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Whirlpool galaxy (M51)


alan4908

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I decided to attempt to enhance my M51 image taken with my SW 80 ED/NEQ6 last year with some Luminescence data that I had acquired through some unguided test shots with my new SW Esprit 150/10micron GM1000HPS combination.

Since I've never tried to combine data from two difference scopes, I decided to simply overlay the post processed result of my previous attempt with the new luminescence data and aligned the images via Registar.  After a bit of processing in PS and Pixinsight I got the result below. The image represents just over 9 hours integration time.

 

5960c9b39c9dd_23M51.thumb.jpg.920cf312bc49120d65503745d40a6781.jpg

 

Alan

LIGHTS ED 80: L:11,R:10,G:9,B:8 x 600s. Ha: 2 x 1200s. LIGHTS Esprit 150: L:5 x 600s, 2x1800s.  DARKS: 30; BIAS:100; FLATS:40

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1 hour ago, MARS1960 said:

Wow indeed, that is a cracking image Alan.

Glad you liked it Mark ! 

I think my imaging scale of 0.7 arc seconds/pixel that I obtain from my new imaging set up really helps on the detail. At first, I was a bit dubious that this sampling rate was a bit too low for DSO's but so far it appears to be delivering the goods.

Alan

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That works! I don't know how you applied the high res luminance to the RGB but when I do this I do it in small iterations, adding a little L, giving that L a slight blur, flattening and re-applying a little L etc. Of course on the final iteration of adding the high res L I don't blur it. This preserves the full detail.

Olly

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2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

That works! I don't know how you applied the high res luminance to the RGB but when I do this I do it in small iterations, adding a little L, giving that L a slight blur, flattening and re-applying a little L etc. Of course on the final iteration of adding the high res L I don't blur it. This preserves the full detail.

Olly

Thanks for the comment Olly and also the tip about how to do high res Lum blending.

In this particular instance, what I did was to take my previous, lower resolution, Ha+ LRGB post processed image and treated this an "RGB" layer. Within PS. I then took the new higher resolution Lum data and blended it via the PS Luminosity blending mode with the "RGB" data.  I'm not sure if this is the most effective approach but in this particular instance it seemed to work well.

Alan

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1 minute ago, tooth_dr said:

Fabulous detail, I never tire of this beautiful galaxy and this is a stunning example. 

Thanks  :happy11: 

I also find it one of the most beautiful objectives in the night sky, unfortunately, I now need to wait until next year before my next imaging attempt since it is now below my local horizon.

Alan

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10 hours ago, alan4908 said:

Thanks for the comment Olly and also the tip about how to do high res Lum blending.

In this particular instance, what I did was to take my previous, lower resolution, Ha+ LRGB post processed image and treated this an "RGB" layer. Within PS. I then took the new higher resolution Lum data and blended it via the PS Luminosity blending mode with the "RGB" data.  I'm not sure if this is the most effective approach but in this particular instance it seemed to work well.

Alan

The only thing about this workflow is that the L will subdue the Ha. Although the resolution will be lower in your Ha there is not much fine detail to resolve so it might be worth resizing and re-applying it to the high res image?

Olly

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21 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

The only thing about this workflow is that the L will subdue the Ha. Although the resolution will be lower in your Ha there is not much fine detail to resolve so it might be worth resizing and re-applying it to the high res image?

Olly

Thanks for this Olly - I think I'll experiment with a few different approaches.

Alan

15 minutes ago, Lockie said:

That's impressive!

Thanks ! :happy11:

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10 hours ago, Barry-Wilson said:

Well done Alan - good job on the detail and processing.

Thanks Barry - I'm slowly trying out the various Pixinsight techniques of sharpening and contrast enhancement (although I still import the result into PS as a layer for mask generation :happy11:) these help quite a bit on enhancing the detail.

9 hours ago, niallk said:

Spectacular!! :thumbsup:

Thanks !

9 hours ago, swag72 said:

That's looking good :)  Nice work and well done on the combination :)

Thanks Sara, I'm very happy with both the Esprit 150 and my new mount. 

Alan

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