Orion and The Shark - Redo

Image Critiques Nightscape & Astro Critiques
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_DSC6094-Enhanced-NR-SirilSky_SharkFin_NPN.jpg
_DSC6094-Enhanced-NR-SirilSky_SharkFin_NPN.jpg1000Ă—1500 1.71 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

I went back are reprocessed everything. This is at Shark Fin Cove in Davenport, CA. I was focusing on Orion but managed to capture much of the interesting features of the winter night sky. Overall the asterism called the Winter Hexagon is there, consisting of (starting in Orion and moving counter clockwise) Rigel (in Orion), Sirius (in Canis Major the brightest star in the night sky), Procyon (in Canis Minor), Pollux/Castor (in Gemini), Capella (in Auriga), and Aldebaran (in Taurus). Of course also all the stars Orion, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Saiph, Rigel, then Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka in Orion’s Belt. The Great Orion Nebula just below Alnitak along with the stars that surround it. Also there is Jupiter the largest of the elements in this frame, just above Aldebaran (the smaller reddish star) and Mars, the reddish-yellow “star” next to Pollux and Castor. Then there is The Pleiades to the right of Jupiter dressed in their baby-blue dust clouds.

At first I thought that was everything in the frame. But after carefully processing the RAW files in Siril, I discovered a whole bunch of wonderful easter-eggs just hiding in the data. First in the ULC there is the Beehive Cluster in the constellation Cancer. Then just to the left of the reddish-orange Betelgeuse, there is the Rosette Nebula in the Orion Arm of the Milkyway. Then above Jupiter and between the stars Elnath on the left and Hassaleh on the right in the constellation Auriga, there is the Framing Star Nebula, and finally (at least from what I can identify) is the California Nebula above Pleiades. I am sure there is so much more captured that I don’t know the name of, like the red nebulosity that seems to circle the left side of the Orion between Betelgeuse and Saiph. Anyone know what that is called?

Its just crazy how much of the night sky comes out in a photograph that our eyes normally cannot see.

Specific Feedback

This is a complete rework from the quick version I last posted. I did not like the sunset twilight in the previous post, so I used a different exposure for the Shark Fin that I made at the end of that night’s session instead of at the beginning.

Given that besides the stars in the night sky, does the image appear somewhat natural? I know astro images rarely look as we present them in real life, but I really was trying to keep things as realistic as possible.

Technical Details

Nikon D850, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8

Shark Fin Foreground: at f11, 120 seconds, ISO 100 - lighting came from what I assume is a light further up towards Hwy 1 from a building across the highway.
Sky: 30 images in total, at f5.6 30 seconds, ISO 3200, the camera was on an iOptron SkyGuider Pro star tracker. 10 images were Dark Frames at those same settings. All the sky images were stacked and processed in Siril. Once stacked StarNet++ was used to separate the stars from the nebulosity and each was separately stretched and then recombined in Siril.

Both the foreground and then the sky images were brought together in PS for final editing.

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3 Likes
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This is wonderful!!! I love the filamentary structural detail you got. You have some good red sensitivity for a regular camera. The area you are referring to left of Orion is Barnard’s Loop. I think the blending of the sky and the landscape is wonderful, and so is the landscape!

I need to try more wide angle work. I can (with some work) mount wide angle lenses on the tracker, either with my R5 or the astro camera. But with the latter, getting the lenses focused is a major PIA. The R5 is much easier. But I have yet to get any detail like you have here.

Can you reveal the secret of your sky processing? I’ve really only tried wide-angle shots with the MW Core.

3

Thanks Diane. I brought in all 30 exposures as Lights and 10 Darks and had Siril stack and register them. I did a background extraction on the stacked image. I removed the green noise. I tried to do a photometric color calibration but Siril just could not figure out the plate solve. So I just went with the colors I had. I then used StarNett++ and separated the stars from the image. I stretched each separately and then recombined them al in Siril. The foreground was a terrible mess as I tracked the sky for the 30 individual frames so that bothered me, but I knew I was going to use a separate frame for the foreground. I carefully blended the two frames. The 2 minute foreground exposure had streaked stars but gave a good rendition of how the sky appeared at the horizon so that is where all the blending really was crucial. I spent a lot of time cloning out star trails in that transition zone near the horizon. I did some additional editing in PS to bring out the structure and colors. I was very surprised at how much detail the camera captured.

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Thanks! That is basically the equivalent of how I have been doing Milky Ways. I can’t find a way to plate solve either, but I’ve heard it can be done. But I don’t think the resulting color correction (from the next color calibration step) is that important for this kind of work, where there are probably clouds, light pollution, air pollution, moonlight and whatever, and they may actually be nice features.

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Thank you for the Editor’s pick.