OSC Processing Workflow - "Reflection Nebulas"

[Music] [Music] Hello everybody welcome back to the channel this is Hunter from Al Ash photography back with a tutorial video today in a continuation to the Pix Insight workflow series today's topic we are going to be going over reflection nebula processing and a great Target we're going to be using is something that I shot about a month ago in the constellation of Scorpius and it is of course the all-time favorite row of Fuki Yuki reason I chose this Target because it has pretty much everything you can think of in a nebula you have emission nebula you have dark nebula and of course reflection nebula as well and it's a very colorful Target so what we're going to be doing today today we're going to be going through a step-by-step process of what to do when you're processing your images when it comes to reflection nebula and Broadband because it does get a little bit tricky so any of the repositories that I will be using today I will be leaving a link down in the description below any pix inside scripts that I use will also include that some tools are paid tools to keep that in mind especially from RC Astro I will be given a link directly to where you can find those if you want to include them to your pixon size Suite so right out of the stack here we have roughly about 14 hours of data on this Target and the first thing we're going to do is do an unlink uh stretch right now just to kind of see what we are working with this is a three times drizzled image because what I used was a 135 mm rocking on uh camera lens with an apsc sensor so I am severely under sampled with my image here and just from the unleaked stretch you can see it is a fairly low Target for me so it does seem quite bright but things are going to look a lot better now the first thing we're going to be doing is some background extraction you can either do it through two ways you can either do it through Dynamic background extraction or dbe which is a free tool inside a pixon sight there's also another free tool which I been using a lot lately which requires a little bit more of a download to install but let me tell you it is definitely been worth it as of lately and that is graper so we're going to be using graper since this is what I've been using as of lately and it's part of the pixon site toolbox Suite repository which you're going be able to find that through scripts toolbox and graer now you're going to select your image that you have usually have a correction of subtraction smoothing factor you can change it however you like when I'm seeing a lot more uh vetting and some gradients in my image I like to tone this smoothing factor down to about a four like 0.45 we're going to go ahead and replace the target view we'll go ahead and hit that check mark button and let that run it may take a little longer just depending on the size of your image but when that completes we'll be right back all right we did some background extraction and it's already looking much better I still do have a little bit of some gradient there on the right hand side but all in all it has done a pretty spectacular job now the next thing we are going to be using which is a pay tool known as blur exterminator and if you been living under a rock this past year this is definitely a highly recommended tool because it helps with a lot of Stellar sharpening and as well as correcting any imperfections that you may have with your stars see like up here in the top right corner as you can see stars are not perfectly round in some areas but with blur exterminator it really takes care of that all together so we'll go ahead and open up blur exterminator and I just used default settings use the automatic psf I sharpen stars at about 0.2 sharpen non-stellar at 0.9 and just simply drag this triangle over and go ahead and install all right now we have completed our blur exterminator the next thing we're going to do is a little bit of some noise reduction as you can see it's pretty noisy image overall because at maximum altitude here it's about 30° above the Horizon so it is in the muck a little bit but with a little bit of a noise exterminator we can do that pretty well and also there is two different methods of doing this you can either have the pay tool noise exterminator from RC Astro or now with graper they have a d noise and it's very comparable too you can also save a little bit of some money from that you can find that also in the Pix Insight toolbox you can go under scripts toolbox graper Den noise and I found that a strength of 0.8 is the perfect area to kind of mimic a little bit of noise exterminator with the bat size of four so this process is going to take a couple of minutes to run so hang tight go grab a snack a drink cuz it is going to be a little bit as this runs now that the graur D noise has completed now we get into the real fun stuff when we start to stretch our image and luckily enough we'll be able to use already uh made tools from Bill blanchin had some nice stretching tools but before we actually get the stretch our image we need to go ahead and color calibrate now if you have it set up um correctly for spcc or spectr photometric color calibration you can go ahead and use that or if you don't long as that your image is plate solved you'll be able to use color calibration and it does a pretty good job too since I already have the G folder all set up and with the filters that I use for this target we're going to go ahead and use spectro photometric color calibration now we're going to keep everything on average spiral galaxy the QE curve just the ideal now the filter I use is the opal along L quad enhance which I have made in here op theong L quad enhance R for red do the same thing for green and for blue now I do have a tutorial on how to add these filters to your spcc so you can have it for your pixon site as well I'll leave a link to that for that video so you can go ahead and watch it to help it install for your own self so let's go ahead and color calibrate our image now it will run through a couple of Cycles here throughout the database so it make sure it picks out the right stars to assign the correct colors to it and this process will also take about a minute or two all right now our image has been color calibrated you can see from the white balance function we're right along that line where we need to be even though our image looks kind of weird so we're going to go ahead and clear out that auto stf and now we're going to use one of Bill blanchin stretching scripts which is the link stretch version six I'll provide that down below and you're going to do is just drag and drop it over and we'll go ahead and prevalently stretch our image to something that looks pretty decent already from the start and there we go we have our stretched image I'm also going to run a resample to get this down to a smaller resolution because with a three times drizzle this is a huge file to work with and depending on even the strongest of computers it does struggle a little bit with the processes so we're going to go ahead and get this down to where it would normally be for my camera so we're going to reduce this down about 33% which is roughly about 1/3 go ahead and let that run and there we go so now we can work with a little bit of some colors so now we have stretched our image still a long way to go to really start brightening up these regions here but we're going to take care of the Stars first to get them out of the picture so we can start working on a lot of the neb velocity now you can do that either two ways you can do that through freeway of starnet 2 but I definitely recommend star exterminator because it's just so much easier to work with and it's a lot faster too go ahead and do the large overlap unscreen to stars and then we'll go ahead and safely remove the Stars so we can start working on the nebulosity now that the graper D noise has completed now we get into the real fun stuff when we start to stretch our image and luckily enough we'll be able to use already uh made tools from Bill blanchin had some nice stretching tools but before we actually get to stretch our image we need to go ahead and color calibrate now if you have it set up um correctly for spcc or spectr photometric color calibration you can go ahead and use that or if you don't long set your image is plat solved you you'll be able to use color calibration and it does a pretty good job too since I already have the ga folder all set up and with the filters that I use for this target we're going to go ahead and use spectr photometric color calibration now we're going to keep everything on average spiral galaxy the QE curve just the ideal now the filter I use is the opal along L quad enhance which I have made in here opal long L quad enhance R for red do the same thing for green and for blue now I do have a tutorial on how to add these filters to your spcc so you can have it for your pixon sight as well I'll leave a link to that for that video so you can go ahead and watch it to help it install for your own self so let's go ahead and color calibrate our image now it will run through a couple of Cycles here throughout the database so I make sure it picks out the right stars to assign the correct colors to it and this process will also take about a minute or two all right now our image has been color calibrated you can see from the white balance function we're right along that line where we need to be even though our image looks kind of weird so we're going to go ahead and clear out that Auto stf and now we're going to use one of Bill blanchon stretching scripts which is the link stretch version six I'll provide that down below and all you're going to do is just drag and drop it over and we'll go ahead and prevalently stretch our image to something that looks pretty decent already from the start and there we go we have our stretched image I'm also going to run a resample to get this down to a smaller resolution because with a three times drizzle this is a huge file to work with and depending on even the strongest of computers it does struggle a little bit with the processes so we're going to go ahead and get this down to where it would normally be for my camera so we're going to reduce this down about 33% which is roughly about oneir go ahead and let that run and there we go so now we can work with a little bit of some colors so now we have stretched our image still a long way to go to really start brightening up these regions here but we're going to take care of the Stars first to get them out of the picture so we can start working on a lot of the nebulosity now you can do that either two ways you can do that through the freeway of star net too but I definitely recommend star exterminator because it's just so much easier to work with and it's a lot faster too go ahead and do the large overlap unscreen the stars and then we'll go ahead and safely remove the Stars so we can start working on the nebulosity so there we go we have our Stars removed we're just going to go ahead and rename this as stars and we're just going to stick that aside for now so now we are left with a lot of nebulosity some dark nebula aspects we have a the emission nebula which is this orish color from the bright star and tares you have hydrogen Alpha and these Reds the blues there is your reflection nebula so we're going to go ahead and kind of add a little bit of some contrast to our image overall so we're going to go with some curves transformation we're going to go ahead and add a little bit of some contrast just to have this thing start to pop out a little bit more but right there looks pretty good go ahead and run that now the next thing I like to use is something called Dark structures which really brings out a lot of the dark nebula and really make it pop out from the background which you can find that through scripts utilities and dark structure enhance now just kind of leave it at the default settings but you can also increase the amount that you want which I'm going to have it be a little bit more prominent going to put it at 0.5 with one iteration we go ahead and run that and you're going to see a difference especially here in the center of that dark nebula kind of popping out a little bit more there we go as you can see that is a a nice difference here if I go back and go again it just enhances it and makes it nice and pretty so now the next thing we're going to work on still is a little bit of the overall background I can see a little bit of some green that shouldn't be there so we're going to go ahead and do use a range mask so we can go ahead and mask off the main nebula regions so we can work on a little bit of the background I'm going to go ahead and do a real time preview adjust it to wherever you like some fuzziness we'll get it worked in right there add a little bit of some smoothness and then we're going to go ahead and invert the mask from there so we can work on the [Music] background let's go ahead and minimize that and stick it all to the side go ahead and hide your mask so you know what you're working working with and then we're going to open up the curse transformation yet again and we're just going to bring down a little bit of the overall curves little by little you want to do this you don't want to go too extreme cuz if not it starts to make things a little bit wonky well right there should be good and then what I like to do too is to run a little bit of some scnr cuz I am seeing some green in the background which you don't really want that so there we go that looks much better then so now let's go ahead and work on the overall coloring of the neet Velocity especially in these Reds and these Blues so one of the best and easy tools I like to use for color mask is also from bill blanchin that you can get absolutely free through a repository you can find that under scripts utilities color mask mod so what this does does it brings out an image and a color wheel which you can go ahead and set a range of colors in the color wheel to what you want to have for your color mask and you can zoom in here too to these areas so you can click on the image and it actually shows you right on the color wheel where those colors are located so I got some oranges there I got some Reds so we're going to do AR range something like there so we can tackle the red Reds and the oranges I like to have my mass BL about six go ahead and hit okay let that run and it will create a mask for you of those areas like so go ahead and bring that over to put that mask on reopen the curves transformation and we start bringing up some saturation like to do it in increments so you're not overwhelming it to whatever your liking is you can also do the individual colors like if you want to add a little bit more red and take out some greens so you can kind of make it you know as As Natural as you could do I think I'm going to go one more time with the saturation cuz we have a lot of hydrogen here here and on the other side of anaris so that looks pretty good right there go ahead and close that out here's what we're looking at so far get rid of the other mask and now we're going to do the same thing but with the blues here so we're going to go ahead and go back to script utilities color mask mod zoom into our blue nebulosity here see where the closest range is and looks like it's in between the blue and the cyan so we're going to run it roughly about here it's where the color curves were at go ahead and let that run it'll generate the mask go ahead and apply that over bring out the curse transformation yet again to do a real time preview once again just go ahead and work a little bit more with the saturation you can also enhance it more by adding some blue to it you can add a little bit of green too to kind of get that mix in or if you prefer to have it more blue you can have it that way but I always like to add at least a little bit of some green because it makes it just pop a little bit more and I like to be a little bit more aggressive too when it comes comes to the blues because those are always the hardest to really bring out any image so right there looks pretty darn good okay so we got some nice color involved here we have a little bit of the wispy dark nebula and dust in the background let's go ahead and do a little bit of some sharpening of the image in general go ahead and get rid of this mask here as well and the easiest thing I like to use for you know sharpening is a one-click method go over to scripts utilities and Advance sharpening and I just use the default settings overall to go ahead and sharpen our image and run about four different layers of sharpening in general and already that is looking very very nice got some color there from the reflection nebula near the center we have the emission nebula on this side hydrogen Alpha over towards this way we have a little bit of some reflection nebula as well towards the top left corner which is also associated with the blue horse head nebula so all no this is looking pretty darn good so now let's work on our stars in general after we replace this as starless so let's go ahead and open up our stars and the only thing we're really going to do is take out any green that doesn't exist in stars and the easiest way to do that too which I've had some questions about why I run scnr twice one regularly on the background image and then I invert the image and run it again reason being because of the outside Hue there's still some green left over if you happen to notice if you do that run scnr and then invert the image you'll still notice green around the outside Hue of the Stars so it makes sure you get all of it but also another method that is just a one and click and it does it right for you if you go to scripts utilities and correct magenta Stars it will also do the same sack thing boom and you're done so now we have our Stars image we have our starless image let's go ahead and combine them which I have a pixon sight script here that I always like to use which also rescreens the stars back in after you remove them with star exterminator so you use this pixon site script here which I'll provide down in the description you go ahead and create a new image go ahead and run that so there we go that is already looking pretty good now I am going to crop it a little bit on this side here because of the weird gradient that I'm seeing so with just a simple Dynamic crop we're just going to go ahead and frame our image up so it doesn't include that but still make row of fuky Yuki the star of the image so do something like that and that looks pretty darn good right there we can also do some last minute final adjustments if you want to use a little bit of the histogram function so if you seem like your background is a little bit darker you can also increase the nebulosity a little bit and the brightness overall say something like that looks pretty good one last final notion to it but we're also going to do a little bit of some star reduction since this region is very rich with stars also have another wonderful tool that is used I'll provide that down below as well and it also gives you a nice uh popup window as well also created by Bill blanchin and Mike Cranford but you can also go ahead and you know create a starless mask so you can go ahead and do it right from here you can use either the process of starnet 2 or for St star exterminator we can also see live views of what the Stars will look like when they are reduced and there's also something else known as small star protection so if you find an image that it kind of looks weird that looks very less starless at all all so like for this example here you can see that the stars are extremely toned down if you're not a fan of that you can run this initialize small star protection and you see you have all those little stars are unbothered which is good especially since we have Messier 4 here to work with but you can also increase the iterations of the stars in general you just have to be careful that you're not clipping them too much especially with this bright St here fuis and this looks good right here so go ahead and hit the check mark it'll run through the course and then right here you have your final image of row of Fuki Yuki so I hope this tutorial made things much easier for everybody who has a little bit of some hard time with using broadband and uh processing which some have definitely bigger problems especially if they're in more like polluted areas so I hope these tools and tips will help you out to make your reflection nebula shine just like the nice Skies thank you everyone for watching make sure to like comment and subscribe it really helps the channel out if you're looking to buy any products I do have affiliate links down below it's completely free to you but it just helps me out personally with when you're in the market for buying stuff I just get a little bit of an incentive also we're getting still very close to 1,000 subscribers to the channel we're almost close to monetizing the channel which is some really good news because definitely in this hobby you know very well it is very in very expensive so thank you all for another series of the of the pixon sight workflow have a great day and I'll see you in the next video [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Outten Astrophotography

Views: 1,048

Keywords: ZWO, Explore Scientific, Optolong, ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro, OSC, one shot color, cameras, astrophotography, deep sky, nebula, Rho Oph, Scorpio, reflection nebula, stars, space, tutorial

Id: QooBSDgwo5M

Length: 28min 13sec (1693 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 22 2024