Tzetze

Thank you MathMog, Geof and Noddy. Muchly appreciated. =]

That helps immensely in making the decision, thanks.

Many thanks Olly! I've been giving some consideration to purchasing an Ha filter. It's on the cards but am torn between Ha filter or more superior grade mirrors as next upgrade. Not sure which option would give me the greater result.

It can be so hard to trust my own eyes when processing. Thanks again for kind comments. There are a couple of issues that I feel let this image down. There's some slight dark ringing introduced at the deconvolution stage which I've found extremely difficult to remove entirely. I also think that the range mask I used should have been smoothed/fuzzed out quite a bit more. The faint stretched outer arm is too pronounced, in my opinioin. A more fuzzy/smoothed out range mask would have softened this area. I hope to have another go at processing this over the weekend to improve on these areas.

Thanks. On other images, I had issues with LRGB combination ending up looking very washed out but, thanks to some tips, have been working on avoiding that with more careful stretching/curves before and after combination. I think I've managed to avoid a washed out look here but perhaps it's something that requires more attention.

Thank you Mark. I'm pleased with how the colour and saturation turned out. Thank you Adrian. The high sub count on the luminance really helped in this regard.

Hi. This data was captured over 4 nights in the last week of March. Image is comprised of ; 50x Lum, 1x1 900s 15x ea. RGB, 2x2 225s 10" Newt f4.7, EQ8, Atik 460ex with Astrodon LRGB. Thanks for looking. =]

Thank you all very much for the kind comments. James, I struggled over how to frame the target and considered a few options. I tend to prefer a North-mostly-up orientation and try to work something with that aspect. The oblique angles, unorthodox leaning/framing seems to work for me. =]

Thank you all, muchly appreciated. =]

Thank you ZiHao.

With a lucky streak in the weather lately, was able to complete a few datasets. One of which was M106, started back in January. I've learned quite a bit more about this LRGB processing (particularly, the LRGB combination stage) from some tips kindly provided here following my last processing attempts a few months ago. These pointers have helped immensely in processing this image. I'm sure this image can be further improved and would be very glad to receive any pointers. The (Pixinsight) processing steps performed so far, after stacking and performing DBE on the separate LRGB images; Lum: Deconvolution, Multiscale Linear Transform (mainly detail enhancement with minor noise reduction), Histogram Transformation, HDR Multiscale Transform, Local Histogram Equalisation, (slight) Curves Transformation. RGB: Channel Combination, Colour Calibration, SCNR, Multiscale Linear Transform (heavy noise reduction), Histogram Transformation. LRGB Combination, Crop, multiple Curves Transformation iterations. Image is composed of; Lum: 22x 900s 1x1 RGB: 15x ea. 225s 2x2 Taken through a 10" Newt on EQ8 mount with Atik 460ex and Astrodon LRGB 1.25" E-series filters.

Thank you Danny. All the best with your own data!

Thanks very much Mars. I hadn't taken into account the effects of poor seeing. :facepalm:

So, I've reworked LRGB combination and things have improved somewhat. Certainly a less washed out appearance.

Ahh, thank you Wim. This is valuable information. Quality link too, wasn't aware of this resource. You've made something click into place.