Three times The Veil

Astrophotography is one of those hobbies that I find myself drifting in and out of, but each time I return to it, I instantly regret allowing it to take a back seat.  Alas though, it is unavoidable, especially if I want to spend time imaging from my own back garden.  The Summer, regardless how wet and crumby, always guarantees one thing.  Light nights. 😒

But slowly and surely, darkness starts to return and while friends and colleagues start to get grumpy at the darker evenings, secretly, I love it!  And soon, my mojo starts to return.  Often months after producing my last image, I tentatively start re-learning my process to start collecting data on my next target.  Thankfully, the steps for imaging are now reasonably well engrained in the memory banks, so it doesn't take long to get back into the swing of things in the observatory.  Then comes the processing in PixInsight and things start to get a bit more sticky once again.  Over the years, I've diligently typed up my processing work flow and used it as my default list of things to do.  This often presents another problem though.  You see, these clever people who write and develop PixInsight do so at such a rate, that they release update after update, adding loads of cool new tools and functionality.  Not only that, those clever hobbyists at home go on to write their own scripts and tools and bring a huge amount of other new cool tools.  It really can be hard to keep up sometimes.  So much so, that when I dust off my workflow which seemingly worked really well by the end of the previous imaging season, and get ready to use it again, I find things have changed.  Some processes are no longer there, replaced by a similar process but with a different name and a whole different array of settings, which, in the right hands, make image processing results even better than before.  You only have to look at the vast array of YouTube PixInsight tutorials on the wonderful WBPP script from over the last 3 years.  I used to pre-process and integrate my data manually, but this script has now become so useful and good at what it does, you'd be a fool not to adopt it.

And so here I am again.  The start of another imaging season and another learning curve to go through with PixInsight.  This year though has been different.

My first image of this season is of NGC 6992, part of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus.  I found myself re-learning the WBPP script, but actually, not too much had changed since the last time I used it.  In my re-learning, I also came across a video on a YouTube channel that I have been aware of for a couple of years, but never really found much that applied to my processing.  It's the channel of Cuiv, The Lazy Geek.  Usually, I find video tutorials don't really hold my attention for much more than say, 15 to 20 minutes, so when Cuiv dropped a video tutorial of over 3 hours long, I didn't even give it a second thought.  That was until something intrigued me, but I wasn't sure what.  It was a new video and promised to take the viewer through everything from installing PixInsight and all the latest scripts, processes and tools before using the WBPP script to gather, calibrate and stack the data.  But it doesn't stop there...

Before I go on, it's time to drop an image.  Getting back into my imaging mojo, I reverted back to my workflow from last season and truth be told, it produced acceptable (to me anyway) results.  The image contained everything I was expecting, and possibly a bit more, but there's always room for improvement!  This is either the second or third time I have imaged this nebula, but the improvement is significant compared to when I imaged it using the older 183c Hypercam.

Back to Cuiv's tutorial...  As it continued, you find out why it's such a long video, especially considering that it is supposedly for 'Lazy' processing, making things as quick and easy as possible.  Actually, Cuiv goes through several workflows including 3 different workflows for using OSC cameras, and another one or two for processing data obtained with mono cameras.  This is what I wanted!  This is what I needed!  This is what YouTube was invented for! 😂

I threw myself into the first tutorial.  Processing OSC data, straight off the bat.  No filters apart from maybe a LP filter or UHC filter.  As I watched, I typed and annotated, following along with my own set of data.  At this point, I'll point out that I used the exact same set of data that produced the image above.  The only difference is the workflow, and the different array of tools and scripts that is used.  A caveat though, that while acquiring this data, I was using the Altair Quadband filter, but using Cuiv's recommended workflow for data acquired without it.

And time to drop the second image...

Notice how the stars are not so imposing.  How they are still perfectly visible, but not detracting from the target.  The new scripts and processes shown in Cuiv's tutorial work wonders on noise reduction and colour calibration.  In the full sized image, zooming in shows so much more detail.  Clean and crisp too.

The second of the OSC tutorials was aimed at data collected using a multiband filter.  Either a dual, tri or quadband.  And with it, how to produce an HOO palette image by splitting out the data into different wavelengths, processing it all and recombining it.  Again, the stars are present but not intrusive.  The colours are different thanks to the different channels being mapped to different wavelengths, but once again, it's the detail when looking at the full sized image that sets it apart from the first of these three images.

The Hubble palette is probably the one that most people are familiar with.  Made famous by the telescope of the same name, the instantly recognisable image of the Pillars of Creation which many non-astronomers will know, has been processed by using this specific palette of colours.  Cuiv's tutorial goes on to explain yet another workflow where he has gathered data using two narrowband filters in combination with a OSC camera.  One SII and OIII filter and one HA and OIII filter.  Using the same toolset, but slightly different processing, he demonstrates that it is perfectly achievable to produce a high quality image in the style of the famous Hubble palette.  Alas though, that workflow really does need the correct filters, and with the cost of them at the moment... let's just say they're a bit out of my price range.

Never mind though.  The winter of 2024 is nearly upon us.  I have my mojo back.  I have a new set of workflows to play with thanks to Cuiv, and I have learnt a great deal about filters, how they work, how they are tested, and what all those funny little numbers on the side of their box means 😉.

As I type, I'm on my second evening collecting data on my next target.  It's full moon night, but the quadband filter should help me out there and I can't wait to get all the data together, ready for processing my next image.  Until then, clear skies!