Grim Reaper

Something a little different. This is M16 Eagle Nebula with most of the stars removed. A mate of mine pointed out that it looks like the grim reaper, and now I can't get that visual out of my head, with some soul he's claiming bottom left, and the remaining stars in the brighter nebulosity being souls already collected.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/JEoV​qE

Damn, that's beautiful, I'm still trying to figure out star removal and getting a decent picture, care to share your process?

troypiggo wrote in post #18066435
Something a little different. This is M16 Eagle Nebula with most of the stars removed. A mate of mine pointed out that it looks like the grim reaper, and now I can't get that visual out of my head, with some soul he's claiming bottom left, and the remaining stars in the brighter nebulosity being souls already collected.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/JEoV​qE M16 Eagle Nebula (starless) by Troy Piggins, on Flickr

Excellent capture Troy , Love the WF H.A. (or did you grayscale this ?) !! What scope/camera lens did you use ? Not sure of the Reaper look but to me looks like someone lying down sleeping with a curled feather under their nose .

Annie's Astro Actions has a very god star removal action for PS

Very neat look at the Eagle! This makes the gas a dust stand out so much more.

Toxic Coolaid wrote in post #18066753
Annie's Astro Actions has a very god star removal action for PS

Very neat look at the Eagle! This makes the gas a dust stand out so much more.

I use PixInsight these days for all astroimage processing, including this one. See here if interested: http://trappedphotons.​com/blog/?p=731

Celestron wrote in post #18066711
Excellent capture Troy , Love the WF H.A. (or did you grayscale this ?) !! What scope/camera lens did you use ? Not sure of the Reaper look but to me looks like someone lying down sleeping with a curled feather under their nose .

Thanks mate. Yes, it's Ha narrowband taken with TMB92SS refractor and QSI583ws CCD camera.

Stuff of nightmares mate.

Toxic Coolaid wrote in post #18066753
Annie's Astro Actions has a very god star removal action for PS

Very neat look at the Eagle! This makes the gas a dust stand out so much more.

How do Annie's actions compare to Astronomy Tools?

She does some amazing work.

andicus wrote in post #18067351
How do Annie's actions compare to Astronomy Tools?

She does some amazing work.

The Annie's actions tool works well, but it does leave holes where it removes stars, I tried Troy's method VERY briefly last night (only had about 30 minutes) and it worked well, I was having trouble with it producing some weird circles in my background (not "holes" where the stars were) though.

pdxbenedetti wrote in post #18066668
Damn, that's beautiful, I'm still trying to figure out star removal and getting a decent picture, care to share your process?

Sorry mate. Only just saw your question about sharing my process. As I mentioned in response to someone else's comment, I'm using PixInsight and followed the tutorial here mostly: http://trappedphotons.​com/blog/?p=731
The only part I deviated was where he generates 3 different star masks then combines them into one using a PixelMaths max function, I just used a single star mask so no need for the PixelMaths.

After doing the MT erosion process several times, then the MMT a couple of times, I was left with 3 larger stars that were noticable. I just used CloneStamp to remove those manually.