M51 Reprocessed

[Clarkey]

About a month ago I managed 3 nights on M51 - albeit over a full moon. Although I got a reasonable result, I always felt there should be more given the 17 hours of data.

Anyway I have now had a go at re-processing an I think the result is much better. The JPEG is a bit poor resolution but overall the picture is much more 'absorbing'

As always critical comment welcome.

 

[oldfruit]

Nothing to add except wow! What a lovely detailed mage. The detail in the spiral arms is excellent with all the knots and dark lanes. This really is a superb image.

[tooth_dr]

This is a huge improvement over attempt #1, looks fantastic with all the detail.

14 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

As always critical comment welcome.

I opened the image up in PS, and the background value is about 3 or 4.  Although M51 stands out, the background is just a little too dark for me, and I personally aim for 23-30 depending on the target.

[Clarkey]

26 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

background is just a little too dark for me

Yes I am inclined to agree. Due to some poor flats during the first two sessions, under-stretching the background gave me a 'cleaner' image, but the black point is probably a bit too close for comfort. I don't use PS so the numbers you have quoted don't mean much to me!

35 minutes ago, oldfruit said:

Nothing to add except wow! What a lovely detailed mage. The detail in the spiral arms is excellent with all the knots and dark lanes. This really is a superb image

Thanks for your kind reply.

[tooth_dr]

9 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

I don't use PS so the numbers you have quoted don't mean much to me!

It's not specific to photoshop, it's a measurement of the pixels, where pure black is 0 and pure white is 255.  If you go too low, then background value is close to 0 aka black.  I find the values are useful to refer to because it gives me an actual value to aim for, takes out any guess work, and means the image 'should' look ok on a range of monitors.  I dont know what software you are using, but there should be a mechanism in it to check areas of the image for this value.

[mackiedlm]

Thats a lovely image, really nice colours and detail. Agree that the background is a bit dark but still a great image.