So I’ve been working on an SHO of the Flaming Star for the past few weeks. I managed a relatively nice HOO blend, but I can’t seem to get the Oiii to pop out well in the SHO version. I used a failry straight forward LRGB blend with that, Ha as Lum, Ha to R, .25Ha+.75Oiii to G, and Oiii to G. ( Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405), Sh 2-230 and Mel 31 - astrophotography by me__ )
Does anyone have suggestions for how to combine the data in Pixinsight or Photoshop (I use CS6) to come up with a balanced blend that’s not just a brown blob?
The Oiii intensity is often a lot lower than the Ha in particular. What I often do is to combine the channels only after a degree of stretching, where I bring up the Oiii more strongly than the Ha in order to get a better separation of colours. If you do this it’s best if you remove the stars first (wth Starnet in PI) and then bring them back in only at the very end.
Edit: I spent a few minutes giving your approach a spin. It did help quite a lot. I just need to balance things a little more carefully, but I think this put me on the right track.
