Sculptor Galac=xy NGC253

[ollypenrice]

Last night I added about 90 mins luminance to the LRGB I already had. (35 mins per colour, binned, and 20 mins lum.) Unfortunately it was as low as a builder's belt so guiding was at 4 times the error I got on M82 when I'd finished and there was some noise. However, I don't have light pollution to worry about, just a lot of atmosphere to peer through. Maybe next year I'll get some Ha but it has had it for this year. The softness at lower left seems to be real, based an a look around the net. Or I think it is. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one. Just a nice scale for my setup (Meade 127, Atik 16HR.)

Olly.

[Stephen Green]

Great image Olly I like the detail

Stephen

[RichieJarvis]

Lovely image - not so sure about you flaunting you clear skies to all us poor UK bound imagers though

It really is a cracking capture though - nice one!

[661-pete]

Ah my old fave 253 re-done! Excellent result, you've got so much more detail than your earlier RGB offering late last year...and even that was a cracker!

For my money I'd just suggest having a shot at reducing the size of the brightest stars, if you can - just a little tweak for perfection's sake. Noel's tools maybe?

Even at your latitude I'm surprised one can reach Sculptor this late in the season. Ahh the long winter nights!

[steppenwolf]

Lovely image, Olly - great detail and colour.

[Psychobilly]

Cracker Olly...

Billy...

[ollypenrice]

Here is a version with reduced stars. I do worry about creating things in PS rather than photographing them but I think this does look better so thanks for the nudge. I used minimum filter then put an unfeathered marquee just inside the stars and smudged in towards this. No idea how others do it.

Cheers,

Olly.

[Psychobilly]

I use a free plugin for photoshop.... allows for various different levels of star reduction....

Can be downloaded from here...

http://www.budguinn.com/gallery2/v/downloads/SmallerStars.zip.html

Puts the result in a new layer so you can swap back and fore between the before and afters and then merge down if your happy with the results...

Billy...

[MikeD]

Great result, lovely colour to the dust

Mike.

[markcol]

Wonderful shot Olly.

Mark

[Dave]

Totally inspiring.