StarTools

Startrek wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 9:08 pm Captured NGC 2359 Thors Helmet for the first time after 5 years into the hobby
A nice little celestial object to image , quite unique
Unfortunately only 4 hours of data due to the onset of cloudy weather but happy with the end result
Captured from my NexDome Bortle 3 dark site ( retirement getaway) under poor to average conditions ( Summertime high humidity, dew , sea mist etc.. Star were scintillating like crazy )
Haven’t used my Obs in months and months so required a clean out ( spider webs , dust ,mould etc…. )

NexDome Obs
Skywatcher EQ8-R pro mount
10” f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon fibre newt
ZWO2600MC cooled to -10C , Gain 100
TS Optics GPU coma corrector
Antlia ALPT 5nm OSC Dualband filter
85 x 3 min dithered guided subs
40 x Flats
60 x Bias
EQMOD and Ascom Stellarium
APT
PHD2 Multistar guiding ( 0.60 to 0.70 arc sec total ) Dec waa rock solid but Ra was jumping a bit due to chasing the seeing
Stacked in DSS
Processed in Startools version 1.8
SV Decon worked extremely well again
Used Compose OSC Bi Color to load the data
Bi Color preset in Color Module with some saturation and bias tweaks
Only required 4 pixels in De Noise to clean up the residual noise floor ( minor )

Added a cropped version

Comments most welcome
Thanks
Martin

fmeireso wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 8:38 am Looks nice to me. Nice detail. But unsure about the starcolor. It is as you say a beautifull target. Unfortunately for me too low placed...unless i would go out i the field, but i don't do that ...for AP.

decay wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 4:50 pm Hi Martin,

such a fascinating object! Too bad that it isn't really visible from Europe.

Good to hear you found an opportunity to use your large rig. And obviously everything works fine, a nice image, well done I too have no problems with white stars in duoband images. At least for now, of course this may change in future ...

Best regards, Dietmar.

Mike in Rancho wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:23 pm Cool target, Martin. Nice job!

I like the orientation here too. I think I'm used to seeing this more counterclockwise 90 degrees?

I imagine the star colors are appropriate to acquisition (duoband) and your throttling. Is this target perhaps OIII heavy and throttled in the B/G? The fact that, other than one obvious star, the entire field runs towards the red (when we know stars are usually weak in Ha) makes me think perhaps so.

Thus, altering the emission throttling for a more "balanced" star field color may take the actual target too much towards blue/OIII.

I guess if found to be aesthetically disturbing, bleaching or dulling the stars (perhaps via highlight repair, or options in Shrink even if you don't want to actually shrink) could be a solution. RGB stars another, although sometimes tricky to pull off.