M31 - 7 Sept 2015

[gnomus]

Some clear skies last night, so I had a go with my relatively new camera.  This is my third attempt at M32:

1st - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/230301-is-this-a-focus-or-dew-problem/?p=2488473

2nd - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/237475-m31-second-attempt/

This is:

10 x 5 mins Red

10 x 5 mins Green

11 x 5 mins Blue

20 x Flats

20 x Darks

Atik 383L at -15 degrees.

I think that I would have been better going for 10 minute subs (or longer).  I had reasonable (for me) guiding.

Would this be helped with some Luminance, or would it be better to gather more RGB?

[xtreemchaos]

great image mate,cracking detail and colour,love the dust lanes,well done.  thanks for sharing  charl

[tingting44]

great image! there getting a lot better! cant wait to see #4

[Maximidius]

Cracking image that. Plenty of detail, nice star colours and well processed. Well done. 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice result

[The Admiral]

Gorgeous! So that's what that grey smudge really looks like

[laudropb]

Very nice image. You have captured the dust lanes well and the colours look very natural to me. Thanks for posting.

[toxic]

really nice image there gnomus - more rgb wont harm it for sure but if you can add some HA to it, i will add ha to my 31 if we ever get any more clear skies.

[cfpendock]

That is a very nice natural looking image.  

In answer to your question, I presume your RGB was un-binned?  In any case, if you want to improve the image, in my opinion more time will be beneficial.  I would do this in un-binned Luminance which is much faster than RGB, and judging by the star colour you have already achieved, you already have good colour data.

I have tried adding Ha to M31, and although it did bring out small star-forming regions in the arms, it didn't do anything (for me) for the structure of the galaxy.

Chris

[gnomus]

That is a very nice natural looking image.  

In answer to your question, I presume your RGB was un-binned?  In any case, if you want to improve the image, in my opinion more time will be beneficial.  I would do this in un-binned Luminance which is much faster than RGB, and judging by the star colour you have already achieved, you already have good colour data.

I have tried adding Ha to M31, and although it did bring out small star-forming regions in the arms, it didn't do anything (for me) for the structure of the galaxy.

Chris

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. Yes these are unbinned. I will try to get some more data when I next get an opportunity. I don't have an Ha filter yet, though one is in the post.

[Barry-Wilson]

Very good Steve, natural processing and good colour balance.

I would try to gather luminance too; perhaps 180s and 300s subs and then carry out an HDR integration to preserve the core detail.  There are star forming regions in the spiral arms that respond well to Ha collection.  More data is always best.

[tony210]

Like this a lot -haven't tried M31- best wishes Tony

[gnomus]

Very good Steve, natural processing and good colour balance.

I would try to gather luminance too; perhaps 180s and 300s subs and then carry out an HDR integration to preserve the core detail.  There are star forming regions in the spiral arms that respond well to Ha collection.  More data is always best.

Thanks Barry. Do you have any suggestions as regards quantity of 300 and 180 exposures? An hour of each? Maybe an hour and a half of 300 and half an hour of 180?

I got (touch wood) quite good guiding last night. These Ha exposures need to be much longer, don't they?

[gnomus]

Like this a lot -haven't tried M31- best wishes Tony

Thanks Tony. It was the first object I tried to photograph. I keep going back to it when I get a new, substantial piece of kit - on this occasion, an observatory!

[gnomus]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.  I got some luminance data last night and have added this to the image.  This is:

16 x 5 mins L

20 X 3 mins L

I keep trying to use HDR Multiscale Transform and LHE in PixInsight, but I seem to get a result that looks a bit too 'artificial'.  So I produced two images, one with these processes and one without.  I then blended these two images together in Photoshop with the HDR/LHE image applied on top using 'Darker Color' and an opacity of 35%:

[gnomus]

Latest version with 150mins of Ha added:

[pyrasanth]

This is a beautiful image. I have just finished the core. Take a look below. It might be an interesting comparison as the greater image resolution defines a lot of detail. I'm planning a wider field camera for my RASA to get the whole galaxy in the frame.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/251929-m31-the-core-revisited/

[gnomus]

This is a beautiful image. I have just finished the core. Take a look below. It might be an interesting comparison as the greater image resolution defines a lot of detail. I'm planning a wider field camera for my RASA to get the whole galaxy in the frame.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/251929-m31-the-core-revisited/

Thank you pyrasanth.  I think, however, that I am going backwards on this one.  I am going to go back to square one I think and try to achieve something closer to the look you are getting in your Andromeda image.

This processing malarkey is tricky to say the least.  My main reason for posting here on SGL is that I hope that people, more expert than I, will give me feedback as to the mistakes I am making.  I don't mind criticism at all - I try to be quite self-critical.  To me, this image looks "overprocessed" - I think I have "brightened" the galaxy to the point where it looks un-natural.  There is less detail in the core of version 3 than there is in version 2.  And there is too much noise - not down to lack of noise reduction, but down to my pushing things way too far.  If I can make any progress with V4 I will repost.

[gnomus]

I re-read and re-watched the tutorials I have for HDRMultiscaleTransform and LHE, and I think I was able to get a bit more detail in the core of the galaxy.   I think the colour might be a bit better too:

[Raga]

Looks awesome. Great work.

[Stratis]

It's a great image, personally I feel the Ha addition might have cost you a bit of contrast in the spiral arms. What Ha filter is in use?

I might suggest using the HA data as a fresh red layer and blending it on top of the completed image... that might give you the red 'embers' in the outer spiral arms but preserve the detail in the core.

[gnomus]

It's a great image, personally I feel the Ha addition might have cost you a bit of contrast in the spiral arms. What Ha filter is in use?

I might suggest using the HA data as a fresh red layer and blending it on top of the completed image... that might give you the red 'embers' in the outer spiral arms but preserve the detail in the core.

Thank you for your comments. I agree about the Ha. I was never really happy with my Ha processing - it seemed quite noisy. When I added it to the image - by blending it into the red channel - I got the red bits, but it seemed to make the image a bit muddy. I will have another go at processing the Ha, but ultimately may just omit it from the image.

[gnomus]

This probably has to be it now.  Time to move on to something else. I went back to a 'non-Ha' version.  Then I added the 'with-Ha' version as a layer in Photoshop.  I masked out all of this image and then painted in the Ha regions on the mask.  I applied a Gaussian blur to this mask and then reduced the opacity somewhat.  I'm not all that sure about the colour balance, but it is what it is.  The background sky appears to be neutral - at least that's what the PS eyedropper tool is telling me.

[gnomus]

Thank you all for your assistance and kind words.