Bodes Galaxy (M81) LHaRGB - Feb/Mar 2020

[geoflewis]

After completing M82 in January I decided to get the other one of this lovely pair of galaxies at the start of February. Due to a combination of poor weather and a minor operation in mid Feb I wasn't able to get back to it until last week, then gabbing the last of the data with a fairly bright Moon around last night. The image was captured with my QSI583wsg-5 / C14 plus x0.67 Optec telecompressor lens and Astronomic HaLRGB filters.

Capture details are L=18x10m, Ha=16x15m, RGB (each) 18x5m for a total of 11.5 hours.

I'm not completely satisfied with the processing, so may have another try, but in the meantime thanks for looking. Any and all comments and feedback is welcome.

[tooth_dr]

It’s looks great Geoff.  The image scale is impressive. 

[geoflewis]

14 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

It’s looks great Geoff.  The image scale is impressive. 

Thanks, I had to crop it a bit due to vignetting, particularly in the bottom right corner, so I cropped all the edges about 40 pixels to preserve the overall look.

[simmo39]

Nice one Geof. Looks great as is to me.

[geoflewis]

28 minutes ago, simmo39 said:

Nice one Geof. Looks great as is to me.

Many thanks, I’m glad you like it and actually the more I’ve looked at it today the less inclined I am to mess around with it.

Cheers

[Rodd]

Looks good.  There are copious amounts of  details in there--seems a big foggy in spots.  The farther I get from the screen the sharper it looks.  maybe this is teh result of the crop?

Rodd

[MarkAR]

Very nice, does look a bit foggy. Seems better backing off a tad and looking at a slight angle that makes it look a little darker.

[geoflewis]

2 hours ago, Rodd said:

Looks good.  There are copious amounts of  details in there--seems a big foggy in spots.  The farther I get from the screen the sharper it looks.  maybe this is teh result of the crop?

Rodd

Thanks Rodd,

Maybe it is the crop, but more likely my processing skills, or lack of them. Even though I've been imaging for a few years now I still feel like a compete novice most of the time. I never sure how far to go with the various processing steps, especially sharpening, so I tend to leave many of my images soft looking.  I often wonder what someone who knows what they are doing could do with my data..... 🤔

[geoflewis]

2 hours ago, MarkAR said:

Very nice, does look a bit foggy. Seems better backing off a tad and looking at a slight angle that makes it look a little darker.

Thanks Mark, I know what you mean. Please see my reply to Rodd above. I'm not sure what to change in my processing to fix it.....

[Rodd]

6 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Rodd,

Maybe it is the crop, but more likely my processing skills, or lack of them. Even though I've been imaging for a few years now I still feel like a compete novice most of the time. I never sure how far to go with the various processing steps, especially sharpening, so I tend to leave many of my images soft looking.  I often wonder what someone who knows what they are doing could do with my data..... 🤔

This sounds like an echo....I think I said the very same thing yesterday!  I suppose the learning part is supposed to be the fun part.  But sometimes it is nerve wracking!

Rodd

[geoflewis]

10 minutes ago, Rodd said:

This sounds like an echo....I think I said the very same thing yesterday!  I suppose the learning part is supposed to be the fun part.  But sometimes it is nerve wracking!

Rodd

It is and it isn't..... Other than a few minutes here and there I've never had anyone show my how to process my data, so I'm mostly self taught by watching on line videos and lots of trial an error - probably the same for most of us I expect. When I see something not right, I'm mostly not sure what step or steps in my processing caused the issue, or whether it was just poor data....?🥴

[geoflewis]

If anyone wants to play with my data and show me your versions here are the stacked, Registar aligned, but otherwise unprocessed tiffs for each channel.M81_G_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif M81_B_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif M81_L_CombineFilesSigMed_cp.tif M81_Ha_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif

M81_R_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif

I'd love to see what expert hands can achieve, it would be very informative and instructive to me.

Edited March 5, 2020 by geoflewis

[johnrt]

1 hour ago, geoflewis said:

If anyone wants to play with my data and show me your versions here are the stacked, Registar aligned, but otherwise unprocessed tiffs for each channel.M81_G_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif M81_B_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif M81_L_CombineFilesSigMed_cp.tif M81_Ha_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif

M81_R_CombineFilesSigMed_reg_cp.tif 3.92 MB · 1 download

I'd love to see what expert hands can achieve, it would be very informative and instructive to me.

It’s been such a long time since I had a go but I may well take you up on this tomorrow. Great image by the way. 

[geoflewis]

7 minutes ago, johnrt said:

It’s been such a long time since I had a go but I may well take you up on this tomorrow. Great image by the way. 

Thanks John and please do have a go. I’d love to see your version.