M106 First full LRGB

[3ggman]

Got this close to completion last week with the good weather. I am quite happy with how it came out (after many reprocesses). Its 17.5hrs in total, 6hrs lum/7hrs Ha in 15min subs and 4.5hrs color in 10min subs. I would like to get another 4hrs or so of color.

The Ha didnt seem to add anything in processing, I have no idea how to process it for the best results and just added it to the Lum data in photoshop and any detail that was there seemed to get lost. I need to read up on this and possibly reprocess this in the future.

Astrobin AstroBin - M106 (johnnyM)

[MikeD]

Sorry I missed this.

I wish my first LRGB image was this good, looking forward to many more.

Mike.

[ollypenrice]

As soon as I opened the thread and saw the picture I thought 'quality' and then I read the 17 hours bit - et voila! That's what it's all about, time.

I can tell you how I add Ha to galaxies, though there are various ways. What your Ha should give you, with a bit of luck, are the very faint Ha jets emerging from 106. Take a close look to see if you have them. There's a hint of them in mine but I think I could get more to show.

Galaxies - ollypenrice's Photos

I add the stretched Ha to the stretched red channel in Ps, Blend Mode Lighten. Then I lift the curve on the top (Ha) layer till it starts to add something and I ignore the noise in the faint Ha stuff. When the bright Ha is adding something promising I colour select all the dark stuff and erase it, then flatten and merge channels.

I would never add Ha to L in galaxies because there is no signal from most parts of a galaxy in Ha and rarely any real resolution. Jets and extensions are an exceptioon to that.

Lovely star colour and shape in your image.

Olly

[RobH]

Olly says it all....quality work and light years ahead of my first LRGB attempts......looking forward to seeing more from you.

Well done:icon_salut:

Cheers

Rob

[barkis]

I dream of a first image that good, but I'll be satisfied with half as good .

You did so well here .

Ron.

[Quatermass]

Thats a cracking image very good job I would be very happy to have that one in my collection.

[3ggman]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Olly - The faint jets was how I knew that I was doing something wrong as I could see them in the Ha stack but they just vanished when I first processed them in.

I found MikeD's post on adding Ha to an image and it worked a treat (thanks Mike )

I posted the results here http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-deep-sky/183760-m106-ha-added.html (they are easier to spot in the Hires version)

It could still do with a little fine tuning to really bring them out but I am delighted to have figured out the technique and I don't really think I can push the image much further as the tech issues that I still have to sort out will begin to show.

[Gina]

First class

[Beyond_Vision]

Wow that is a great first LRGB image the colour and detail in the galaxies is superb. Very nicely framed they are too.

Regards

Kevin