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NGC 5907 - The Splinter Galaxy

PhotoGav

By PhotoGav
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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I still have my Celestron EdgeHD 8" on the mount and have been training it on and off for the last few weeks on The Splinter Galaxy, NGC 5907, in Draco. It is a side on warped spiral galaxy some 50 million light years away. Apparently it has an extended tidal stream surrounding it, but I struggled to pick that out from my humid Wiltshire garden. I had some issues with auto focus that I finally resolved by tightening a screw, so the RGB data is much sharper than the Luminance data. Anyway, enough excuses...

Celestron EdgeHD 8", HEQ5, QSI-683, Baader filters.

L = 14 x 1200s
RGB = 9 x 600s each
Total integration = 9 hours 10 minutes

NG5907-07-Final-med.thumb.png.5e0ac50fb03c71248d916e99dbb7430b.png

I abandoned my usual processing work flow for this image and tried the relatively new package AstroPixelProcessor. My intention was to use this for the stack integration only, but found myself combining the channels and doing the main stretching with it too. I then took the result into PhotoShop to tidy it up. I am very impressed with APP and pretty happy with this result. As ever, I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Clear skies and remember, we are steadily moving back towards astronomical darkness again now!!

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Barry-Wilson

Barry-Wilson

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Very subtly done Gav, not forced in any way.

I don't think your loose grub screw on the Lakeside has had a detrimental effect on your image, it certainly isn't soft. This is a very good image and I hope you're delighted with the result.

I've had a brief look at the APP website, very interesting, tutorials help too.

Are you going to persevere with it?

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Thank you for your comments Alan, Steve and Barry. With regards to APP, I think it will become a significant tool in my toolbox. I have just been processing another image with it and am liking it more and more. I have never dared unleash the mayhem of Pixinsight due to cowardice, but have always been curious and felt that I was missing out on a few tricks. I think that APP might be quite similar to PI with its more mathematical approach to processing than Photoshop. It is only part of the workflow though and I am still using Photoshop to finish off an image. I am interested to see how APP copes with a nebula as the two images I have used it on so far have been galaxies. It has definitely let me tease out more detail than I managed with this image in Photoshop and it is muh faster than the more manual process of PS. As for the learning curve, there are several videos on line, courtesy of its developer Mabula and our very own Sara (swag72) (thank you Sara!), which have been extremely helpful, so well worth watching if you are thinking of giving it a go.

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PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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Just now, swag72 said:

The mosaic integration is superb........ knocks the competition into a tin hat :D 

Excellent. I sort of look forward to giving that a go. Though after my four pane (or should that be pain) Veil Nebula last year, I swore it would be a long time before I attempted another one!

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  • 2 weeks later...
PhotoGav

PhotoGav

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1 hour ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Nice work Gav - nice image and super sales pitch I am off to sign up! :)

Thanks Paddy. You'll like APP, but make sure you watch Sara's very informative videos before diving in!

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