Cartoon Sombrero

[MattJenko]

Here is my effort at imaging M104 - the Sombrero Galaxy. This image contains a who's who of astro-imaging disasters. Forgot to take Blue subs in one session. Shot out of focus blue subs in another session. I ruined subs through guiding issues, cloud issues, light pollution issues - you name it, I messed it up. Finally managed to get some in focus B last night thanks to the wonder of the forgivingly clear skies of late. I did the colour binned, which was a bit of an experiment as well, as I only have a small chip to start with. I don't think I will bother repeating. Blocky is a kind way of putting it.

Anyway, Skywatcher ED80, HEQ5, Atik 414ex. 20 x 10min L, 6x 5 min 2x2 bin RGB. All hacked thrown together processed hastily last night in PixInsight.

[Dave Lloyd]

Still impressive though.

[jsmoraes]

I lost some works and time with similar issues. The galaxy is very nice, although. Maybe a little yellow, but in Internet I saw this galaxy from white to blue.

[laser_jock99]

Good work despite the issues.

[ollypenrice]

The galaxy itself has come out pretty well - if a bit red. (It's a spiral, after all.) The starfield does look a bit ragged though.  And now I'm going to preach Layers and Photoshop. Here's a target with cleanly divides into galaxy and starfield and these need entirely different processing. A hard steretch of the stars enlarges them and creates haloes. Masks create masking artefacts like those hard disks seen within them. But in Ps you'd simply make one layer stretched for the galaxy and another given a soft stretch for the stars and blend them in Layers. Why do needlework in boxing gloves??

lly

[MattJenko]

Have given it a more sensitive go, bearing in mind the feedback. Still a bit of blocky colour creeping through from the binned RGB though, but overall nicer stars in my opinion. Thanks as always for the assistance.

[Uranium235]

Re: your blocky RGB

Something to try is the "halfway house" method of rescaling your Lum downwards by 25% and your 2x2bin RGB up by 150% - that way you are not rescaling the RGB by 200% and getting artefacts/blocky bits. Then, once you are have produced that 75% scale LRGB version, blend it again with the 100% scale lum - the RGB should then be able to take another upscale then without too much blockiness.... worth a try anyways!

[MattJenko]

Re: your blocky RGB

Something to try is the "halfway house" method of rescaling your Lum downwards by 25% and your 2x2bin RGB up by 150% - that way you are not rescaling the RGB by 200% and getting artefacts/blocky bits. Then, once you are have produced that 75% scale LRGB version, blend it again with the 100% scale lum - the RGB should then be able to take another upscale then without too much blockiness.... worth a try anyways!

What a nice idea - had not thought of that. Will give it a go - thanks. I am certainly not going to bin colour with this chip in future. Don't see the point

[ollypenrice]

Re: your blocky RGB

Something to try is the "halfway house" method of rescaling your Lum downwards by 25% and your 2x2bin RGB up by 150% - that way you are not rescaling the RGB by 200% and getting artefacts/blocky bits. Then, once you are have produced that 75% scale LRGB version, blend it again with the 100% scale lum - the RGB should then be able to take another upscale then without too much blockiness.... worth a try anyways!

Clever stuff. I've only done this kind of thing once and that was when adding long FL lum to widefield RGB. The iterative approach worked wonders. I'm sure you have a point here.

Olly