Tweaked M31

[Beyond_Vision]

I decided to have another tweak at my recent M31 image so here's the result.

(click to enlarge)

Original post

http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,32653.0.html

Regards

Kevin

[legion48]

Superb.

[jonbarr87]

Beautiful dust lanes!

[trudie]

WOW !!!

[Psychobilly]

Stunning rework on the M31 data Kev

Absolutely awesome !!!

Billy...

[steppenwolf]

Wow, that is deep!

[ncjunk]

Cracking shot!

NC

[Tim]

It's a lovely M31 Kevin, and it looks very natural somehow with those colours, really nice. And you've successfully lightened the difficult outer regions without spoiling the rest of it, great work.

If I could offer a comment, it would be that the finer detail on the dust lanes are a little blurred, and also in those star heavy outer regions that show up a bit brighter/bluer. Is that how they come off the camera, or is it a side effect of processing? I ask because I am still trying to get the best out of my data, but by trying to increase the contrast and definition in the dust lanes it seems that I lose the detail too. Any chance of seeing a section of the raw image off the cam?

thanks

Tim

[Beyond_Vision]

It's a lovely M31 Kevin, and it looks very natural somehow with those colours, really nice. And you've successfully lightened the difficult outer regions without spoiling the rest of it, great work.

If I could offer a comment, it would be that the finer detail on the dust lanes are a little blurred, and also in those star heavy outer regions that show up a bit brighter/bluer. Is that how they come off the camera, or is it a side effect of processing? I ask because I am still trying to get the best out of my data, but by trying to increase the contrast and definition in the dust lanes it seems that I lose the detail too. Any chance of seeing a section of the raw image off the cam?

thanks

Tim

At the time when I took this I didnt spend a lot of time on the focusing and it was perhaps a little soft. Noise reduction will also blur the image and the apeture of the scope or the atmospherics will be a limiting factor in the resolution of the image.

Heres the image post stacking with curves and levels and saturation adjusted in DSS. To get the final image Pix Insight DBE and Photoshop CS3 Noels action were used

(click to enlarge)

Regards

Kevin

[Tim]

Thats what I expected kevin, there is loads more to be had from this one, just look at all that fine detail!! Noels is a little heavy handed and indiscriminate I fear, and proper flats would get rid of the vignetting for you with needing to muck about with your hard earned data.

IMHO noels is for PS amateurs, and that counts you out :)

I had a little play (3 steps) with the core of the image, here it is. I'm starting to think that less is more when it comes to processing.

(click to enlarge)

Hope you dont think I'm being picky, I just feel there is so much more to this image of M31. :salute: :salute: :salute:

Tim

[Tim]

Hmm, just spent a long time looking at the original and the processed side by side, and think now I AM being too picky!

There is something crisp and sharp about the original DSS pic, but zooming in its hard to see where that is missing in anything on the processed one. I think if anything its just a few pixels slightly blurred, but even up close its difficult to pick them out, so I wonder why the original DD pic has that crisp look? or maybe its just my eyes again! Looking at the pic I did there and your process one, apart from the colours there seems no difference, and that is with no noise or blur or anything, I just dont get it?

You really have done incredibly well to get that dust near the core to stand out so well.

What we really ALL need is a camera whereby we just point it at the target, and the pic that comes out at the end is the finished item, boy, what I wouldn't give!

TJ

[LostNSpace]

Absolutely fabulous Kevin

Mark

[Beyond_Vision]

TBH Tim even if you have the best equipment to capture the data it will not make a good picture alone. The processing is every bit as important and I am still only stratching the surface of it and yes I am no expert at PS hence I do use Noels tools. In the main they are pretty good but it's learming when and where to apply them is the difficult thing. I tend to find there is no one program that does all and I like features out of all of them. The biggest tool in the armoury is to my mind Pix Insight Dynamic Background extraction it deals with gradients and vignetting really well. At the end of the day flats if used properly are the way to go but it can be tricky and time consuming to get sorted. The original image was taken over an hour Sunday after the Moon had started to go down. It was just intended as a practice session and I didnt spend a lot of time focusing. The first post image I spent 20 mins processing it and was amazed at how well it had come out. The second process took a lot longer and I squeezed out more stuff in the outer edges and increased the contrast of the dust lanes and tamed the core area which was saturated.

Next time I will try to see if I can get the focus tighter and spend at least 2 hours getting more data

Regards

Kevin

[Tim]

Just look at those two in the bottom of your UKA footer thing! what a difference!

Do you think the focus was a bit out then? Because in my limited experience I would have said it was dead on

Again, I hope you dont think it is critiscism in any way, quite the reverse. the thing is, I am sat here trying to do something with pretty much exactly what you have there, an hours worth of M31. the pic straight out of dss looks crisp, sharp and tight on the dust lanes, but as soon as the processing begins that seems to vanish, and I just cant see why!

It's horses for courses of course, but the image MartinB posted a couple of weeks back of m31 to my mind was spot on. Very similar to what you see in the books etc. If you take a peek at his dust lanes, you can see the same crispness, but also great contrast. So how does that come about? (This is open to everyone btw :) ) Is it great kit, great focus, great processing, or a combo of all three?

Like you, I'm certain there is so much more to be had from these images, I'm just not sure how to get it! Anybody know? :D

At any rate, its magic what you've done already!

Cheers

TJ

[Beyond_Vision]

Tim which scope did you use for your data?

I know Martin will have his focus spot on as he is very particular about this and he will probably have used the focus tools within Maxim or something similar. It is very hard to focus a DSLR especially with any filters in place and it will be very hard to get as tight a focus as per the CCD camera. Guiding accuracy will also effect the sharpness. There are so many factors to the sharpness of the image and ultimately the atmospherics will limit this too.

Regards

Kevin

PS dont blow up the image too much and fuss too much over the detail leave it the size it appears on the page and ask yourself if it looks ok then.

[Tim]

Think you are right!

At Kelling I spent 4.5 hours with the 400D (no filters) on M31, then another hour with the 350D (no filters) to get the red areas. Both on the WO72.

I have tried numerous ways to bring it all together, but even taken alone things are not as planned! The 400D seems to have completely not picked up any red/brown in the dust lanes, im gonna go back to the raws and verify that.

Hmm, I hadn't thought about the guiding, I spent quite some time watching MartinB and his guide star, and he had some fascinating techniques with it. As far as I could see, it wasn't just left to its own devices.

Im just saving my work in progress to jpg and i'll post in under this so you can see what I mean. The odd thing is, the rest of the colours came out pretty much as you see, blue outer rim, yellowy centre and mucky middle bits, and I have processed it so that the same stars that show in the rim of M32 and M110 are the same as the image taken at the Kitt Peak obs.

I dunno, maybe I expect too much. See what you think. Wont be too long with it.

[SteelRat]

Just lovely that is Kev - decent tweak matey 8)