Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380)

[Bob Israel]

Taking advantage of the clear moonless skies we have right now.

600 images @15s Each
2.5 hrs total integration
Bortle 5 skies
Stacked and processed in Pixinsight
Finished in Lightroom and Photoshop

C&C gladly accepted for this Newbie!

 

[AlanLichty]

Very cool deep space color show. I love the palette here.

 

[JimFox]

It's looking really good Bob. I think you got some really great detail on the Wizard. If there was any suggestion on my part to work on, it would be to work on reducing the stars some more. The more and the brighter stars are in an image, I have found the start to hide details in the nebula's because visually the eye keeps getting pulled to the stars.

The amount of stars tends to be a very personal choice though, there is no real right and wrong. But for me, while I like stars in my image, I prefer not to have quite so many. You can control that Star Reducing scripts or actions. Or also by using a stronger NB filter, or reducing the exposure.

I don't know with the Origin, how much control you have over the exposure beyond going down to 10 seconds from 15 seconds. Are you able to change the filters in it?

 

[Bob Israel]

Thanks Jim. On this image, I ran star reducer twice! I was afraid to run it a third time as it seemed like I was then getting some weird artifacts.

 

[Bob Israel]

It's looking really good Bob. I think you got some really great detail on the Wizard. If there was any suggestion on my part to work on, it would be to work on reducing the stars some more. The more and the brighter stars are in an image, I have found the start to hide details in the nebula's because visually the eye keeps getting pulled to the stars.

The amount of stars tends to be a very personal choice though, there is no real right and wrong. But for me, while I like stars in my image, I prefer not to have quite so many. You can control that Star Reducing scripts or actions. Or also by using a stronger NB filter, or reducing the exposure.

I don't know with the Origin, how much control you have over the exposure beyond going down to 10 seconds from 15 seconds. Are you able to change the filters in it?

There is an option to change the shutter speed for any image. When the nebula filter is installed, the default is 15 seconds. Otherwise, the default is 10. Celestron's plans include the addition of an equaltorial wedge allowing exposures in the minutes. Not sure when that will happen though.

 

[JimFox]

There is an option to change the shutter speed for any image. When the nebula filter is installed, the default is 15 seconds. Otherwise, the default is 10. Celestron's plans include the addition of an equaltorial wedge allowing exposures in the minutes. Not sure when that will happen though.

Do you physically install the filter?

Celestron is really doing the Origin right that's for sure.

 

[Bob Israel]

There's a filter drawer. It can take any 1.25 o 2" filter but one has to be careful because the optics are f/2.2. Therefore, some filters will not work and you need to get teh variety that works down to f/2. I only have the Celestron nebula filter and clear glass.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Bob,

Celestron thought of everything to make the Origin as powerful as possible. A filter drawer is so cool. Here is what I suggest for your next purchase. It really narrows down the wave bands and it helps to control the stars as well. You can get down to 3nm, but for me that's too tight and then causes issues with autofocusing or even polar alignment because enough light doesn't get through. But the 5nm of the Alp-T by Antlia is to me is perfect.

Antlia ALP-T Dual Narrowband OIII (5nm) & H-a (5nm) Highspeed Filter for f/2.2 - f/4 Telescopes - 2" Mounted (agenaastro.com)

 

[Anubis1311]

Nice. I find a good trick for reducing star size without adding crazy artifacts is to separate the stars (I use StarXterminator in Photoshop). I then reduce the levels of the stars only image ever so slightly which will make them smaller. You may need to make a very tiny tweak to the curves after to to bring the brightness back a bit. Careful not to bloat them though. Then screen them back in.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Very nice. Another excellent image. If you stack separately, you can remove and separately save the stars while still in the linear (unstretched) stage, and then just under-stretch them. This will not only keep them smaller, but also retain the star colors better. Or look into Bill Blanshan's excellent star reduction scripts, they work very well indeed in PixInsight.