Tahniah. Job well done. Amazing all from 30 sec exposures.
Usually M42 requires two sets of data due to extreme dynamic range.
Bright Outer core data
Dim Inner core data
Then HDR.
Well, well, well....
This the right one...well done!
Have you try to adjust the color saturation a little bit more? That should be even better...hehehe...
Great one!
Can share the processing workflow ke. Boleh buat panduan/rujukan.
Cheers
Actually the most exciting fact is that the sky condition that night was not 100% perfect. To be honest, the thin clouds makes locating the 3 stars that mark the location of this nebula somewhat difficult.
The standard stacking procedure is executed as per taught by Master William using the IRIS software. This is the most messy step:
1. Setting the working path/folder where all the files are located.
2. Setting the camera model
3. Converting all RAW --> .PIC files (thru CFA) <Bias, Dark, Flat, Light>
4. Combining all Bias frames make it an Offset
5. Combining all Darks+Offset make a Master Dark
( I skip flat coz I didnt do any)
6. Subtract all Offset from Light frames
7. Subtract Master Dark from the above (Light-Offset) frames
8. Sequence CFA convert to Color PIC file
9. Stellar registration (one star alignment) <select an alignment star>
10. Add Sequence
11. Save final image as TIFF
Thats pretty much it for stacking. But it creates a huge amount of temporary files. My original 150MB RAW ended up becoming 6.8GB temporary files if I didn't delete any of them.
Only after this comes the easier part of Photoshop. Bear with me, a little bit of programming experience required for understanding the next process:
Open TIFF image
for(int i=0 ; i<7 ; i++)
{
copy new layer i;
Layer i.TonalCurve (50% histogram range) //lower brightness bar
Layer i (Add Mask)
}
Layer Visibility.OFF(ALL)
int i =0
for( ; i<7 ; i++)
{
Layer Visibility.ON(layer i)
Layer i.MASK (mask overexposed/saturated areas )
Layer i.UnsharpMask ( 80%, 3.0 )
}
//i=7
Layer i.TonalCurve (adjust curve manually & accordingly)
Layer i.TonalCurve (set grey point)
Save final IMAGE
if(reader == programmer)
reader = burst in laughter //by now
Return "Favor to others that have guided me all these long years";
Hope this helps...
