Jordan Maples

I changed the SHO a little bit, toning down the deep blue and bringing out some more contrast in places. I think this is a slightly better representation of it, however I still think I like the HOO version more.

A HOO image of a nebula called Thor's Helmet or Duck Nebula. The nebula resembles a classic depiction of Thor's helmet with wing-like structures coming up from the sides of the main body. The nebula primarily consists of a blue-teal body with red fringing.

An SHO image of a nebula called Thor's Helmet or Duck Nebula. The nebula resembles a classic depiction of Thor's helmet with wing-like structures coming up from the sides of the main body. The nebula primarily consists of a rich blue body with golden fringing.

I spent a couple more nights gathering light on Thor's Helmet. There are some bits that I'll want to change later and when I do, I'll update the thread with new versions.

Let me know which version you like more: the lighter blue HOO or the darker blue SHO.

#astrophotography #photography

The horse head and flame nebulae are shown on the right and left sides of the image respectively. The horsehead appears as a dark, profile view of a horses head in a deep red field of dust. Between the flame and the horsehead is a very bright star named Alnitak. Alnitak is a massive pain to work around due to just how bright it is. The flame nebula has lots of dark structures running through its core, giving it the appearance of fire.

With all the downtime I had this winter, I was starting to think I’d fully miss out on the Orion targets. Either way, after 2 months of hardware problems here’s the Horsehead!
I’ve always wanted to shoot this one but just never had a good opportunity in the pnw.

#astrophotography #photography

An screen of the Thor's Helmet or Duck Nebula, taken from within PixInsight. The nebula resembles a helmet with wing-like appendages extending upward from both sides. The nebula primarily consists of a teal body with red fringing on the edges.

An screen of the Thor's Helmet or Duck Nebula, taken from within PixInsight. The nebula resembles a helmet with wing-like appendages extending upward from both sides. The nebula primarily consists of a dark blue body with gold fringing on the edges.

Well after two months of downtime, I finally am getting some solid data again. Here's a sneak peak of one of the targets I'm currently working on.

I need to get some more HA and Sii as most of the frames were damaged from the oil leak on the sensor.

#astrophotography #photography

Discord can go fuck itself.

Happy Superb Owl day to all who celebrate.

Fingers crossed. I'd hate to have to go through all of this just to need to buy a new camera.

That said if I were to rebuy my camera and EFW today, I'd probably go with the PlayerOne Poseidon-M or the QHY268M

When it was in for cleaning, they updated the firmware and I think it must have been incompatible with my hardware. I heard the 2025 refresh of the 6200 (and maybe 2600) had some firmware issues as well that they were working on fixing. I know a handful of people at Starfront were fighting that.

They're not usually unreliable. There was a manufacturing problem in 2600 models made before 2022 with the thermal pads that could cause grease to drip down the sensor, which was my first problem.

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First time around it was the oil leak problem. After it got back, the images wouldn’t get pulled off of the camera and whatever firmware the ZWO techs updated it to made it inoperable. They replaced the main board and sensor board in the camera this time around so it’s effectively a new camera.

Well my ASI2600mm is on its way back to Starfront from ZWO for the second time this winter. Hopefully it works this time around and I have enough clear nights to finish up some of the winter nebulae targets I started back in November.

If it’s not just hair stuck on the driver or something like that, their RMA process is really painless.

WinRAR is more profitable than OpenAI

Yeah I tried an unconventional approach to v2. I took the masters to non-linear using the MultiscaleAdaptiveStretch tool targeting the same background level before combining them together. The stars definitely suffered because of it. I might go back and try to fix the stars and the overall balance.

Nebula with a red/orange wall of dust that goes from the bottom left of the frame to the top right of the frame. The red wall turns yellow and green as it goes vertically up the image. The orange comes back in fluffy dust clouds slightly higher but beyond them is a subtle deep blue.

I came back and reprocessed it again. The results are pretty close to last time but there are some subtle differences throughout. I spent more time bringing out the blues that reach up from the main body and I spent less on suppressing the green. Which do you prefer?

#astrophotography #photography

And here's the original: bsky.app/profile/mapl...

A dark, reflection nebula complex. There are dark arms of the nebula reaching across the image with varying gradients of dark reddish brown to a brighter grey-brown. There are a few larger stars peppered throughout the image. The center area is a stellar nursery filled so there are bright sections peeking out from behind the dust.

Since I'm spending my NYE reprocessing data from earlier this year, here's another one that I felt like playing with. NGC 1333 is such a cool target, I really like the complex dust clouds. I'll link to my original below. Let me know which one you like more.
#astrophotography #photography

I re-re-edited the shot. I think this is probably where I'm going to finish with this dataset. bsky.app/profile/mapl...

A nebula featuring a blue squid-like structure in the center, which is surrounded by a red semicircular gas cloud. The surrounding gas is faint in the center and brightens towards the outer edge.

I wanted to try out that MultiscaleAdaptiveStretch tool in PixInsight and since I was already redoing my Flying Bat and Squid nebula shot and figured I'd give it a go on that data. Honestly, this version just butters my biscuit. #astrophotography #photography

oof, that's rough

We're back online! Time to hurry up and shoot some of those winter targets.

I redid it using the Foraxx palette instead of HOO. It's softer and not as in your face as the previous version but I'm still pretty happy with it.
I'll probably poke and prod it a bit further here and there.

bsky.app/profile/mapl...

Also I wanted to try experimenting with adding a border. Let me know if it's a good addition or if I should nuke it.

A nebula featuring a blue squid-like structure in the center, which is surrounded by a red semicircular gas cloud. The surrounding gas is faint in the center and brightens towards the outer edge.

I've been wanting to revisit this for a while. I still haven't landed on an SHO version that I like but I did enjoy processing this Foraxx version.

#astrophotography #photography #space

There are definitely a couple things here that I'm going to change on the approach when I reprocess it today.
I'll be sure to post back here with the finished version of the reprocess.

Here's mine. bsky.app/profile/mapl...

I captured 42 hours of data, putting 14 hours into S, H, and O but I never actually ended up processing an SHO version of it.

It's such a fun and interesting target. I was actually just going through my shots for this year and was thinking that I should take another pass at the data.