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M81 & M82 with some new colour

opticalpath

By opticalpath
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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opticalpath

opticalpath

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After watching Ken Crawford's excellent Photoshop tutorials, I used some of his techniques to reprocess and intensify the colour in this image of M81 and M82 from earlier in the year. I also added some Ha images taken since then.

Colour is a very subjective business so I'd be interested to hear your opinions about that in particular.

The image is about 3.5 hours LRGB and 3 hours Ha, taken with a MN190 and QSI583 camera. Ha subs were 10 minutes (2x2), but LRGB subs were only 100/ 150 seconds.

A larger version of the image is here: http://universalconstant.com/M81-82_LRGBHa_new_75pc.jpg

Adrian

M81-82_LRGBHa_new_small.jpg

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swag72

swag72

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I like this image - the colours are nice and M81 looks almost 3D with the Ha that has been added. My only thing is that I think it's perhaps a little too bright. I looked on the full res version to see if it was just the smaller version, but I think that if the brightness of M82 was lowered a little, the contrast and detail would pop a little more.

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opticalpath

opticalpath

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Thanks for the kind comments, and for your suggestions about the over-bright cores - especially of M82.

I think I was a little careless early on in my original processing and burned out both cores a little. I couldn't bring myself to go all the way back and do the whole thing over again :eek: so I've taken a shortcut and used the Shadows-Highlights adjustment in Photoshop to pull back the highlights in the worst areas. I think it's a worthwhile improvement.

A larger version of the updated image is here: http://universalcons...Ha_new_75pc.jpg

Adrian

M81-82_LRGBHa_new_small.jpg

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opticalpath

opticalpath

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Super pic, lots of detail. I love the tendrils on M82. My only ctiric is that M82 looks a little purple-ly, or on the magenta side.

Hmm, I think perhaps you're right, Tom. The green channel does look a bit low there. I've made a small colour balance adjustment to the original posted images.

Adrian

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opticalpath

opticalpath

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Thanks, Sara. Yours and others' feedback was really helpful.

This is an experiment. I normally prefer more muted colours, but I wanted to print this one and I was disappointed at how dull it looked on paper. So I thought I'd try to pep it up a bit for printing whilst not going OTT for viewing on screen too.

It's also a precursor to trying my hand at some narrow-band soon, where as someone said recently, "anything goes"!

Adrian

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