This has been the most challenging processing I did so far. The star field is so densely packed with stars, everything can go wrong very easily...
My first imaging session from Villa Ventana, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nice Bortle 4 sky and comfy cabin. Weather was excellent and the neighbors' lights didn't get in the way. I got 4 hours worth of shots, starting with a sinking moon on the opposite side of the sky.
Also, it's the first time that I planned the framing ahead of time, rotating the camera 90 degrees to get the desired composition.
. Sony a6100 @ ISO 3200
. Rokinon/Samyang 135mm ED UMC f/2.0 @ f/2.8
. Star Adventurer
. 480 x 30" lights
. 30 x darks and bias
. 20 x flats and dark flats from my archive
Revision edit:
As expected, I came back home from Villa Ventana, saw the "final" edit on my desktop's monitor... and hated it!
I re-processed the whole thing, trying to pay special attention on the stars. Used 2x drizzle on stacking (getting a 96 megapixel, 1GB final stack) and also used 2x up-sampling for StarNet, greatly improving the starless and star-mask results. Now, I got much better detail all around and specially within the main nebula. I opted for a lighter result with more star presence and tried not to lose color contrast within the nebulae, using a more neutral approach.
(100% crop)
Bottom line: this is hard AF.
=======================================
Last revision edit (4/9/2024):
I'm on my second day of my trial licenses for PixInsinght, BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator and StarXterminator. I'm reprocessing all my data, I can't believe the difference these tools can make, it's like doubling the resolution and depth of my subs. I'm blown away.
For comparison sakes, a crop from the PixInsight edit with matching FOV:
=======================================
Comments