M51 Widefield with star color processing thoughts?

[Leveye]

Wide Field of M51 i imaged the other night let meknow what you think of the color Spasiba!

[Leveye]

Here it is with Gradient Xterminator applied i'm finding it an invaluable filter to have thoughts?

[Leo.A]

Looks amazing!

I only wish I could get images like that. I have good moon shots through the 8" Newt but my Milky Way images with a wide angle lens fitted to my camera aren't coming out so hot. They look OK stacked but I have absolutely no comprehension of the post processing process to add a little colour.

I have one good shot I did a while ago but I can't remember what I did to get it looking good.

SInce my heart attack and a few other major health problems last November, I'm having major problems remembering things, even if I study how to do it today online, it's gone by tomorrow.

My eyes can't distinguish any real difference between the 2 shots though but that's not unusual for my sight!

[bdc]

I can't really tell the difference either, but you did a great job at pulling out NGC 5195's tidal tail. 10 or 15 years ago it would have been utterly unthinkable to get an image like this with a 65mm scope.

[Leveye]

Many thanks you guys! Try this look at the pics on your monitor from about 2 feet away from slightly above looking down at the screen and tell me if you can see the gradient on the top one i sure can Cheers!

[ollypenrice]

If you want to nail gradients the tool of choice is DBE in Pixinsight. I don't think yours at bad, by the way. It's good that you are obsessing about this though. The background sky and the stars are ussually harder than the object!

Olly

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2277139556&k=FGgG233