The Wizard Nebula
Processing Example
Here is a comparison of processing for star control.
Processing Steps:
1.Align and Stack 40 x 6 minute subs in Nebulosity then taken to Pixinsight
2.Initial Crop
3.DBE tool
4.Background Neutralization
5.Color Calibration
6.Stretch with Histogram tool
7.Removed First layer using A’trous wavelets at 8 layers
8.Make Star Mask
9. HDRWT tool at 6 with lightness mask and star mask
10. SCNR tool for green at 1.0
11. ASDNR for Small scale noise in Lum and Chrom
12. Repeat Histogram stretch to remove clip unneeded black levels
13.Color Saturation Boost
14. Final Large Scale noise removal with ACDNR
15.Save as 16 bit Tiff and take to Photoshop
16. Carboni’s makes stars smaller
17. Carboni’s Star color boost
18. Resize to 100 Pix/inch
19.Save as Final Tiff
Processing Steps:
1.Align and Stack 40 x 6 minute subs in Nebulosity then taken to Pixinsight
2.Initial Crop
3.DBE tool
4.Background Neutralization
5.Color Calibration
6.Determine PSF with DPSF tool
7.Use PSF for mild deconvolution
8.Mild Erosion at 0.3 with Morphological Transformation Tool
9.Second mild Deconvolution using motion and appropriate angle to improve star shape due to tracking errors.
10.Stretch with Masked stretch tool 200 iterations X 2
11.Make Star Mask
12. HDRWT tool at 6 with lightness mask and star mask
13. SCNR tool for green at 1.0
14. ASDNR for Small scale noise in Lum and Chrom
15. Repeat Histogram stretch to remove clip unneeded black levels
16.Color Saturation Boost
17. Final Large Scale noise removal with ACDNR
18. Save as 16 bit Tiff and take to Photoshop.
19. At this point in Photoshop I did a remove stars tool to create layer with stars only and one with nebula only (Wei Hao Technique - bottom of page):
For the Nebula only image:
Used Ken Crawford’s Methods to sharpen foreground structures and create perspective.
For the stars only layer:
20. I used Blair star control and Neil’s method’s (Step 51 and on) for star control which were already better due to the masked stretch.
21.Then recombine layers together and Flatten.
22. Final tweaks to Levels and curves.
23. Carboni’s Star color boost
24. Resize to 100 Pix/inch
25. Save as Final Tiff