Another M31, FSQ85

[kirkster501]

FSQ85, no flattener or reducer with Atik 460 LRGBHa.   This is my effort.

Total of 8 hours of integration, September 2019.

Despite it being probably the most popular galaxy, processing it is quite hard and subjective I think.  How much Ha to put in, how gold to make the arms etc......   You can lose the outer halo if you are too aggressive with the black point.

Edited September 25, 2019 by kirkster501

[Craney]

That's a corker.

[Martin-Devon]

That's a brilliant version of this target - great work.

[Jkulin]

Lovely image, just a small comment, you need to bring the blue back into the dust lanes, other than that it really is quite lovely.

[tomato]

Very nice image, lovely framing and great detail in the dust lanes and Ha regions.

I would agree with John’s comment, based on most renditions, a bit more blue in the spiral arms is all that is needed.

[kirkster501]

Will look at that chaps, thanks for the feedback.

[kirkster501]

Ok, a couple of tweaks in PI and Photoshop. 

Edited September 26, 2019 by kirkster501

[ollypenrice]

It's very good, I think.

If it were mine I might be looking at the blues, which seem a bit under-represented, but this is a fine image of a target which is, despite being popular, very tricky.

Good call on the Ha for me.

Olly

[geoflewis]

Steve, it's a really cracking image, well done. Geof

[alan potts]

I feel the top image is better with regards the core, always difficult to get right as you said, which I feel you did there, lacks a tad of blue as Olly said  but it is a s good as I have seen shown here, a superb capture. The trouble it when you good at processing you can do it over and over agian and sometimes forget which one you liked best, which at the end of the day it what it's about, if it pleases you then it's right.

Alan

[CedricTheBrave]

wow that's fantastic well done

[Rodd]

An amazingly full and detailed image and with fairly limited data. Excellent.  I think the Ha has leaked into the surrounding regions a bit as the galaxy has a pinkish hue. 

Rodd

[kirkster501]

12 hours ago, Rodd said:

An amazingly full and detailed image and with fairly limited data. Excellent.  I think the Ha has leaked into the surrounding regions a bit as the galaxy has a pinkish hue. 

Rodd

Thanks.  I will go back to that and see what I can do.

I am struggling to get more blue in there and I don't know why . There is a lot of blue data in the RGB combination.  Maybe the Ha blend killed it.....  I will look into it.

Edited September 27, 2019 by kirkster501

[Rodd]

46 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

Thanks.  I will go back to that and see what I can do.

I am struggling to get more blue in there and I don't know why . There is a lot of blue data in the RGB combination.  Maybe the Ha blend killed it.....  I will look into it.

I struggled with blue too.  Not sure why, but sometime I get strong signal in all channels, but when combined one fades. That happened with the blue channel and M31.  One other thing, if you can manage to reduce the brightness in the outer core, I guarantee you will uncover additional details (dust lanes).   Tricky to do without generating mask boundary artifacts.

Rodd

[Jkulin]

Hi Steve,

I bunged it into PI photometric calibration then tweaked the blue and red and then subtracted the magenta, I then created a range mask, inverted and knock the blue from the sky, not sure if you think it is better or not but the quality of the data is excellent: -

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, Jkulin said:

Hi Steve,

I bunged it into PI photometric calibration then tweaked the blue and red and then subtracted the magenta, I then created a range mask, inverted and knock the blue from the sky, not sure if you think it is better or not but the quality of the data is excellent: -

Calibration has to be done in linear state--this version is way blown out in brightness, obscuring much of the fine (in size and beauty) detail

Rodd

[Jkulin]

Just now, Rodd said:

Calibration has to be done in linear state--this version is way blown out in brightness, obscuring much of the fine (in size and beauty) detail

Yes, I know Rodd, but working with a .jpg was the only option and I only really tried to see if I could up the blue.

[Rodd]

6 minutes ago, Jkulin said:

Yes, I know Rodd, but working with a .jpg was the only option and I only really tried to see if I could up the blue.

My screen just did a weird move...it looks better!--Hm..anyway.still a bit bright but if you notch down the histogram (or use curves) it just might have worked.

Rodd

[Jkulin]

8 minutes ago, Rodd said:

My screen just did a weird move...it looks better!--Hm..anyway.still a bit bright but if you notch down the histogram (or use curves) it just might have worked.

Rodd

What about this: -

[Rodd]

44 minutes ago, Jkulin said:

What about this: -

Now your talkin!  Good.   Right at about this point the further reduction of the core brightness becomes a very, very tricky affair.  There is no doubt an area of overexposure in there--the question is how extensive it actually is.  Performing a less aggressive stretch on the same data and using that for the core won't help...overexposure is overexposure.   But it might help pinpoint the precise region.   Only way to truly do it is collect shorter subs to use core.  But I think kit looks great

Rodd

Edited September 27, 2019 by Rodd

[kirkster501]

I can share the XISF LRGBHa files if someone wants a go?

[Jkulin]

16 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

I can share the XISF LRGBHa files if someone wants a go?

I'd love to Steve, but the little tweaks I did were only to test myself and only took about 3 minutes, your data is so good that it deserves hours to do it justice.

[RobertI]

Cracking images, love the Ha regions