the lmc panel could be stretched harder

[spark wave]

Quite blue imo

Idk if that was by choice but maybe less blue could balance things out

[wild ocean]

for which image

[spark wave]

All of them - lmc I understand is blue that's fine, carina looks magenta/purple, orion's reds are simply overshadowed by the blues

[wild ocean]

carina is a magenta target

surprised about orion tho. stock dslr doesnt pick much ha and youre saying ive got too much of it

[spark wave]

Too much? Ha is red and I'm saying you've got too little red..?

[wild ocean]

Oh whopps I interpret thag wrong

Yes the lack of red is stock dslr thing. Nothing I can do about thag

[spark wave]

Fair enough lol

[ornate yarrow]

I really need feedback on this because my school wants to hang it on the wall but I can't seem to get the hang of processing M51 property

[tawdry flume]

honestly good process. Maybe the black point is a bit low, but other than that it's good

would benefit from more data to get the tidal streams more visible

if you really want you can experiment a bit more with your colours more as they look maybe a bit generic

[ornate yarrow]

Thanks, yes that's true more integration would help for sure. Black point is low because the background would look too blotchy for my eyes

[tawdry flume]

you can somewhat fix this by using masks

apply your stretched m51 with a mask onto a less stretched image where your bg isnt blotchy

You can also get yours to be a bit less yellow (which at least imo doesn’t look too great) and get more of a blue tone since m51 has a lot of star forming regions

[ornate yarrow]

Okay I'll try to do that. Nice image and thanks for the quick reply. I appreciate it!

[tawdry flume]

Nws

Hope I helped

[daring cedar]

do you use pixelmath for that?

[tawdry flume]

Yes

[daring cedar]

can you share it?

I've never done that but it sounds interesting

[tawdry flume]

share what

its not hard pixelmath

you apply a mask to image A, go to pixelmath, write "B", and apply that to image A, where B is your other image

[daring cedar]

oh oke, I thought you had some sneaky formula

[ornate yarrow]

perhaps a more realistic version

[vague meteor]

this looks much nicer, the tidal stuff less pushed

perhaps the HDR is a bit too much, the brighter parts shouldn't be darker than the tidal dust

[ornate yarrow]

I agree, the HDR is a bit too much

[sturdy spear]

im ready to be critiqued, its my first good (i think) processed image

[dry blade]

bright nebulae are a lil clipped

[dry blade]

remove some of the faintest stars as it kind of makes it look more noisy than it is

[wild ocean]

this isnt #1337566901496320101

[dry blade]

that was feedback my bad if it sounded harsh

it might be bc this is a compressed screenshot i think

[wild ocean]

thats possible

[dry blade]

send ful res

[wild ocean]

not a screenshot, this is the png

[tawdry flume]

where Oiii

[ornate yarrow]

Unable to bring it out 😔

[violet kindle]

Very nice and sharp

[hearty bough]

thoughts on this ? was my first time shooting a real wide milky way, 24mm iirc

not super happy with the processing, i know some stuff is done wrong i just don't know what/how to improve on that next time

[gilded sail]

wrong channel lmao

[tawny swallow]

No he put this here cuz wants image critique

[hearty bough]

there was something else posted and then removed

[tawny swallow]

Ahh ok

Thanks for the clarification

[gilded sail]

yeah haha

thats mb should have clarified

[sharp marten]

Happy with this other than some noise and the wierd blue rings around some stars

[dry blade]

i reccomend dithering as it looks like you have walking noise

[sharp marten]

I dither once every 3 frames and i dont see it on my side

[dry blade]

it may be discord compression

[ornate yarrow]

How long are your exposures and how many pixels do you dither?

[sharp marten]

120s not sure how many pixels but i think like 3’

Not sure, i use asiair lol

[ornate yarrow]

3 pixels every third frame is not enough dither

[sharp marten]

how much should i dither?

Also im using ra only mount so that might be why idk

[ornate yarrow]

Not sure about RA only, I dither 10 pixels every frame

[dry blade]

i do 5 or 10

[wild ocean]

it died

[hexed ginkgo]

Attention thread lurkers, your thread has been selected in the champion of thread comps. Go vote! #1369694419963613295 message

[wild ocean]

Yes

[wild ocean]

it looks like theres mottling on my screen with the background?? not too sure what could be causing that

[sharp marten]

I searched up motteling and its disgusting

wtf is mottling

nvm idk why think its bc i uploaded to my phone and went thru lightroom a few times

[ornate yarrow]

Do you think the background is too bright?

[ripe magnet]

Looks good to me

[wild ocean]

Can do a slight arcsinh black point adjustment

[gilded sail]

I would say it's a good amount of lighness, though I can also agree with Sword that you could adjust the black point a bit more.

[gilded sail]

top>bottom for sure

[wild ocean]

top better?

[gilded sail]

yeah, i can see more of the gas structure easier

[wild ocean]

i like the colours on bottom except its filled with gradients

[gilded sail]

did you use blurx +adjust halo's?

[wild ocean]

no idea. i just gave it to someone to blurx

[gilded sail]

yeah, alright. Just wondering since in blue horsehead the blue star has the halo around it deleted (which would also be nebulosity)

[wild ocean]

yea.....

[gilded sail]

I think adjust Halo was probably used? If you want, I can run Blurx on it without it to see what happens, later?

[wild ocean]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eqyzCCW7DBymstKjkYV744risef6hAlb/view?usp=sharing

there u go

[gilded sail]

alr, ill get the PC booted up

[gilded sail]

i stand corrected, its a result of the stellar sharpening

[wild ocean]

ah

[wild ocean]

This looks good on my phone, just need to clear up the gradients

[ornate yarrow]

Thanks, I have to find a good compromise between contrast and naturalness. I played around a bit and I think this is not too contrasty. Maybe a very slight black point adjustment would be fine, like you guys said.

[daring cedar]

thoughts?

[wild ocean]

Oversaturated

[hearty bough]

overcooked

[daring cedar]

Nah I think its just fine

[daring cedar]

Nah it is medium rare

[ornate yarrow]

Oversaturated and clipped

[ripe magnet]

First time processing RGB and Ha data using Continuum Subtraction. Critique please

im not sure what to do with the background noise

[wild ocean]

RGB feels very weak

[gilded sail]

This may be a result of compression, but your background has some funky stuff happening.

[tawdry flume]

should be in #1337566901496320101

[daring cedar]

Yea I realised that a tad too late lol

[weak dust]

Any critique?

[sharp marten]

Pls fix the blue fringing

I get it aswell

This sounds wierd but I use Narrowband Normalisation in pix and I set it to HOO mode 1 which removes the bloating blue channel and replaces it with a fake one

Still gets me decent star colors and basically removes the fringe

[sharp marten]

Do this on a starmask

Or use Siril remove purple filter

But that doesnt work as well imo

[oak swan]

Can anyone point anything out on this that may need improving?

Used a Seestar S50 to image

[sharp marten]

Stack more frames, is this processed?

And if you are using the base seestar app to do processing it might be your time to change

[oak swan]

Yeah I processed this through siril and I think I got around 40 minutes of 10s frames

[sharp marten]

nice, u can def do better with processing

[oak swan]

Do you know of a more advanced tutorial that I can follow?

[sharp marten]

Whats your workflow?

[oak swan]

I copy the siril Seestar processing page, I’ll link it:

https://siril.org/tutorials/seestar/

@sharp marten

[sharp marten]

Pretty good

But for color calibration use the new SPCC

and instead of using histogram use GHS

And make sure to use starnet to nit stretchur stars too much

[oak swan]

Ah okay I’ll have to look into that and reprocess it, do you know of any good tutorials?

[sharp marten]

nope i js do stuff and see what works best lol

[oak swan]

Fair enough, ill have to do that lol

[daring cedar]

idk about this but I like to hear what you guys think about it

it looks off to me but idk how to fix that

[dry blade]

stars kinda feel off on the darker areas imo, everything else is grat

[wild ocean]

Red saturation is very strong, I'd cut back on jt

[sharp marten]

From my screen it was so desaturated

[wild ocean]

TBF my phone night filter ua on

[dry blade]

no i agree

[daring cedar]

I dont really get what you mean, like their desaturated?

[dry blade]

idk, it kinda looks like theyve been halo reduced and just looks kind of off, also i meant great not gray

[daring cedar]

I get what you mean, idk how to fix it though

[tawdry flume]

Sadr is overstretched, there’s no real colour either
Don’t save as JPEG because the NA is super compressed

[oak swan]

Hey just got around to reprocessing my carina nebula data: how does it look

Before and after

[sharp marten]

Really good improvement!

Maybe run SPCC or some sort of colour calibration to get rid of that blue tint

[oak swan]

Will do

[vague meteor]

i agree with badunkie, the star cores are too bright and cutoff suddenly, like they are clipped

how were they stretched?

[daring cedar]

I stretched them using the stf thingy

admiral octavio taught me that

[vague meteor]

ok, nothing else?

no white point slider or curves

[daring cedar]

don't think so, could be I upped the blackpoint after I added them

[vague meteor]

shouldnt matter. maybe its your data, do the stars looked clipped in the linear state?

[daring cedar]

are these star cores really too bright? they look fine to me tbh

[vague meteor]

or like the black linear image very starry

[daring cedar]

uhm its been a while since I looked at this data

#1380285798296850512 message

[vague meteor]

its just that in thise darker areas, you would expect more stars to be fainter

yet they all look super "peaky"

overall, image very well processed

colours are nice, are how i would do them

[daring cedar]

hm yea true

[daring cedar]

thankyou!

this is an older process though

idk I made it a little bit more intens

is this better or worse?

[vague meteor]

nah not a fan of this

[daring cedar]

too cotton candy?

[vague meteor]

too contrasty

cant see whats going on within the blacks, and the bright areas are overwhelming

[daring cedar]

the blacks are exactly the same

[vague meteor]

in the original one, the dark areas have so much going on, like different layers of dust etc

[daring cedar]

uhm

[daring cedar]

the dark ereas did not/ barly changed

very subtle

[vague meteor]

i would maybe push the sat very slightly for the original image

but not the contrast

[daring cedar]

is this better then?

[vague meteor]

lift the blacks slight using curves

very very slight

[daring cedar]

I only have the png, I'll try rq

[vague meteor]

btw im on phone so all this might look very different on a good screen

[daring cedar]

[vague meteor]

so take my advice with a grain of salt haha

[daring cedar]

eh it isn't really working

I have 4 versions of this process

I personally like the contrast on the bottom right, but the top left is the most realistic ig

I think top right or bottom lef might be the best, they are the ones inbetween

[sharp marten]

Hit me

And this

[wild ocean]

much helpful

[ornate yarrow]

I'd get rid of the green at the very bottom

[wild ocean]

It's MW glow

[sharp marten]

No

Thats green

[wild ocean]

eh

barely noticable

[sharp marten]

Noticeable enough for 2 ppl to see

[wild ocean]

on my screen and on my phone i barely see it

[sharp marten]

I HATE DISCORD COMRPESIONAD

[ornate yarrow]

Also many stars appear purple

[wild ocean]

camara lens moment

[ornate yarrow]

Should be easy to fix

Take the extractred stars and run Correct magenta stars script

Or invert + scnr

[wild ocean]

thats for purple stars the invertscnr trick

[ornate yarrow]

That's what I'm saying 😅

[daring cedar]

you need more data

[sharp marten]

whattt

12hrs rn i think

[daring cedar]

dslr?

[sharp marten]

astrocam

bortle7 tho

[daring cedar]

this looks either way to compressed or pushed too hard idk

[sharp marten]

yeah i pushed quite hard

[tawdry flume]

dark halos around stars

[sharp marten]

Yea camera raw colour balance

im trying to use it less

But it makes tweaking colours so easy

[wild ocean]

can you drop the dataset for this?

[sharp marten]

@wild ocean

[wild ocean]

i tried

deepsnr and starnet took forever

[daring cedar]

is this cfa drizzled?

[wild ocean]

Yes

[sharp marten]

yes

[sharp marten]

W

looks very natural and light

Pleasing to the eye

[mental marsh]

@tawdry flume https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-lQ1PpC4mTYrc4NHd4bzUeW9wYHmzODt/view?usp=drive_link

[tawdry flume]

buih

[mental marsh]

its not that bad

[tawdry flume]

i meant the google drive link was funny

anyway I can tell you a few things alreayd

whatever youre doing to the stars isnt good

they look super weird

were you out of focus?

[mental marsh]

ahhh thats me waighting for my 10mm spacder as im not in the corect back focus

[tawdry flume]

I mean, that shouldn't impact the central stars

its just defocused

incorrect spacing will affect the image corners

[mental marsh]

heres my focus

[tawdry flume]

buh

what does a single sub look like

[mental marsh]

it was also very windy wile having a sail of a telescope

[tawdry flume]

your stars in the sub still generally look much better than the final image

especially in the center here

your stars seem like theyre all over the place

[mental marsh]

Yeah wind

[tawdry flume]

hmm

honestly i shouldve asked for the stack

what does that look like

jus screenshot abn autostretch

[mental marsh]

this is no stretch

[tawdry flume]

yeah its processing

that looks much better

[mental marsh]

Bc I was just goofing off in light room

[mental marsh]

This is the one I actually care about

[mental marsh]

Give me your worst

[wild ocean]

stars are very desaturated

and the core of the galaxy is green...look into getting more colour into the galaxy

[sharp marten]

Needs more colour

[mental marsh]

You might be colour blind bc that ain’t green

[wild ocean]

your image is clipped as well

[mental marsh]

Noise

And jpeg things

[sharp marten]

critique

cool close ups

[mental marsh]

I know where you’ve been

[sharp marten]

?

[wild ocean]

youre meant to say hi to him

[sharp marten]

hi to both of yall

[mental marsh]

He’s hiding secrets that I know

[mental marsh]

I know where you’ve been

[sharp marten]

hit me

[wild ocean]

🧍 🖐️

[sharp marten]

[wild ocean]

something looks off about omega

mainly the core
idk how to explain whats wrong

[sharp marten]

HDR multiscale did something

[wild ocean]

do iHDR

or play with ghs stretching more carefully

[sharp marten]

Whats that

[sharp marten]

Yes my sire

[wild ocean]

https://uridarom.com/blog/using-ihdr

[sharp marten]

your a lifesaver

[sharp marten]

Critique please

[wild ocean]

Big fan of the right image

Eta car regions is overstretched. Remember to use iHDR on bright regions

[daring cedar]

nice colors but it is overdone

[sharp marten]

Yeah its mb with the corr

core

but starxterminator really fcked up the nebula

Heres a better core but when i did this the redt of the nebula looked wierd

[hearty bough]

first time doing serious processing on milky way shots, thoughts on these?

[wild ocean]

orange is over saturated imo

apart from that looks quite nice

[hearty bough]

yea thats the one thing i was iffy on how to do right, thanks 👍

[sharp marten]

Gradients on edge of image, bright star on bottom is wierd, mw glow slightly purple

i love it tho

[sharp marten]

Saturate the Ha more

Blotchy bg

Thats all ngl

I love this image tho

tis gonna be my next tatget

[sharp marten]

btw what do you use to denoise

and how do you make your stars have glow around em

[wild ocean]

DeepSNR

no idea how im getting glow...might be from a little dew even thoive got a dew heater

[sharp marten]

Oh

I think im gonna throw away my dew heater

I love that glow

[wild ocean]

youll need a adew heater to prevent dew getting on the csop

[sharp marten]

ikik

for now I just play with blurx to get glow

[wild ocean]

better?

[sharp marten]

Very

[sharp marten]

Ngl i would use dbxtract and extract the ha, then turn it into a mask, clone stamp the mw glow and do curves to make the nebulae pop more

To make a “HaRGB” image

kind of a HaRGB

[wild ocean]

seems like a lot more effort than what ive currently dojne

[visual holly]

I guess feedback shouldn't be an issue for competition submissions? (If it is someone let me know)

[visual holly]

How did you calibrate this image? Are you after a wider variety of colors or do you want something that looks more monochrome?

[bold iron]

i use a duoband filter and process both the ha and the oiii seperately

really struggling to bring out the oiii colours without mottling the edges of the nebulosity

so in the end im left with a very single-coloured image

here are a few more processes i did while experimenting with different pallettes

the noise and the mottling is super noticeable i think

this is about 7hrs data btw

[sharp marten]

candy palette goes crazy

Green bg

Teeny bit over blurxed

[dry blade]

Thought so

[sharp marten]

Need some tips for the next time I process and add duoband data

StarX and Starnet work very poorly on this data for some reason

It makes the right side of the image have wierd lines that look like walking noise and black spots

But the stars were very cooked from tilt

[wild ocean]

Tried 2x upsample?

[sharp marten]

How!

? Mb

i think its because of the very dense starfield

[wild ocean]

Starnet litterally gives you that option. Pixinsight or siril?

[sharp marten]

Im using StarX

But starnet worked better

With 2x

[wild ocean]

thinks?

[sharp marten]

Looks great idk

[visual holly]

I do not thinks therefore I do not ams

[wild ocean]

which is better

[spark wave]

1st one

[weak dust]

Any feedback/critique?

[sharp marten]

DITHERDITHER DITHER DITHER

[dry blade]

Dither or die

[weak dust]

I'm dither it

14px every 5 frames

[ornate yarrow]

how many frames did you take?

[weak dust]

75

[ornate yarrow]

Then I think you should dither more often

[ornate yarrow]

I'd say dithering every 5 frames is not enough

[ripe magnet]

critique please

[wild ocean]

damn stars are tiiiny

[ripe magnet]

the image is slightly out of focus, so that helps hide them

But yes you’re right. They’re a bit small. I’m not too used to doing star removal and recomposition yet

[wild ocean]

hell yea

background is pretty good

ticks all my boxes

[sharp marten]

wow ty shiv

[dry blade]

1 feedback pls

[daring cedar]

the core is a lil bright

[sharp marten]

bit monochromatic

[dry blade]

New process

Trying to be a bit less over processed

Like for example here are my old edits

[sharp marten]

Worse

[dry blade]

In what way

[sharp marten]

Core lost contrast

[sharp marten]

these are quite good

[sharp marten]

First one

[dry blade]

i was told it was too bright lol

this better?

[sharp marten]

how did you reduce the brightness

[dry blade]

luminance mask

[sharp marten]

idk maybe try histo or HDRmultiscale

[dry blade]

would you prefer smth like this?

@sharp marten

it will also get more colourful once i add broadband

hdr is cooked

sorry mask was still on, this is what it did

it could maybe work?