Sculptor Galaxy

[E_ri_k]

Hey Guys, was hoping for a clear night last night, but then the fog rolled in.....But managed to get a few subs of NGC 253. The best image so far for me, for this target. What do you guys think?

Its a stack of 8 shots at 90 seconds @ ISO 800 on a stock 350D. Its as good as I can get it with my photoshop knowledge. Any tips for cleaning up the background?

Thanks for looking!

[RAC]

Did you stack any darks with it?

[Spikey]

Looks great. Hope you don't mind bit I have just run he jpeg through a noise reduction program to see if it helps with the background noise. Had a similar issue myself recently with a stock 1000D and darks certainly seemed to help.

[WayBig]

theres an incredible amount of detail in the galaxy, even with short subs, you must be really pleased with it.

[E_ri_k]

Yeah stacked it with a few darks and flats. Cleared up a fair bit in your program. What is it?

[Hawklord]

Great image. I've put it through Pixinsight: DBE, noise reduction, then used a process (SNCR) that removes the greens!

[ollypenrice]

Good, and good use of Pixinsight there, though I think the blue is too low in that one above.

If you don't have these programmes you can do your own noise reduction in Ps. Zoom in to pixel level on the background sky and look for the rogue colours, the ones that stand out in the background. Take the similar ones (greenish or blueish or whatever) and use Select-colour select to select them. Then use curves and colour balance to get them to look less unlike their neighbours. Move on to another type of rogue and repeat. Generally reducing saturation in background pixels also helps. You can use the median filter as well but beware of the 'vaseline on the lens' look.

Olly

[E_ri_k]

Cheers guys, I'll have a play when I get a chance!

[Sam]

Nice image, very clear detail right to the core. I think Olly is right about the colour but I'd certainly be very pleased if I produced an image like that.