M27, the core...

[ollypenrice]

I've been working the M27 Yves and I did in the summer. The problem was that the core was disappointing. The image is Ha O111 RGB and the previous core was effectively defined by the combined O111/Ha layers. While this may be honest the O111 shows little more than a dull even surface in the core so I tried using the Ha only to bring detail to the RGB. Initially I added an Ha core, pushed very hard in sharpening, to the L layer in Lab mode in Ps. This was only a slight improvement so I broke my own rule and used it as luminance for the core at a heavy opacity. On this occasion it worked, I think, quite well. So here we have an HaRGB core in an Ha/O111 RGB outer shell, all in an RGB only starfield!

lly

[DirkSteele]

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken.

Very nice result!

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Great detail in that one.

[VigdisVZ]

Nice job! Thanks for sharing.

[Jessun]

Great work Olly, I never saw the outer regions like that before - well, never saw those at all in my attempts .

I wonder, does it need a final tweak in flipping on the vertical?

/Jesper

[ollypenrice]

Great work Olly, I never saw the outer regions like that before - well, never saw those at all in my attempts .

I wonder, does it need a final tweak in flipping on the vertical?

/Jesper

I think it might!!!

Olly

[StuW]

Amazing!

Great work Olly, I never saw the outer regions like that before - well, never saw those at all in my attempts .

I agree, the hydrogen and dust radials with the O2 inbetween give it the look of an Ammonite fossil.

[MartinB]

Not sure I followed you on the processing side of things Olly but it's worked a treat. I see you have gone for blue with the OIII which looks nice. Fabulous star colours, nice deep halo blended nicely with the core. Ticks all my boxes!

[sologuitarist61]

Great image

[JamesF]

Very nice image. There's an awful lot going on in there, isn't there? I must go back and read up some more on it.

James

[turbotim]

I can only dream of taking a pic like that one day!

[opticalpath]

A real beauty, Olly! The outer halo is delightful.

Did you try pushing a little more OIII into the green channel to get the classic teal colour? I rather like the blue actually in this image, but just wondered if you tried it.

Adrian

[ollypenrice]

A real beauty, Olly! The outer halo is delightful.

Did you try pushing a little more OIII into the green channel to get the classic teal colour? I rather like the blue actually in this image, but just wondered if you tried it.

Adrian

Yes, it's quite easy to swing between green and blue. What I do is take the HaRGB and make two modified versions, one with the O111 added only to blue and one with it added only to green. I add the O111 at high opacity in both cases. I then paste one on top of the other and balance the blue-green O111 that way. When I've done that I put the O111 Ha RGB onto the HaRGB and choose an opacity that suits.

I know it should be a little more green but I really struggle with green in astrophotos because it never feels right to me, or rarely. You wouldn't see much in Thor's Helmet without it!

Olly