On Thursday, June 25th 2020, Helena from
Helena's Astrophotography started
photographing a nebula in the
constellation cygnus with her Canon DSLR
from Scotland later that same night the
earth rotated and when it got dark on
the eastern coast of the United States I
picked up where Helena left off shooting
the exact same patch of sky but I shot
each alpha with my z wo mono camera in
this video you'll see how we planned
executed and process an H a RGB image of
the Cygnus wall nebula from two sides of
the Atlantic Ocean
hi this is Nico from nebula photos.com
if you're new to my channel please
consider subscribing and checking out
some of my other videos for all kinds of
tips to get started with deep sky Astro
photography today I have a video that
I'm very excited about as it's my first
collaboration on this channel with
another youtuber Helena from Helena
astrophotography is an excellent
up-and-coming astrophotographer from
Scotland who reached out to me a couple
months ago and we've been chatting and
planning this collaboration ever since
the basic idea was we're gonna frame up
the same deep sky object they would be
good for both of our locations and then
hopefully shoot it on the same night if
the weather is ever cooperative if
you're not already subscribed to helena
Zestra photography go ahead and pause
this video right now go over to her
channel the link is in the description
and go subscribe to her and check out
her half of this video collaboration -
ok I'm gonna cut now to our first
conversation where we went over planning
the capture of this image hi Miko hi
Helena so this is Nico from nebula
photos Helena reached out to me to start
this cool collaboration we're gonna do
in June and I'll let Helena describe it
a little bit so basically what Nico and
I are gonna do is we're gonna create an
H a RGB image of the Cygnus wool and and
the North American nebula so Nick who's
gonna be shooting an 8 J am i right in
saying that with your dedicated
astronomy camera through your 5
nanometer filter and I am gonna be
shooting it with my stop Canon 60d DSLR
and I'm gonna be capturing RGB and then
we're gonna be going through the editing
process as well yeah I think it'll look
really cool
the great advantage to RGB imaging of
course is that you get all the star
color so in this well there's like a
really nice blue star and a yellow star
and it really adds something that the
drawbacks did I find a narrowband
imaging is you never really get that
accurate star colors and so
Jay else who's gonna make the regular
RGB pulp a little bit so it's gonna make
the image more vibrant if you like I
think yeah and also more detailed
because one thing is when your it will
look more detailed at least because one
thing with the AJ is cuz it's only that
five nanometer pass you get a lot more
contrast so it really makes the feature
sort of pop yeah it's gonna be
interesting because I've actually only
seen images with 12 nanometer and six
nanometers so five nanometers gonna be
really cool I think yeah but my
disadvantage here is I'm really just
just outside of Boston so another thing
that's cool about this collaboration is
helena is in a place with really low
light pollution and i'm in a place with
like the worst light pollution
imaginable so it'll be fun to like see
our results that way to what bork till
scaler unique portal 9 so the worst
possible okay so i'm portal 4 so my my
dark site is still portal 5 portal six
ish 45 minutes away I think my dark
sites about portal 1 or 2 15 minute
drive it it's pretty awesome cool so one
thing that we've been talking about it's
just sort of like the logistics of this
and one of the first things that we were
trying to figure out was when would be a
good time to shoot it because we started
talking about this and like early May
for both of our locations it looked like
the first like sort of opportunity might
be the new moon period in June so I'm
gonna share my screen here I think we
said it was around the 15th to the 25th
of June
yep that's right yeah so this is a
program I our website that I use it is
free they it's like donation supported
called telescope is calm and you can
like plug in your location so my
location here is Somerville and then you
tell it what object you want to shoot
and the thing that I really like over
here oh and then I also sort of change
the date here to like about
we're gonna shoot it and the thing I
like over on the right-hand side is at
different times you can see how high the
object is so for most places if your
object is getting up to like 55 or 60
degrees that's going to pass the
treeline in most places even if you're
sort of surrounded by trees once you're
getting up to like 60 70 degrees it's
going to be high enough that you can do
it all so it's really nice for the
object to be high in the sky because
that's also usually the darkest part of
the sky so Cygnus is just a really cool
area throughout the summer there's a lot
of nebulae in there and then I did the
same thing for Helenus location here and
you can see it's also getting high there
she's so far north that it you can see
that this like on mine it's saying like
it gets truly dark in the middle of the
night and I heard it never gets like
true dark but you can see a little bit
more about that yeah so from where I am
so you use Taylor Scorpius to find like
the height of the object and where it
would be in response to the objects
around you I use deliriums I'm more
familiar with and that piece of software
so I use delirium and basically what I
did was I fast forward I press fast
forward on the time for my location and
basically so I went to around the middle
of the 15th through 25th so maybe around
the 20th I can't exactly remember but
roughly around then to find where all
the objects and the night sky would be
because obviously now we're are we the
17th of May Cygnus isn't gonna be within
reach from where I am it's not gonna be
high enough so I needed to see where
that was gonna be in response to where I
am later on next month so I typed it
into solarium got that and then I used
an app that I use called Sky View and
basically I tracked the object and Sky
View on my phone so it's Justin
I think it's available on Android and
Apple I have an iPhone and I tracked the
object up so straight ahead I think I
East End my garden and I tracked it up
and and then I could see like where it
was in response because I have actually
quite a lot of foliage and my garden
which is quite disappointing really
because I can't get the most of like
portal for that I have and but I tracked
it all the way up on my iPhone and find
where it would be around the 20th of
June in the new moon phase and from that
I could get it which was pretty cool
cool and so dude did you get a sense of
like what time in the night you would
you probably shoot it around then yes or
run Juden really as you said before that
I never get complete darkness so right
now it's dark around say half nine ten
and I'm pulling aligning by like quarter
past half past ten so in June it's gonna
be getting dark around not not them like
a lot not like different to know a lot
different to that and it's gonna be
getting dark see around half ten eleven
and fully and then I will start my
imaging session I'll do my polar
alignment around quarter to eleven
eleven and then I'm hoping the imaging
space I'll get is around between half
eleven and maybe half one half two and
then obviously by half to three it's
starting to get quite light and those
long exposures are going to be a real
issue
and it's gonna like flood out the image
with light so that's the plan so far
what about unique and what's your like
imaging time I'm thinking probably like
I could start at ten but our plan is
that like what right as you're finishing
your imaging session since you're five
hours ahead of me that you can like send
me a file so right now we're talking and
it's like noon here and five o'clock
your time right yeah yeah so I think it
will be cool that like if we if the
weather works out fingers crossed we
could like be imaging on the same night
and helen is gonna start and then she's
gonna send me one of her RAW files so I
complete solve to it and for people that
don't know what plate solving is it just
means like you tell your computer
exactly the star patterns you want to
see in
image and then it takes a series of
pictures until your mouth is perfectly
aligned to your reference image yep and
then I'll send over the raw files to
Nico as we said and he'll be played
solving and will be on sickness world
okay and then on to the editing so this
is going to be cool big collaboration
hopefully everyone's gonna really like
it on both of our channels awesome I'm
so excited for this Nico all right nice
to talk to you Helena nice talk to you
too bye
so the night has finally arrived Helena
let me know over Instagram messages that
she has a clear window right now and has
started shooting she also sent me one of
her raw frames two plates off - and in a
stroke of luck it's predicted to be
clear here in Massachusetts - so let's
take a quick look at what I'll be using
to shoot that h-alpha frames tonight for
the Mount
I used the Sky Watcher eq6 are pro it's
a very good scent amount that can be
controlled with EQ ascom for a telescope
I use a stellar view svq 86 which is a
quad design meaning that it has no
particular back focused requirement and
is well corrected for auto guiding I use
a generic 60 millimeter guide scope with
asi 290 mini guide camera and four
filters I used Astrid on filters tonight
I'll be using a five nanometer HL
fulfill tur and for my imaging camera I
also use as ewo in this case the ASI
1600 mm cool which is Micro Four Thirds
sensor and it is a mono camera let's
take a brief look at the software that I
use this is really just going to be a
quick tour I'm not going to go into
detail in this video but I will in
future videos for planetarium I use
carte du ciel which is a free program I
use the EQ mod sweet especially EQ ascom
to control my skywatcher EQ 6r and I
forgotten I just used the popular pH D 2
for image capture I use sequence
generator Pro and in this case I already
loaded up Helen --es picture so using
the framing and mosaic wizard and you
can see it right there and so it's the
sequence is all ready to go I can just
choose connect all equipment it connects
to everything on my imaging rig the only
thing that else that I'm going to do
here is just make sure that the gain and
everything is set correctly after that I
jump over to the qhy pull master
software and do my polar alignment while
I'm doing the polar alignment I have my
camera cooling down to negative 15
Celsius I then jump back to sequence
generator Pro I slew and Center them out
so that we're on the right patch of sky
I then run the out auto focusing routine
which uses my op tech focuser
automatically to create what's called a
V curve to find the point of best focus
for the H alpha filter with the focusing
and alignment all done I can start the
sequence and it will start auto guiding
and and everything else for me okay we
can take a look at my first frame here
we a sequence generator Pro has an auto
stress
feature so we can see what it looks like
and I'm now going to go ahead and take
as many h-alpha frames as I can we're
getting a little bit of a late start
here because of early cloud so I'm
hoping to get about two hours of data
tonight I'm good
so we've both been able to shoot the
Cygnus while on the same night which is
amazing because we both have in place
his worth plenty of cloudy nights so
it's pretty cool that we got a clear
night to shoot it together yeah it was
mid summer for both of us and cuz of
m-my location where I am the camera
sensor was cooking it was about 28 to 30
degrees and I think I got over that
issue in post-processing and that's
that's the one nice thing about moving
to an astro camera is the cooling cuz
like in this especially the summer like
I can go here in the Northeast United
States negative 15 Celsius all year
round including the summer so yeah and
also the benefit of that is you can do
your calibration frames first am i right
in saying that you can do them any time
because my darks have to be my
calibration frames have to be the same
temperatures my lights but you have
control over that so you can just do
them whenever it's convenient but I kind
of have to do it on the night which also
slows down imaging time as well which is
really frustrating so cold seems the way
to go when you're in midsummer really
yeah so the only downside I guess for
people that might be watching it or new
to this is the cooled Astro cameras with
the filters and everything that I
showing in this video in my version of
the video is like a lot more expensive
and complicated so when you're first get
started I wouldn't really recommend it
but yeah there's something nice about
the simplicity of a DSLR even though
you're kind of a shock to the amount of
noise that can produce but in winter
you've got to remember that it's
in winter when it's like zero outside so
it's but we're gonna do the best of both
worlds we're gonna do the simplicity of
the DSLR and the good natural color with
the H a for my camera and we're gonna
combine them now so how much total
integration did you get so I got just
under an hour
I think after stocking and removing
satellites and before the clouds came in
I got about 57 58 minutes so just short
of an hour which was really good and I
know it's raining for the foreseeable
future so I'm really happy I went out
when I did
and as you said it was really nice that
we got out on the same night as well
yeah definitely and I got about two
hours I won the only weird thing that
happened when I was shooting was I have
like a filter wheel and when I tried to
rotate it to be the same orientation as
your shot the number wheel like snapped
like smashed into the guide camera where
my guide camera was located so what I
ended up doing was just like unscrewing
my Astro camera a little bit to get the
right rotation but notice like late in
the night
it just kept like with gravity you just
kept rotating a little bit oh you'll see
in my pictures like it's like some of
the frames are all matched up and then
some are like I did I did see that when
you say I was wondering so let's jump
into Photoshop why don't you share your
screen so just do that No so this was M
Cygnus at fifty seven fifty minutes am I
was pretty happy
considering the clothes rule then and
and I was quite it was quite nice
because I got some natural star color as
well and if you've seen any of my
previous images my stars are stark white
so it was really nice to get that in
this image and my camera sensor was
about twenty eight to thirty degrees so
it was cooking and last week so this is
what I could do now sir
I'm pretty happy with it yeah look it
looks like your your guiding and
tracking we're like spot on because you
have really nice round stars here yeah I
was doing two minute songs because I
knew the clouds were gonna rule in so I
started off with two minutes planning to
go to three actually to start over but
um clouds didn't and make that happen
maybe the two minute subs is is what
allowed the star color to be really nice
because it is pretty easy to overexpose
like stars especially it's a balance
because you want to try to get like you
know more nebulosity or more structures
so yeah and actually this was my first
first like extended target cuz I've just
done galaxies and a few landscape things
that was pretty cool for me to get like
an extended target for the first time
yeah I mean this the the nebulosity in
this frame really fills the screen and
with a DSLR it can be challenging to
tell the difference between the dim
nebula and the noise you know cuz it
100% I had problems with not you yeah
definitely cool okay so let's go ahead
and add in and combine our two pictures
so you go to think file menu and we lose
place embedded and then know pick your
starless image which nico has sent me
previously and we've pre aligned these
which should be okay when i just take it
and if you just turn the little
visibility off and on they should look
lined up yeah perfect the the wall seems
to be tilted just right I think good
alright so then the next thing is go
ahead and right-click on that starless
layer and choose rasterize layer'
is quite interesting for me because I've
never done something like this before
yeah it's it's it's not too bad in
Photoshop I photoshopped probably my
favorite place to do this kind of
combination yeah yeah so then go ahead
and drop the starless layer below your
RGB layer there we go
and for now you can go ahead and turn
off the visibility of the your DSLR
later and then we're going to add a
saturation adjustment layer so go two
little things up there and then do the
hue / saturation and click on the button
for colorize here oh sorry no just go
ahead and sit okay yeah and then there's
like a colorize with a check box in the
prop yep click that kilt
and then drag the hue all the way over
to the left to turn it red there we go
and the saturation is sort of a personal
thing but let's keep it not yet
saturated yet let's maybe do like 30 or
something like that yep
yeah it really comes down to personal
taste when you're doing something like
this when it comes down to coloring but
I do it like over saturate you Dahlia
Berenson
and then let's drop down the lightness
just a little bit yeah but it doesn't
get too blown out so maybe drop it down
to like negative 10 go ahead and turn
the DSLR layer back on sure and click on
you
and with that layer selected where it
says normal yeah
let's change that to screen there we go
okay so that's our first combination and
with the screen blending mode only it
makes it really makes a really bright
image and so what I usually like to do
next is duplicate that DSLR later yep
there is and that's gonna make it even
brighter at first but then yeah the
blend mode of that duplicated layer to
soft light well we're really starting to
see something now yeah it's pretty cool
lot and now go ahead and turn the
opacity of both those layers down a bit
this is again sort of to taste but I'm
gonna turn them both down to about 50 60
percent yep cool that's looking good all
right and so as like a just a basic edit
I think or a basic combination this is
really all you have to do to combine the
SLR and H a is just like what we did was
we colorized the H a to red and then we
added the RGB on top and blended it in
with these photo shops layer blending
votes but it's a little bit bright still
I think so
now we could add a curves layer on top
yeah because you fearful when you're
editing not to blow out the bright
points you can't get carried away with
wanting to see all that nebula but then
you've really got to consider stars as
well exactly yep and so with this we can
just sort of do it again to taste but
I'm gonna maybe reset my black point a
little bit just by sort of dragging in
that that little point all the way over
to the left down at the bottom
bottom corner oh yeah yeah yeah just
bring that a little bit to the right
yeah yeah I think not springing out
that's more contrast yep also hide it a
little any sort of background noise
that's left - yeah yeah and then you can
also with this curves you know try a
little bit to boost the contrast even
more with like a little shallow s-curve
or something so yeah yeah yeah just put
a team points in and just sort of move
them again when you're doing this you
want to really be careful and
concentrate on those stars
that's looking not too bad cool alright
so um now before we crop another this is
sort of a slightly more advanced
technique but we can just talk about it
a little bit I sent you over two images
and the other one still has the stars in
it because one thing that happens when
you remove the stars from an image as it
softens the detail a little bit so again
with that detail back we can do
something called a luminance layer yeah
so go ahead and go back to the file menu
yep and choose that place embedded again
cool and then when stars this time then
with stars kill and that should be
positioned correctly yes and you can hit
enter yeah and go ahead and right click
and rasterize that one too oh and then
we're gonna blend this in with something
called the luminosity blend mode so if
we go back for it says normal
luminosity it's at the very bottom of
that menu oh there we go now the one
downside to doing this is you can see
all those little small stars that you
captured are sort of disappearing and so
I don't like to blend in luminosity at
full 100% I usually bring this in
something like 20% or 30% something like
I get the most best get the best of both
worlds for me exactly yeah and so it
just adds this little boost where it
like it really makes the details in the
nebula pop a little bit but yeah we'll
get all those smaller stars which makes
it feel real yeah and the color and the
bigger stars is actually coming out much
nicer with that opacity down yep and
after this it's really just well
cropping of course cuz we have all this
stuff along the edges that's it's
an artifact but then then after cropping
just like final touches you know like
yep boosting saturation or sharpening
things are there that kind of stuff so
yeah so make sure and you guys check out
both videos because Niko and I are both
gonna be putting our own spin on the
photo even though it's the same photo
and it is gonna look very very similar
II don't want them to be identical and
we want to put our own processing skills
onto it so make sure you see both
versions and on our YouTube and they
will probably both be on Instagram am i
right yes yes yes I'm on Instagram so
make sure to check them there as well
because YouTube has some funky
compression rates and if you want to see
the full thing definitely check out our
instagrams and I just want to thank you
hell enough for suggesting this
collaboration it was really cool and I'm
so glad it worked out yeah my pleasure
I'm really I've learned so much from
doing yeah what is what is this like a
month later month and a half since
suggesting it I'm really really I'm
happy to work with you on this and
hopefully this is one of many more okay
I'm picking up where Helena and I left
off I'm just gonna do a few more little
tweaks to this image but I'm pretty much
happy with how it's looking so the first
thing I'm going to do is I'm gonna crop
to crop I'm just gonna choose my crop
tool here and drag in a little bit from
the sides and then move my mouse
slightly outside of the crop box to
rotate the image like this and at this
point I'm just trying to get as much of
the image that's usable inside this crop
box so I'm not paying too much attention
to composition quite yet I'm just really
just trying to get as much of the usable
image as possible and then we can crop
again later if we do want to change the
composition okay that looks good I'll
accept the crop by hitting Enter
and usually after I crop I like to zoom
in and look at the edges to make sure
that the edges still a good that there's
no registration artifacts or anything
left in the image they do look good so
I'm gonna say that's successful okay the
next thing that I want to do with this
is just try to make the the Cygnus wall
pop out a little bit more and I'm gonna
do that through a local contrast
adjustment that's called high-pass
filtering and the way that it works is
it basically well you'll just through
the one more thing the one other thing
that I want to do here is is make this
Cygnus wall part of the image pop out a
little bit more make it like a little
bit sharper through something called
high-pass filtering which is basically a
local contrast adjustment and I'm gonna
apply this to the starless layer down
here and I'm gonna apply it twice with
different blend modes just like we did
the RGB stars so I'm going to press
command J or ctrl G on Windows twice to
duplicate that layer twice and on this
I'll turn all of these off here for a
second on this first starless copy I'm
gonna go ahead and go up here to the
filter menu go down to other and choose
high-pass so this has been in Photoshop
forever it should be in every version of
Photoshop and you see something like
this like it looks like an inverted
image and the key here is when you move
this pixel radius around you'll see the
part of the image that it's applying
this extra bit of contrast to and so if
I move it really far over here to the
right you can see that a lot of the
image is affected bigger structures if I
move it way over here to the left then
only the smallest structures are going
to be adjusted so I'm going to
try to go somewhere here in the middle
and I will point out that you can you
can apply this more than once to target
different structures for this image I'm
only going to apply it really this this
one pixel level but if you wanted to you
could you could do multiple passes of
high pass with different pixel radius
okay that looks good I'm gonna go ahead
and hit okay
I mean apply the same thing to the other
copy and just like we did the RGB layers
up here I'm going to apply screen to one
of these and soft light to the other
okay and then I'm going to turn down the
opacity of both let me turn down the
opacity to something like thirty five
thirty percent something like that and
then I'm also going to add a curves
adjustment layer and just reset the
black point
okay then I'll group all three of these
the curves adjustment layer and the two
high-pass filter layers just by hitting
command G on Mac or ctrl G on Windows
and call that my high-pass group okay
and if I turn the high-pass group off
and on you can see what it did to the
starless layer it really added a lot of
local contrast to the image by making a
lot of these dark nebulae darker and the
bright parts of the image a little bit
brighter it's a little bit different
what it's doing than just applying a
curve right it's doing something a
little bit different and you have to be
careful with this I actually think that
what I just did might be a little bit
too aggressive so I'm gonna turn the
opacity of the entire group down to
about 70 percent that I like better okay
I'm going to turn everything back on
and I think that looks pretty good we
might want to add another curves up here
just to reset the blacks a little bit
and make it sort of the right amount of
contrast okay the only other thing that
I might do with this image is just a
little bit more with color there are a
number of different adjustment layers
where you can affect the color I'm going
to just start with just seeing if I add
a little bit of saturation I like that
better and usually what I do is I look
away from my monitor I look back at it I
turn this off and on and see if I like
the change in this case I like the
change but it also had the effect of
making just basically the whole image
redder so I didn't like that as much so
one thing I might do here has just
changed the color balance a little bit
now and just take the whole image in the
cyan red slider towards the cyan if I
turn that off and on I really like what
that did so basically what was happening
was even the blacks were to read before
and by just adding a bit of cyan to the
mid-tones and I may and I do the same to
the shadows actually it improves the
image quite a bit by just before it felt
like there was just basically this
blanket of red on it which is common
when you're doing H a RGB imaging just
to have this feeling like oh it's so red
and by by adding that color balance as a
final step I think it really improved it
quite a bit
another last step kind of thing you
might do is noise reduction but when I
look at this image at 100% I don't think
it needs it so I'm not going to do any
noise reduction and that's usually the
case with me I would much rather just
capture more frames then actually apply
noise reduction in post because I just
don't like how it looks but it's a
personal taste thing okay so that's it
now all that's left is just any final
crops that we want to do so if I was
sharing this to Instagram I might not
want it this wide because wide pictures
don't have as much impact on Instagram
when you're when you're looking at the
vertical feed so I might choose one of
these cropping modes like I might choose
a square or something like that if I
wanted to present it on a monitor then I
might choose something very different
like I might want the sixteen by nine
mode so that it it really fills the
screen and what I try to do when I do a
final crop is I just try to make sure
that there's that the eye is led in a
natural way and that there's there's
something interesting to look at in each
corner but then that the corner should
sort of lead you to more interesting
things in the middle as much as possible
so it's a balance sometimes you can't
get it quite right with an astro image
but for this image sixteen by nine I
might do something I'm gonna give the
nebula a little bit more Headroom here
let me do something like that basically
just a little crop to do the sixteen by
nine and I can save that off I usually
use the save for web command I'll leave
it at full quality let's just make it a
full quality JPEG and save
and let me go ahead and undo that crop
and I'll do one for Instagram now maybe
I often start at square but then if I if
I can't find a composition that I like
with it square like this then I'll turn
it back on do unconstrained and just
find the composition that I that I
really like so for this image I think I
like something like that you have this
really interesting point of the cygnus
wall along along that third line close
to this this focus point and then you
have the dark cloud also at a good point
if you're looking at the rule of thirds
here okay except that and now is just a
tinkerer maybe I just want to add a
little bit more saturation and a little
bit extra contrast here
oh yeah that's actually something I
should mention is when thinking about
the different platforms that you might
deliver the image to I find that
sometimes something looks good on
Instagram but doesn't look good if you
really blow it up on a monitor and and
and sometimes Instagram it helps to add
a little bit more contrast and then you
would normally but then sometimes I go
too far and when I look at it on the
phone it looks much brighter than it
does on my monitor and then I feel that
I've gone too far and I have to start
start over with those contrast
adjustments so it's really a dance but I
like that for Instagram so let's go
ahead and save it okay and that's gonna
be it for this video let me just bring
up our final result here make it
fullscreen so I think this looks really
good you can see a little bit of blue in
some of these bright stars you can
definitely see the nice yellowish orange
stars I'm so we got a good start color
and
it looks well-balanced to me a good
natural color I think so
that's an Ha RGB combination thanks so
much again to Helena from Helen has
astrophotography for suggesting the
whole concept here and if you haven't
subscribed to her go subscribe to her
Channel till next time this was Nico
Carver from nebulaphotos.com. Clear
skies!
