Squid Nebula - Processing Tutorial

The Squid Nebula is one of the hardest targets to capture and process! You'll want to capture at least 30 hours of data for a clean image, if not substantially more. Assuming you have good data, the next challenge is to enhance the dim Squid Nebula. Since the surrounding area is filled with bright H-Alpha nebulosity, the faint OIII Squid is hard to see. You'll need to use a variety of tricks in both Photoshop and PixInsight to fully reveal the Squid Nebula.
I want to thank Shamon for sending in this data!
00:00 - Intro
00:30 - Capturing the Squid
01:41 - Inspecting the Photos
02:53 - Star Alignment
05:16 - Crop Edges
06:11 - Image Solver
07:08 - BlurXterminator
07:45 - SPCC
09:05 - Fix Gradients / Vignette
11:12 - DBE Technique
17:06 - Save PixInsight Project
17:46 - Prepare for Photoshop
19:40 - Basic Adjustments
21:07 - Red, Green, Blue
21:50 - Color Masking with InstaMask
23:36 - Refine Layer Mask
25:30 - Enhance Squid Nebula
29:41 - Camera RAW Filter
31:50 - Save Flat TIFF
32:32 - Blend Nebula with Stars
34:18 - Final Image Comparisons

[@Novixion]

Thanks so much for the tutorial Peter! I was also about to tackle this target soon and the dimness of the Squid itself makes it so much more difficult. This tutorial gave me a bunch of ideas to try out on my own processing of it soon!

[@AstroIsland]

Very good and helpful tutorial. Any reason you didn’t go with some of the new and automated tools? Those would have saved you some time in your steps.

[@michaellorentzen1672]

I’m still watching the video, so sorry if it’s noted already, but is there a stacked image of Shampns data so we can follow along?

[@stevemeier7876]

use a clipping mask....saves coping up the mask each time...great video Peter