15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
7th December 2023: added payment option Alipay to purchase Astro Pixel Processor from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other countries where Alipay is used.
Against all odds, I tried my chances and did shoot some nights of M4 (and some other highlights around Antares).
Equipment: Lumix GX9, Olympus 300mm IS PRO, EQ5.
Well, I had to shoot this from my balcony (instead of my garden), as this target was standing just above the horizon. I am situated about 60km north of frankfurt, so this one comes with a really nasty gradient up from "botton" to "top".
To tackle this I collected about 9hrs over 5 sessions. I ended up with 200x 60s (iso1600) and 171x 120s (iso 800). Well, about half of that would have been enough, because removing that gradient didn't leave me with much signal. on top of that, the field of view didnt give me really any spot for a "true background" so light pollution removal was a hell of a task...
I really like how APP handles integrating several sessions, and i did bayer drizzle this one.
In "post" processing I tried to be as minimalistic as possible. Used APP for everything up to color calibration / hsl (but colors got a bit screwed afterwards), starnet++ for star removal. Rawtherapee for noise reduction and sharpening (other tools tend to give a even more "polished" look, somewhat too artifical). (Re-)composition in gimp and publishing in rawtherapee (again).
