Description: Fixed bad mask on a couple of stars
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Description: Minor blem touch ups
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Description: Contrast/brighten with curves, slight saturation increase.
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Title: Complete reintegration and reprocess from old data - 8 hours 50 minutes
Description:
I am really hoping it clears up sometime soon, but there is no sign of any change from clouds and precipitation in the forecast. I am running out of old images to update!
This has been one of the captures that I've been most pleased with, so I put off re-processing for a while. The reprocessing result is remarkably better than I thought it would be.
There is a funny thing that happens with processing astrophotography for me, (and any pursuit/hobby/vocation I think). At each point in my personal progress, when a good result is achieved, there is a feeling of "I don't think this could be improved upon." When I reprocess the data later the feeling is, "What the heck was I thinking, I was such an idiot!" And then I wonder, "What am I not seeing now that will later be so clear to me and lead to an even better result."
Another musing. I am amazed at how well my relatively modest equipment performs even when compared to some of the results I've seen from big observatory scopes. Obviously a giant Planewave or ASA produces better images, but at literally more than a hundred times the price. Someday I want to buy a, observatory-class setup, but I definitely believe that mid-tier production telescopes, mounts and cameras are capable of producing some great images with a bit of work at each of the steps along the way. (Collimation, guiding, focusing, processing, etc.)
The main takeaway from this reprocessing has been the refining of my workflow to be able to utilize various techniques in Pixinsight to gain a desired effect. I worked through the typical stuff, SPCC, BlurX, GHS, etc. As I was referring to other images to see what aspects of this object I liked and might want to highlight, I came across this absolutely stunning shot of the Fox Fur nebula by Wolfgang Promper, (his stuff is amazing and you should follow him here on Astrobin): https://www.astrobin.com/ilnpvt/ . I really liked the detail in the dust trails through the middle of the bright part of the nebula, so I started brainstorming about which tools would help me highlight that. I ended up using Local Histogram Equalization at two different Kernel Radii with a mask to help draw out this detail. I didn't quite get the fine details Wolfgang did but, to be fair, he uses a 24" ASA in an observatory in Namibia. ;-P
I also applied a trick that Adam Block highlights in his extensive tutorial offerings, (the one on the widefield image centered on NGC 1333), of using a slight contrast curve in Curves Transformation on the "b" of the Lab color space to draw out a little more blue in the nebula and a little more breadth of color in the brown nebulae. This is best applied subtly but gives just a bit more "pop" to some images.
Please take a minute to zoom in and check out the detail in this image!
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