M81 new RGB attempt

[pyrasanth]

Hi everybody- Happy New Year!

The lack of a CLS filter for my LRGB continues to thwart me so I will buyy a filter in the new year. The grainy luminance is destroying my pictures so for now I will ignore the thiis for my RGB work until I get the filter.

I redid the image of M81 with the L removed & it makes a massive difference. The image is posted below & consists of loads of short subs of RGB using Baader RGB filters with an Atik 460 binned at 2x2 (12 x 8 mins on each channel). The image was stacked in Maxim DL6 then high pass filtered in Photoshop with a slight lift in the curves. The gradient prior to Photoshop was removed with Gradient Xterminator.

Again let me know what you think. All criticism gratefully received!

[mister_wavey]

Much likey!

[brettg40]

Awesome

[pyrasanth]

Awesome

Thanks!

[pyrasanth]

I took some HA which was not being used so I added it to the red channel of the image & adjusted the colour balance slightly. This was quite noisy as there was not a lot of HA & the result is below. I left the image slightly redder for effect.

[pyrasanth]

perhaps a little less red. This might be better.

[Daniel-K]

I took some HA which was not being used so I added it to the red channel of the image & adjusted the colour balance slightly. This was quite noisy as there was not a lot of HA & the result is below. I left the image slightly redder for effect.

M81-with-HA-on-red.jpg

MORE RED!!!!! this is exactly what your set up should be used for its a galaxy killing machine. next try NGC 891 IN RGB its very well placed. you should be pleased with this image.

[astroman001]

Already great images, once you get the Lum sorted you will nail this galaxy.

Peter

[Chris]

I'm a real fan of galaxy close ups, good work!

Really like the Ha versions!

[pyrasanth]

Thanks guys for all kind words of encouragement. It takes hours of care to get to the final result and many more hours of wasted effort when things go wrong- you simply cant rebuild a broken image!

On Thursday I take delivery of the ONAG which has a complimentary software package called Sharplock which will automatically refocus continuously so when this is setup it should improve the sharpness of my images. The other issue this will take care of is guide stars as all the stars seen by the CCD camera are available as guide stars. On some objects I struggled to find a guide and in some instances this can restrict what you can image. I've ordered the Hutech IDAS P2 2" filter with a filter slide so I can remove the filter when I want to image with narrow-band filters. I'm quite excited with my new setup as I'm beginning to see what my investment can give but it's been a long haul. I seek bright images with pin sharp stars & I know even in light polluted skies this is possible!

Have a great new Year & clear skies to you all.

[Daniel-K]

keep gathering photons and when you think you have enough data add another  3hours  the LP filter will make a huge difference. 

[ollypenrice]

What is wrong with the lum? In principle it should be a little more than 3x better in signal to noise per unit time than the RGB. If it isn't, why isn't it? Perhaps because LP is getting past the L filter and not the RGB?

I think you need to get to the bottom of this. I've always considered L to be the secret of galaxy imaging. OSC (ie RGB) cameras always seemed sluggish on galaxies to me.

Olly

[pyrasanth]

What is wrong with the lum? In principle it should be a little more than 3x better in signal to noise per unit time than the RGB. If it isn't, why isn't it? Perhaps because LP is getting past the L filter and not the RGB?

I think you need to get to the bottom of this. I've always considered L to be the secret of galaxy imaging. OSC (ie RGB) cameras always seemed sluggish on galaxies to me.

Olly

The issue with the L is that it is horribly grainy & full of gradients which cannot be successfully removed. I am taking steps to address the L issue. I've just ordered an IDAS LP2 filter which I'm told should help.

I don't use my Atik 490 OSC camera currently as the colours under my polluted skies are completely washed out & look horrendously green. I shoot all of my work in either RGB or narrow-band on the Atik 460 mono. The RGB has no L currently but the LP filter may help address this issue. Then I can use the Baader UV/IR cut filter with impunity (I hope).

I want to look closely at the potential of narrow-band.  The filters I have are in the 7-8.5 nm range I'm going to get a set of Astrodons at 5 or 3 nm so I can shoot through the light pollution at a more refined level & see if this makes a difference. I will post results when I've had time to shoot more subs in the hope of addressing some of these issues.

The other issue being addressed is dynamic focus using the ONAG with sharplock which maintains focus dynamically. This should allow my subs to be much sharper albeit not discounting the effects of refraction & seeing.