Monkey Head Nebula in Hubble Pallette

[wsuriano]

I just finished this one of the Monkey Head Nebula using the Hubble pallette.  This was done with my DSI II Pro and Orion narrowband filters through my Meade 5000 80mm APO.

Bill

[DSOMAN]

Nicely done! Are you using Photoshop? What was the capture program, the exposure time and number of frames?

Brent

[wsuriano]

Brent:

I use Nebulosity for image capture.  It's a lot easier for my brain to handle.  This is 18X5 minute subframes of Ha, SII and OIII - a total of 4.5 hours.  I stack and register in AIP4Win and then import, combine and post process the images in Photoshop CS3.

Thanks.

Bill

[StevenSWissler]

I'm curious how AIP4Win compares with Nebulosity for stacking images. What are it's advantages over Nebulosity?

[wsuriano]

Steve:

It's a little hard to answer your question because I've never really used Nebulosity other than for capturing my data.  I have no incentive to try it for stacking and registration because AIP4Win works great at doing those things.  One thing I like about AIP4Win is that you can set up your calibration (darks, flats, etc.) and then when you go to stack (or align and combine) a group of images you're presented with a single dialog box.  You just check boxes for "Calibrate", and "Square Pixels", select your combination method (and there are a number of methods), select a couple of alignment stars and then let the software align and combine automatically.  You can also do it manually and look at each frame if you want.  In other words, AIP4Win combines anumber of steps - calibration, squaring pixels, aligning and combining - into one pass. Maybe I'll give Nebulosity a try on this same image and see what I think.

Bill

[StevenSWissler]

Bill,
Thanks for the info, If you do give nebuloisty a try, I'd like to hear your impression. I find nebulosity works well and is easy to use, but I'm always looking for better ways to process

Thanks,
Steve

[wsuriano]

Steve:

I understand that Craig Stark, the developer of Nebulosity, is working on a simpler method for processing images that will permit you to do multiple steps from a common dialog box.  That could convince me to use Nebulosity instead of AIP4Win.  If I reprocess stuff with Nebulosity, I'll let you know.

Bill

[wsuriano]

Steve:

I reprocessed using Nebulosity focused not on the resulting image, but the process flow.  I used the latest Beta release of Nebulosity which combines some steps.  Here's what I did:

1.  Batch processed to square the pixels;
2.  Preprocessed using the latest beta.  This allows you to select darks, flats and bias for each group of images and then select the lights telling Nebulosity which calibration files to apply for each group of lights.  If you're familiar with Deep Sky Stacker, you'll get the idea.  This is handy if you've taken lights over multiple nights and are using different calibration files. You don't have to create Masters any longer, they're just created on the fly and applied to the lights. You end up with preprocessed light files.
3.  Aligned and combined the calibrated lights.

While the latest beta of Nebulosity combines the stuff in step 2, AIP4Win combines all 3 steps above and gives me more flexibility in the stacking methods.  On the other hand, AIP4Win will not permit me to apply different darks to different images, bit I seldom do that.  When I processed stacked images I found that I liked PS CS3 better for curves and levels, particularly with some of the actions I have loaded in PS.  I imagine if I used Nebulosity more for processing images, it would grow on me as well.

[StevenSWissler]

Bill,
Thanks for the report, I'll have to look into buying that book and trying the software.

Steve