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JWST MIRI Instrument Pillars of Creation, Eric Coles (coles44)

JWST MIRI Instrument Pillars of Creation

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
JWST MIRI Instrument Pillars of Creation, Eric Coles (coles44)

JWST MIRI Instrument Pillars of Creation

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Description

This is the second of the two images from the JWST that I have processed. This image was processed from data of the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). You can read more about MIRI and its function from this link (https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/miri.html).

As with the prior Pillars, Tim Hutchison (@Tim Hutchison) and I took the data and processed it in our unique way. You can see Tim's rendition  of the MIRI data from this link (Tim's JWST MIRI Pillars of Creation).

JWST – Creating the Pillars of Creation Work Flow

Processing these data was a bit easier than the five-filter NIRCam Pillars image (Eric's MIRCam Pillars of Creation). The main difference was that this image used only three filter images, not five. That means we could assign the three filters directly to the RGB channels, rather than estimating the five colors along the RGB spectrum and adding them together as described in the earlier image. Some things did remain the same. They included the following steps that you can review in the earlier posting (Eric's MIRCam Pillars of Creation).
Acquire the Data
Sorting the Data
PixInsight Processing


What was slightly different was the Photoshop Processing.

1.  The Luminosity Layer: Open up the three tiff files in a stack as described in the MIRCam image. The name of each has their respective filter wavelength (f770w, f1130w and f1500w). Arrange them from shorter to longer in the stack (although this is not critical). Leave the bottom layer as is and mark the next two layers above as Lighten layers. Create a Merge Visible layer using the Shift-CTRL-Alt and hit E keyboard shortcut. This is your starting Luminosity. 
You will see that there are a number of defects in this image. There is no quick way to fix these. My approach was to use the functions of the Healing Brush to fix those defects. If you are not familiar with the Healing Brush, there are plenty of videos on YouTube to explain its function.
Enhancing Luminosity: There was some structure in the MIRCam image that is not in the MIRI image. I brought in some of that structure by registering the MIRCam image to the MIRI image, making a starless image of the registered image and adding it to the MIRI Luminosity image as a Lighten layer at about 33%. This is completely optional and was done to fit my esthetic for the image.

2. The Color Image: This is easy. You have the Luminosity stack. Copy the f770w layer and create a new document and hit paste. This is you blue layer. Copy the f1130w layer and paste it into the  green Channel. Take the f1500w layer and paste it into the Red channel of the new document. This is the basic RGB color image. As with the Luminosity layer, there are lots of flaws. Fix them the same way you did with the Luminosity layer. This can be time consuming.

3. Final Image: Take the composite Luminosity layer and put it on top of your color layer with a merge designation of Luminosity. That's it.

4. Stars: Stars can be a bit of a mess. I don't have any slick way of improving them. I cleaned them up one star at a time. Fortunately, there aren't that many.

As before, experiment with this and other methods and if you find an improvement, let me know. And of course, if you have any questions, send them along. Remember, processing is experimentation not religion, and have fun

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Histogram

JWST MIRI Instrument Pillars of Creation, Eric Coles (coles44)

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