M63 LRGB

[MikeD]

The conditions last night were not the best for RGB imaging, lp killed the contrast in the red.

The RGB from last night was 7 @ 2.5 min's bin x 2 and added to he L from last week.

I might have another go at the colour on a better night.

Mike

[MartinB]

Now that is a gorgeous image, really one to be proud of Mike. I know the colour is muted but it looks so natural like that. Hats off to you. This is a benchmark for me with M63 being my next target when I've sorted out the technical nightmare that is my new SXV AO unit.

Have had a fiddle with the star trails, hope that's ok.

[MikeD]

Have had a fiddle with the star trails, hope that's ok.

Fiddle away and, thanks. 8)

[Albireo380]

QUOTE "Have had a fiddle with the star trails, hope that's ok. "

What did you do Martin? Is it a specific piece of software? OR something in Photoshop?

Can you explain.

Thanks

TOM

[MartinB]

Photoshop Tom. With this image the trails are different in different parts of the image but normally they are consistent across the image. Right click on the image and select duplicate layer. On the layers palette select "darken" as the blend mode. Go to the filters menu and from "other" choose "offset". Now play around moving the new layer right or left, up or down by 1 2 or even 3 pixels until you get round stars. If a 1 pixel isn't enough but 2 is too much choose 2 and close the offset box. Then go to edit menu and select "fade offset". This allows sub pixel adjustment by moving the slider over to the left - you can achieve an offset somewhere between 1 and 2 pixels. Then return to the layers menu and flatten the image. The beauty of the darken mode is that provided the offset isn't too extreme it has minimal effect on the rest of the image. It only impacts on high contrast differences.

With Mikes image I collected small groups of stars with a similar trail pattern using the lasoo tool and then from the layer menu selected New/layer via copy. This created a new layer which just had my selection. This made it possible to deal differently with the varying groups of stars.

It's a fantastic image regardless.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

QUOTE "Have had a fiddle with the star trails, hope that's ok. "

What did you do Martin? Is it a specific piece of software? OR something in Photoshop?

Can you explain.

Thanks

TOM

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php?topic=10395.0

Martin's primer on star trail killing.

Captain Chaos

[MartinB]

I keep coming back for a look at this. It really is one of the best M63s I've seen

[geppetto]

Cracking image 8)

Thanks for sharing

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I keep coming back for a look at this. It really is one of the best M63s I've seen

Me too, I've been looking for something to benchmark this to, it comes out as something special in my book.

Captain Chaos

[CELESCOPE]

thats a cracker Mike , lovely detail in that and i like the colour, super shot, hmm just borrowed that colour data for my lum image

Rog

[MikeD]

Thanks again for the very kind comments all.

[Cloudgazer]

Lovely M63 Yf.. lots of detail in there.

Scott

[Caz]

I don't know whether Iseestars is down, but I can't enlarge to the bigger version??

Caz

[MikeD]

Still works for me, :? a few people said the same thing on UKAI.

Here you go (but reduced to 70% to get it in under 100kb)

[Caz]

Well that was worth the wait!! It's a stunner... 8)

Caz