As I’m imaging with a monochrome camera, I need to image through red, green and blue filters to create a color image.
In a heavily light polluted area, I am limited to when I can effectively use these filters, which is why I often opt for narrowband imaging. However, certain objects, like reflection nebula and galaxies are better when using RGB filters than narrowband.
For the best results, I try to limit the use of RGB filters for nights where
- Moon: The moon is less than 50% full and not in close proximity to the object being imaged
- Transparency: The sky transparency rating must be average or better.
Once I have the images captured, I following this workflow. Overall, these workflows are very similar to each other, but each one does incorporate a few different steps.
The Reference Frames and Pre-Processing steps can either be done manually or with an automated process by leveraging the Weighted Batch Preprocessing Script
Reference Frame Workflow
AUTOMATED PROCESS
Image Pre-Processing Workflow
MANUAL PROCESS
AUTOMATED PROCESS (Continued)