Process of older M31 data

[kirkster501]

This has about five hours of total integration- three hours on the luminance and about 30 mins each of RGBHa.  This data is from FSQ85 with 0.73 reducer in 5 min exposures on my old NEQ6 mount. Two years old data.  Anyway thought I'd give it a reprocess. Struggling to get rid of the slight salmon tint and bring some of the yellow of the stars out.  Will play around a bit more tomorrow.

 

 

[MikeODay]

Great image - I really like the way you have captured the dust lanes and retained detail in the core while also recording the dust that forms the background.

[kirkster501]

Thanks Mike.  Yeah tried hard to keep those details.  Just need to tone down the background's slight green tint and light up the galaxy a bit; I think it's a bit flat as it stands.

[MikeODay]

15 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Thanks Mike.  Yeah tried hard to keep those details.  Just need to tone down the background's slight green tint and light up the galaxy a bit; I think it's a bit flat as it stands.

I can’t see the green tint on my ipad - but that could be me; my wife is always telling me that I am wrong when I describe colours

As for the brightness of the galaxy ... it seems pretty bright to me already but with the relatively high black point I think the image could stand a little more contrast in the dark areas.  

A quick tweak on my ipad to reduce the brightness of the shadows ( I hope you don’t mind )

[ollypenrice]

It's good. I'd be inclined to try LHE in Pixinsight or Noel's Actions,  'Enhance Local Contrast' in Ps to work on the present slight flatness.

I don't know about PI but in Ps you can ues the colour sampler eyedropper (set to 3x3 or 5x5) to measure the background colour objectively. I try to get 23/23/23 but some like more blue.

Olly

[wimvb]

Really nice image. I like the Ha regions in this target.

As Olly noted, you can safely bring in the black point a bit.

If you use PixInsight, you can try using the new photometric colour calibration routine and Mark Shelley's colour enhancing stretch.

[kirkster501]

Thanks guys for the tips.  I think I overdid the deconvolution a bit as well.  

I will play around with it some more.

Yes, I am always careful not to push the Ha too much on galaxies or else they don't look natural in my opinion.