NGC 4565, SW100 ED @ F7.4, OSC

[lensman57]

Hi,

This is the result of my endeavours for last night , early this morning. Since I saw Olly's capture of this galaxy I wanted to image it but I am afraid that this is poor in comparison. SW 100ED, 0.85X FF/FR, IDAS D1 and Atik 428EXC @ -20C all on HEQ5 Pro and guided by PHD with dither and 50mm guidescope. 17 X 900s subs, with the usual calibration frames, stacked in DSS and processed in PI and finished off in PS. Guiding was average tonight but I don;t seem to have oval shaped stars, I am not sure if I have got the colour calibration right in PI as there is very little in the area to calibrate with.  Hope that you approve anyway. The funny thing is that i punched the wrong numbers on the handset and for about a half hour i was imgaing the Hockey Stick galaxy  .

Regards,

A.G

[wxsatuser]

The stars look burntout but the galaxy looks great, cannot help with the processing, have'nt got the skill yet.

[leemanley]

thats looking rather tasty !

[swag72]

The galaxy itself is looking really good - The background looks a little uneven. Have you tried a separate layer for the stars and background and then blending the two? It may just give you some star colour (unless they are fully saturated)

[lensman57]

The galaxy itself is looking really good - The background looks a little uneven. Have you tried a separate layer for the stars and background and then blending the two? It may just give you some star colour (unless they are fully saturated)

Hi Sara,

Mnay thanks, I did this early this morning as I couldn't get to sleep, there is colour in the starsbut I did not mask them effectively as i was concentating on the galaxy. Will have to do a reprocess as I am not happy with the colour balance. I used PI mainly so the colour calibration relies on the galaxy for a white balance, there is not much variance in the colour of the galaxy itself and I am not sure as how to do it correctly. The dark halos around the stars are due to the Gradient Xterminator, I will have to exclude the bright stars next time around.

Regards,

A.G

[Stephen Green]

 Very nice image

   Stephen

[lensman57]

Hi and thanks to you  all for your advice and kind words,

I have reprocessed the image , this time from a data set  stacked in PI and I tried to protect the stars from the start so they have a bit more colour and look more natural. The back ground is still noisy but I don't think is horrid so I let it be, for the galaxy I have taken a more conservative approach and just colour calibrated it using one of the stars that looked whitish. the dust lanes are not as crisp as the previous  image but overal it looks more balanced when viewed in PI and PS and there are quite a few very faint fuzzies around too. Hope that you approve.

Regards,

A.G